Couch 235: Home State Advantage

As far as I know, stress can lead to breakthrough bleeding/spotting whether you're taking contraception or not. I'd probably wait for a few days and see, if it continues for longer or starts to happen regularly I'd see somebody.

Edit: glad to hear you've managed to mostly move!

Glad to hear you're still out there, ATAT!

H & I are getting ready to go hiking at one of our local parks. There's a cave there too but we've done the tour through that before, so today we're just gonna do a couple of the shorter trails in the mountains, I wanna be outside in the sunshine anyway! Love me some nature therapy. Pics to come later.

Hugs and head nods all around as appropriate/needed/wanted.


Also @@ glad to hear that you're still out there!! And, QM I'm glad you were able to get moved. Sorry you're having the other stuff happening though. I would imagine it is from the stress both physical and mental.

Back home from our little hike. H wanted to be back home to watch golf at noon our time so we did only 2 short 1-mile each trails. Enough to know I'm going back on my own SOON to hike a longer one there! It's so very beautiful, I love the desert so much.
These trails are only like 10 minutes from my house.

I'm also glad you're safe @@.

Do you have any local walking groups you could join? Think you would really benefit from having a small group to go with too.

Ooh that's a great idea, thank you! I'll bet there are.

Thanks for the reassurance.

At first my sister said she could only take 4 large boxes (I labelled and measured the boxes and wrote their height, width, length etc) to their home for temporary storage.

I had several other smaller ones plus 3 bags I use daily for different stuff...so I was scrambling to see who else I know has access to a car (typically a shared family car, as cars are a luxury here) and all of them couldn't.

Thankfully my sister and her H could fit virtually everything in, other than the stuff I'll use daily for just over 1 week till moving.

I'll monitor! Should I track pain intensity? Eg what painkillers I needed and at what frequency?

I know I have a Google Doc tracker for my breakthrough bleeding because I'm being trialed on a progesterone only pill.

I hate the pain because it can happen during spotting or even when there's none. Mefenamic acid doesn't help much, only etoricoxib. Ultrasound was fine...so I don't know what to do.

My endocrinologist said I shouldn't have been on Yazmin -- combination pill with anti-androgens which cleared up my TERRIBLE cystic acne since adolescence till around mid twenties -- for more than a couple of years.

Ooh, lovely photos, Artie.

I took up "rucking" casually since I'm always carrying a heavy backpack.

I will be so glad to be done with my soon to be ex landlady... My sister has never visited so when she came up to help me move, she actually commented privately how filthy the living room is. I told her that's the cleanest it's ever been in close to 2 years, and she hasn't seen the kitchen. All of which are the cleanest and most organised it's ever been after my landlady's last few verbal attacks on me. Due to new tenants coming in once I move.

My room is WAY more tidy and clean even when I've severe depression and haven't mopped for months (I sweep the floor) and one of my landlady's cats spends most of the day in my room.

So her excuse of the cats is BS, particularly as she lies to people AND verbally abused me that I'm untidy, dirty, useless at domestic chores. That I have never helped her (wtf) plus take her for granted.

Lets them believe the filthy kitchen is my doing, filthy dishcloths, stinky storage areas caked in grime etc. Filthy broom and mop.

And she kept stealing my canned and instant food, then saying I'm wasting food by not eating them.

Various handy kitchen stuff simply got taken and used like they're hers. I've even bought replacement household items, shared large amounts of groceries and food rations although she'll claim she's helped me sooo much with groceries and I've done little to help her and my words of appreciation are useless.

She blew up twice at me when I refuted her attempts to literally exhort money from me, saying I'll never find a landlord better than her.

I had to speak to a social worker because I couldn't even turn on the kettle to boil water to eat instant food, and endured pervasive gaslighting, and intentional isolation from my friends, plus prolonged belittling and mocking, an ongoing smear campaign.

With threats to evict me into the street then more outbursts that she isn't selfish to do so. I never disagreed? I see it as her feeling threatened.

