Couch 240: The Vanadis Couch

oh my!! i am wide, wide awake at 2am-ish because of the dream I woke up from when I had to pee. I wonder now at the wisdom of saying the other day that I missed my wild dreams of yore!! My dream-maker apparently took that as a challenge tonight!! In the dream:

I'm on a boat, on the ocean. In the choppy waters I see a HUGELY out of proportion sized Homer Simpson (the cartoon character) bobbing up and down in the water, he can't swim and there's also a giant sea serpent that's about to eat him. There's a man on the boat with me who is trying to harpoon the sea serpent. The whole scene is hilariously funny to me as I'm standing in the boat watching.

I did end up buying 4 new tires earlier. We decided that with the price of cars lately, including used ones, it would be better for now to put the least expensive new tires on it and keep it a little longer so that's what I did. Now I have nice pretty tires, plus I bought the tools (two actually, a rather large allen wrench and another thingy that unlocks the lug nuts) needed for these hubcaps/rims or whatever. At least the tools were relatively cheap, $5 for the set of allen wrenches including the big one I need and $6 for the other tool.

I rescheduled C for Friday afternoon - that's gonna be a busy day. But, getting things done feels good, and besides, once Friday is over then it'll just be one more sleep until I leave for a couple days. We're going north a bit, to an area I haven't been before, to do some hiking and in case it rains, there's a couple of museums we can go to as well. Today my supervisor messaged me just to check in and see how I was feeling, which I really appreciated. I had a rather tearful one on one last week with her, where I told her some of what's been going on with me and how I've been feeling and she was really supportive. I'm still feeling like a stressed out emotional mess, but a hopeful one.

ok Artie will stop spamming the couch now

Spam away! You are working through a lot right now.

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I am staying home today and will be napping in 3 hour spurts like I did all night. Time to take more Advil now.

Have a fantastic day couchies!

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Hope you feel better soon, Stressed.

Hope you feel better soon Stressed!

Well I laid back down and did a lot of thinking and kept sitting up to write down all of the thoughts. And I had a talk with L in my head. Then I fell back asleep I guess, because when the alarm went off it jarred me out of another crazy dream:

I'm at an amusement park in line for a haunted house themed roller coaster, people shove ahead of me, I'm like eh whatever, when it's my turn to get on they put me in the very front seat. The cars are cool, you can make them sway from side to side and forward/backward if want, or you can choose not to. So I'm messing around with how to move it around while the rest of the train loads. Sadly I was awakened by my alarm before the roller coaster started. I've always loved them, I'm not sure I could handle them anymore with my fear of heights irl, but it probably would have been fun in a dream!

One of my thoughts this morning was that I think what I want is basically to be able to accept that while life is always gonna have ups and downs and everything in between, I can make the choice to be happy. Not to the point of spiritual bypassing or toxic positivity, but just, to be mindful enough to know that I get to choose my reactions to everything. Something along those lines.

Time to log onto work. Have a good day, couchies!

Also know that sometimes your emotions will still get a rise out of you, that it's impossible to be mindful of *every* reaction to every event. The materials on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy really helped me to decrease my emotional reactivity. (It's back to being a problem, but I've got a lot going on and the depression is worse now.)

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P is out of town so we did video sessions on Sunday and yesterday. A few months after we first started meeting, I told him about the events leading up to a sexual assault when I was a child. I had rehearsed in my head what I was going to say to him about it, but during the actual telling, I got flustered, got very upset, dissociated somewhat. He kept reassuring me that I wasn't screwed up because of the part I played in this situation. Of course I had waited until the last 10 minutes of session to tell him this, so I had to leave in a very unstable place. The session felt very intense for me. We've discussed this incident since then.

It came up again on Sunday. After that session, I was feeling ashamed because I had brought it up yet again, even though in reality the incident was on the milder end of the spectrum. Yesterday, he brought up shame and I mentioned that I had been feeling ashamed that I had talked about this again. For some reason, I decided to talk about that old session and how it had been for me. He admitted he didn't remember the session. I get that it was 6 years ago. I get that I'm just one of an untold number of clients. I don't expect him to remember everything. I've never gotten upset when I've had to remind him of something. But for some reason, him not remembering this session feels disappointing. I guess for me, it was a super intense experience and for him it was just another day at the job and that hurts a little.

Hugs if wanted, NP. I understand how it would feel that way to you, that it was just another day at the job for him. It seems like something good to discuss with him. I wonder if maybe it reminds you of something from you past, whether with your parents or your ex, where something happened that seemed really big and important to you, and they forgot about it later?

Artie - there are drugs that can raise your base level of happiness. Mine went from "why am i even alive, im so unhappy" to "gee i dont want to kill myself anymore!" I think thatz the primary effect of not having had a good enough parent, you question why youre even here.

I'm starting to get all nervous about the dentist after work. I know it's just a cleaning today so it shouldn't be bad. The previous dentist I went to 6+ years ago, the hygienist there was brutal and would leave my mouth hurting worse than when I had actual work done. I guess that's because they don't numb you for that. I'd never had a dental cleaning hurt so much with any other hygienist. They were always non-events except for that one lady, and I had her more than once. I'm convinced that the reason the crown i had then cracked and caused bacteria underneath that led to the tooth being pulled was her fault because she was SO rough. I like this new place I've started going to, but it remains to be seen how they handle cleanings. We're supposed to go to a haunted house tonight, I hope I'm up for it.

I hope it goes well, Artie

Gotta love the Wordle bot. Spoiler for today's puzzle. Uh, I think that means there was actually more than one possible solution left. Yeah, it was a dumb guess, but it is an actual word and I couldn't think of anything else at the moment.

I don't know what to do with myself. I am so so ashamed because I emailed my T three times since Saturday, and she responded to one of them. I know it is too much, and yet I couldn't help myself. Because I haven't heard from her since my last email, I am terrified to go to session tomorrow night. She is probably going to have A Talk with me about boundaries and maybe never emailing again? Or very little. I think I will melt into the couch with shame. How can I possibly get through this without mortification? I'm not sure I can.

I love etsy! I found a beautiful ring on sale that I want for my 5 year wedding anniversary and 17 year anniversary since meeting my H. H says I can get it after two more paychecks, so I asked the seller if she would hold the sale for me. She said she would! I'm so excited! I almost never get anything.

Hugs, Velcro. I hope she doesn't say anything that you fear. I know you've been worried in the past about outside contact, and it's been OK. So I imagine it will be this time, too. I know it's difficult to tell oneself that though.

Thanks LT. I know I am spiraling, but I can’t stop the spiral. I just have this foreboding feeling that things aren’t ok.

I can relate. It's hard when there's no set boundary, so you constantly worry if/when you will hit their limit. And then if/when you do git their limit, what are the consequences?

Hugs if wanted, Velcro. I hope you can talk it out with your t.

Well, it took the dental hygienist a full hour, but she got my teeth cleaned. She had to do a lot of that descaling thing. I can't believe I went over 6 years between dentist visits. Ugh. Now I have to schedule the crown. Double ugh.