Couch 236: NY PS Langston Hughes

I don't know. Maybe because those experiences are to be met with tears.

Hugs to you, Lost.

Omg this is the true life of the joke, only driven by a little old lady to church on sundays! Usually i would see 26000 at the end of the first year! Anyway, congratulations. I drove 3 cars to over 100,000 miles each. Im very macho about it! Its better than riding a bike, you dont fall over as much!

My dad's dog is gone. I know she wasn't mine, but watching it happen is heart-wrenching.

I'm sorry, Scarlet.

Hugs if wanted, atat.

Hugs if wanted. I'm so sorry

So Sorry Scarlet, hugs if wanted.

Today, near the end of session, Dr. T said he could tell me a story, related to something I was talking about with D, but added, "I might get emotional." Me: "That's OK." He proceeded to share the story, with his voice cracking a few times and his eyes just looking sad (maybe a tear or two). Dr. T: "I'm sorry" (regarding the emotion). Me: "It's OK, I'm emotional in here all the time." Dr. T: "But I'm not."

I appreciated that he was willing to show emotion in order to share something that he thought might help. And it did help me understand something better.

It was a pretty intense session, between that whole discussion about my D and some stuff we discussed earlier about the therapeutic relationship, including whether things could ever fully get back to pre-pandemic times (parting handshakes and sitting in my old spot on the couch somewhat closer to his chair vs. sitting in the other chair at the end of the office that's ~6 feet from him).

I paid them to keep their emotion out of it. I don't know how, for me (I don't understand it in any realm really for anyone but if you like it okay with me), how a therapist being emotional would help anything. But I never found their talking at all useful either so there is that. I do better with bullet points than therapist emotion. They can get emotional on their own dime, not mine.

For the most part, I do prefer he keep his emotion out of it. If he started crying every time I cried, well, I don't think that would be very helpful. And I imagine for me, it would lead me to suppressing my emotion, which would be like my childhood, so not helpful.

In this case, it was more that he was willing to share something even knowing he'd get emotional rather than just choosing not to share it. It was about the specific story he shared (which directly related to something with me and my daughter), not the emotion. In fact, it might have been better without the emotional part, because then I wouldn't have felt like I should say "it's OK you were emotional."

ETA: The story gave me some needed perspective on something; the emotion did not.

I don't know which would have pissed me off more -the therapist telling me a story or them getting emotional while telling me a story. But if it helped you -then good

Mom’s funeral was today.

I always knew I would be devastated when she died, but it’s so much worse than I ever imagined.

It is. Mothers are primal and western practices around grieving makes it harder I think. Grief is hard and uneven and so lonely even with people who know and love you around. It is also not linear.
There are days when I still am and my mother has been gone for 20+ years.
I am thinking of you during this time.

I'm so sorry.... Hugs if wanted. I hope you were able to find some sort of comfort from her funeral, seeing the other people who loved/cared about her.

I'm so sorry, @@. Even when you try to imagine what something will feel like, actually feeling it can be quite different. I hope you have some support right now. Other than support from here, because I do think you have everyone's support here as well.

You're in my thoughts as well, @@. It is one of the hardest things you'll go through.

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Posted long session writeup in In Session Today. Maybe I should start doing that again more regularly--I think it helps me process them..

Father Brown, season 9 ep 2, The Island of Dreams - had a short bit in the first 15 minutes where OUR Sand Dancers appeared.

And at 35 minutes. Now i have to research if they credited them at all.

I have been watching the Sister ? mysteries on acorn (I think it is acorn or britbox) -sort of a spin off of Father Brown. I like it

For those of you with Britbox and/or like British stuff, I can recommend Broadchurch, A Confession, The Widower, and Cracker. I had Covid recently and spent two weeks in bed feeling very ill (mild cold symptoms was not my experience of Covid!) and binge watching these series. It goes without saying that Olivia Coleman is obviously marvellous, but Siobhan Finneran is one of my favourite actors. She is also in Apostasy and Happy Valley which I highly recommend x 100.

Happy Valley comes with big trigger warnings in case you need to be careful.

Hope you're feeling better now, Comrade!

Thank you! I have been negative for 2.5 weeks now, but am only just feeling like my usual self. It was pretty grim. I have never experienced fatigue like it. I am vaccinated so was expecting a mild illness. I infected two other people who were also very unwell but with different symptoms. I wonder if we had a different strain than the dominant mild symptoms Omicron. Anyway, 0/10: highly unrecommended x 100.

Ugh, that sounds miserable. I do wonder if it could have been a different strain then? I know here in the US, there are a few sub-sub-variants of Omicron, but they've said they don't think they cause more severe illness. I imagine some of the older variants like Delta (which caused more severe illness) are still circulating, too.

Numbers are considerably up in my area lately, so getting anxious. I feel like we can't avoid it forever, though I do wonder if I already had Omicron at some point and just got a false negative on the home tests (had some potential symptoms a few months ago, but negative). I read an article saying how you often have to test at exactly the right time on those to get a positive.