The latest thing is her taking credit for me learning household chores which is...really wtf...because just watch her sweep and mop with filthy equipment that she never cleans. If I'm useless at domestic chores after 2 years, but do a far better job cleaning, how about her with easily 25 years of experience cleaning?

I'm fine with mess and clutter, it's the hypocrisy, projection, smear campaign, pervasive double binds, gaslighting, belittling of me, isolation of me that has been damaging to me.

I've made constant excuses for her too despite how she has treated me, and it's been hard to stop. Definitely going to be a therapy topic.

Good to see you here, @@.

I made this little cutie last night, just playing around. I'm going to try to write the pattern out so I can make more.

QM, I did not find progesterone only pills to be effective for continuous use. One of them my body would decide it was going to have a period every few months. The other one it was every month. I didn't consider it breakthrough bleeding because when it happened, it wouldn't stop until I didn't take the pill for a few days and had a regular period. Otherwise, it was like having a very light period that lasted forever. So I think it was actually a period and the progesterone only dragged it out.

That's just my own experience though. I find naproxen sodium (aleve) to be the most effective for pain relief.

Has anyone ever emailed their T about a situation that later turned out to be not as serious as first thought? How did you handle it?

I have. Trying to recall which specific situation it was, but I know it happened at some point with Dr. T.... But I sent him a follow-up email saying I was OK, that we could just talk in session (this was before he replied). I think he replied with something like, "OK! Talk to you then."

I have asked him before if he'd prefer I let him know if I no longer feel like I need an answer. Or might it be a case where he'd read the email already and had given it some thought, so he'd be annoyed if I replied and said, "No need to respond"? He said it's generally better if I let him know, as even if he'd given it some thought, it would still save the time of typing up a reply.


There was also a case where I'd texted ex-MC about being really anxious about waiting for medical test results. I didn't hear from him for a day or two, and in the meantime, I called and got the results. I didn't end up updating him, then he called to check on me, and I was like, "Actually, I got the results, and I'm fine, but thanks for calling." He was fine with that.

Thanks, LT.


I will probably need to talk about the situation in session, but I don't feel comfortable sending a 'False alarm, but still scary' kind of message.


R is thankfully well aware of the impact family member health crises have on me, so I think she would rather we talked about it than let me stew.


I will see how she responds, and update in session.

Hey couch. I was wondering if I could get some opinions on stuff going on with my husband, if that’s okay? It’s SUPER long so if you don’t read it, no worries. Something to keep in mind is that during a manic episode last may, I did post nudes online and had a one night stand with a stranger. It’s obviously something I deeply regret and am very ashamed of and hate myself for.

Trigger warning for talk of suicide.

For years my h has had anger issues. For the first several years of our marriage, it was yelling and calling me names, getting very angry for minor things like if the restaurant got his order wrong and I brought it to him that way. Things got a little better for some time after I told him I wanted to separate, but they’re bad again now.

When we argue (or just disagree a lot) he says he wants to kill himself after. There have been 2 times I had to pull a cord off of his neck as he’d wrapped it around himself in front of me. He’s told me it would be my fault if he did it and that I killed him. A few months ago, he drove us around in circles for hours saying “if you say this I’ll do it,” or when I tried to say the opposite, that he would do it then. I stepped out of the car to run across the parking lot to a cop car, but he said if I closed the door he’d kill himself right then. So I got back in the car.

When I’ve mentioned maybe getting him some help or calling 911 in these situations, he says I’m betraying him and says he’ll do it in front of me if I do that. I can’t count how many times he says things like “I think this is it for me, I just want to die. I don’t have any more days left in me,” and then immediately walks out the door and gets in the car, and then I have to chase after him and get in the car so he’s not alone.

