Couch 233: Nothing’s Ghana Stop Us Now

I just discovered that someone made a “Tragic Fate ball,” inspired by the Magic 8 Ball.

'Tragic Fate Ball' Predicts Your Demise - Opera News

I’m pretty sure I’ll be shot by the Dalai Lama.

Just got back from my birthday outing with my kids. I'm glad it's over tbh. Dinner was delicious and we went for frozen yogurt afterwards, then walked it off Christmas shopping.

Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend.

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Happy Birthday, Stressed! Sounds like a nice evening.

Imreally wish menulog and uner eats didnt have a tracking map i am yelling why are you going the long way at the screen constantly

Now they are going in completely the weomg direction sheesh

I'm still in danger of inpatient due to self neglect. But I'm better. I have not realised that not eating due to extreme stress of struggling to make ends meet = bad. And yes, I'm ineligible for a ton of charity org/food bank and government help but that's a depressingly long and common story. Even when yes I go hungry. And just how actually unwell I am.

Even though it sounds so unbelievable. No point explaining. I have to do hours of that just to get some help. Including when I beg one of my former perpetrators (my sister).

Doing some assignments I got for therapy on flashbacks. Realized something and couldn't find something about it anywhere, so thought I'd ask around here:
When I have flashbacks, they often manage to trigger more flashbacks. I see or feel something which triggers a different flashback than the current one, often this happens a few times in a row, kind of like jumping from one flashback to the next. Anyone have any similar experiences? Just wondering, google doesn't want to tell me whether this is a thing.

Happy birthday Stressed, sounds like it was a pretty full evening, glad dinner was delicious.

Hugs if wanted, QM. I hope you are able to find some help.

Hi, I don't know if it has an official name, but yes it's definitely a thing. I call it sequential flashbacks.

I think that if you're feeling it, it's a thing. It sounds quite distressing and I'm so sorry you're dealing with that. While I have never experienced this, the longer I am thinking about it, the more it makes sense to me that something like that could happen. Hugs if wanted.

That is exactly how EMDR works for me. Sometimes I just start spirally and my brain goes into a tail spin of one flashback to another in rapid succession. When this happens my T always asks me to try to make my head spin in the opposite direction. This usually helps stop the spinning at least.

Morning couch! I woke up at like 4am with lots of thoughts that I had to get up and write down. After I got them into my notebook, I took a shower and had even more thoughts/realizations, I washed my hair in record time haha so I could get out and back to my notebook to write them down before I forgot them. I am now searching online for something like waterproof notebooks that you can take in the shower with you, as I do some of my best thinking there.

Starting this actual termination process with L I think has opened up a part of my brain that I wasn't accessing before or something. I don't know if that makes any sense at all, or maybe it's just that I feel like I was thinking about stuff in a whole new way this morning. I'm grateful that she said we should give it a series of sessions and not just one or two so I can process this stuff with her.

eta: i think perhaps i will start my own thread about this 'ending-journey' so as to not fill up the couch with it for the next 6 weeks

Quiet weekend on the couch.....

HI Couch. I have had a headache/jaw pain all day with no relief from and pain meds from jaw clenching all weekend. The nightmares/clenching have been bad the last few days. I also locked myself out of the house tonight. Lost keys and $150 later, I am back inside.

Have had to bring my appointment with T forward this week as it was going to be right before a zoom meeting I've got for my volunteering work. I didn't think I'd be in a good place for that meeting directly after a T session.



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I feel your pain. I don't know how many times I have told myself the exact same thing. My journal is full of rants reminding me to shut my mouth.

Ugh, we have no hot water this morning. H has a call into the plumber, so I hope they can fix it soon...I want a shower! (There's no reset button on the unit like there is with the heater.)

I hope you get your hot water soon, LT!

Morning couch. Hugs/headnods all around as appropriate. I'm on phones today at work (yuck) so I'm gonna drum for about 5 minutes before I log in....

Thanks, Artie--someone is supposed to be coming in 15 minutes. We use a small local company for heating and water stuff--they tend to be really responsive! Helps that they're located about 5 minutes from our house.

Ugh, we need a new water heater. Based on Google, ours is at the end of its life, age-wise, so I trust them. And they can put a new one in today. It's less expensive than I was expecting, so that's something, I guess. I do miss living in an apartment sometimes...

Hope you don't have to live off of boiled water for too long!

I once was in Montenegro on vacation. They sometimes just stopped having running water completely randomly during Summer. We had the genius idea to let the water running for some bottles, assuming the water wouldn't be out for long and the sink could handle a bit of overflowing water. Unfortunately, we forgot about a sponge near the drain and came back to a flooded apartment... we also showered without soap outdoors with a hose to manage to shower before it runs out... was terribly cold, but actually over time you get used to the cold and it's quite good for you, so kind of a win.

Trouble with water sucks overall though...

Thanks! And oh yikes, that sounds like a mess!


Dr. T said their hot water heater died while they were away once, and it leaked everywhere, so they had to replace carpets and drywall, though thankfully other possessions they had down there wasn't on the floor, so survived.

I recall once when I was living with my parents (home from college or something), they had to turn off the water for a few days to replace a water main. So we had all these bottles of water to use to wash our hands (I think we used a nearby relative's house for showers). I accidentally spilled one while washing my hands and started sobbing, like "Oh no, now I've ruined everything!" Never mind that we could have just gone to the store and gotten more... Meanwhile, people dealing with, say, the aftermath of a hurricane (like the recent one in Louisiana) don't have that option.

Phones haven't been too awful today. Busy like normal, but at least the callers have behaved at least like halfway decent human beings. 4 more hours of calls (after I get back from lunch) then 2 hours of OT on my normal job so we don't get too far behind.