Whenever I mention that I want us to do couples counseling, he gets extremely angry and also threatens suicide. It also happens on occasions when I don’t do something he wants or want to do something he doesn’t like. For example last week I wanted to hangout with a male friend who I’ve known for many years. My h didn’t want me to go because I would be alone with him at a coffee shop, so he started making suicidal statements. I invited my h to come with but he refused and said my friend could go to hell, so I didn’t end up going because I didn’t want to leave my suicidal h alone.

A few days ago I got home from 10 hrs at work. My h was yelling at me because I didn’t answer his 5 phone calls from 3 min earlier, even though I’d texted him that I was on the phone, so to text me. He gets very upset when I miss his calls and don’t call back soon enough. Then he said we need to shovel. I asked if he could, as he doesn’t have a job right now and I had a lot of cleaning to do, and he got really angry and it escalated and he was saying he just wouldn’t shovel at all and he wanted to die. So I hired a guy to come shovel and when the guy was like 2 min away, my h got mad at me for hiring him and said he wanted to shovel himself. And then the suicidal stuff continued until basically I hugged him and he vented to me about how he feels like no one is there for him even though he does so much for other people. He also goes through my phone sometimes, but idk how much because he doesn’t tell me before he does it. Sometimes when he’s mad he punches things like the floor/wall but I don’t think he means to. He says he wants to have control.

I feel like I’m tiptoeing around because I can’t bring up serious concerns about our relationship, ask for therapy, or go against what he wants without worrying that he’ll get mad and suicidal. He only brings it up in those situations, so otherwise things are ok. He says that it’s my issue so I should just go to therapy and fix it, and he doesn’t need to, however I’m already in therapy. He told me I need to put more pressure on myself and just “be better,” but when I ask what he means he doesn’t know, so I don’t really know either. He said he already fixed his anger so it’s just my issue now.

Idk what to do because he has a lot of unresolved trauma from childhood that I know is impacting these things (he talks about it when he’s mad, like saying “everyone leaves me”). He also tells me he feels lonely, sad, anxious, etc all the time, so there’s definitely some mental health stuff going on. I don’t know how we can continue like this. It’s also hard because he doesn’t want me to tell anyone about it when we argue, not even my therapist, so I feel like I’m betraying him if I turn to anyone for help. Sometimes things are fine though—like usually he’ll be really mad at me one night and then act like nothing happened the next morning. Advice or thoughts are appreciated, thank you so much if you got this far.

eta: please be straight up with me. Like if he’s being reasonable considering what happened, I wanna know. Honest opinions are best, thanks!

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Take a look at the Power & Control wheel and see if any of that stands out for you.

How the Power & Control Wheel Helps Us Understand Domestic Violence

At the very least, he needs to see a metal health professional.

Frequently threatening suicide like that is a form of emotional abuse. He's trying to control your actions with the threats.

Can you insist that he get mental help, whether by himself and/or with you in couples counseling? Or ideally both?

Have you talked to your therapist about what to do? I know you said he doesn't want you to, but what you tell your therapist is your business. And confidential (I know there are loopholes for threat to self or others, but I think that would only apply to his actual client, as in if he thought you were a threat to yourself or others). I would try talking to them. And, if you can do so safely (maybe use someone else's phone? Or private browsing?), check in with a domestic violence hotline to get guidance on how to handle it. For example, if he threatens suicide, what should you do? Should you call 911?

I'm very sorry you're in this situation. From what you said, it sounds like it's been going on your whole marriage, so isn't about what happened in May. And you certainly don't deserve it. Honestly, leaving sounds like the best option if he won't get help of some sort.

Thanks, that was interesting to look at. I feel like he does a few things from a couple of the categories, but nothing too extreme.

I totally agree he needs to see a mental health professional. I just don’t know what to do because he adamantly refuses. At this point I’m too scared to even bring it up again because I’m afraid he might hurt himself if I do.


It feels strange to call it emotional abuse, but I do think that’s what I would tell someone else in my situation. At this point, I think the only way to possible get him into therapy is to give an ultimatum (therapy or we need time apart). Im not sure if he’s mentally stable enough for me to do that though. My therapist back when I was in IOP kept telling me to call 911 if he threatened it again, but each time I got too scared and backed out.

I plan to tell my therapist about it tomorrow, hopefully she’ll help me gain some insight.

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Summertime, what he is doing really is extreme. I know it might not seem that way to you, because you've been living with it for so long, but it absolutely is. It's harmful to you and causing you a lot of distress. It's causing you to be isolated from friends.

I believe the best thing you can do right now is to talk to your therapist about it at your next session. If it makes you feel safer, ask your therapist ahead of time to clarify under what circumstances they can break confidentiality.

In my state (Virginia), they can only break confidentiality if they have a reasonable reason to believe a child or vulnerable adult (an elderly person or someone with intellectual disabilities, for instance) is being abused OR if the client has made a threat against themselves or specific other people or persons. You would be completely safe talking about your husband's behavior and how it affects you. However, things can vary based on where you live, so the best thing is to ask your therapist about this directly before sharing, if this concerns you. Then, you can feel completely safe in taking to them about it.

I can tell you feel a lot of empathy for your husband and the difficulties he has gone through in his life. You can support him if and when he decides to seek help. But you can't ever force another person to seek help, not really. Unless they are willing to engage in the process, accept help, and acknowledge that they need help, there's very little you can do to help them.

You can, however, take care of yourself by setting boundaries around what behavior you will or will not accept from your husband. Your therapist is the best person to help you with this. I really hope you can move forward on a positive direction. You deserve better.

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He's abusing you. His unresolved trauma isn't an excuse.

My perpetrator brother did similar.

Couch,

The person I live with went full on clinically delusional (she stopped her anti psychotic, and has a professional diagnosis etc) and convinced the hotline at my hospital with a bunch of lies to tell her to call the cops on me. All of this was unprovoked. I'm not the first person either, in hindsight. What triggered this was my friend setting a boundary because she's been flooding my friend with texts and missed calls. My friend had previously picked up her call and was treated to over an hour of raging rants about me.

I have evidence that Person cherry picks text messages to paint me as potentially violent when the entire chat log is actually her belittling me non-stop, then and making threats to evict me because I don't give in to exhorton on the power bill...and me trying to pacify her by saying I agree with her that I can't imagine the stress she's experiencing.

I've other evidence and corroboration of her outright lying in order to isolate me from my friends. Evidence that I'm not doing anything and she comes up to me to belittle me.

I couldn't reach my social worker, so I called the same hotline (she's not a patient but I am and Isaid they can check my patient record) and got them to inform my social worker and my psychiatrist that I'll pack the last of my belongings with someone with me, and leave to a cheap hotel.

My psychiatrist and therapist was aware of the previous ongoing verbal and psychological abuse, etc.


Yeah, geez.

Ugh, I'm so sorry you're dealing with this QM. I'm glad you're getting out of there. Be safe.

@@ glad you are mostly okay.

QM, I was in a somewhat similar situation once. May I suggest that you block her communication with you and people close to you as soon as possible (once all the stuff with the old living situation is resolved, she doesn't have a reason to contact you) and that you inform important places that she is not to be trusted? Some people lose their **** sometimes any you have to protect yourself against that.

Edit: also regarding recording pain and such: I think it's always good to record your personal symptoms, no matter what they are. If you manage to make a scale, even better. But what some people define as the worst pain ever is what others experience as a bit of a pinching, so it's not the only symptom to look out for. Pain is never good though,

Honestly regardless of the cheating, I would encourage you to think about leaving him and getting support in order to do so. You deserve so much better then to be treated like this. Yelling and calling you names is never okay. There's no excuse for abuse despite poor mental health.

Do you have anything similar to Women's Aid in the US you could go to get advice? Leaving relationships can be dangerous for many women. UK specific but generally the advice is universal.

Making a safety plan - Womens Aid