Couch 241: Twin primes!

I screenshotted the pics of my dad and sent them to my mom. He was such a cute kid. I'm sure she's seen these before, but I hope I didn't upset her by sending them out of the blue.

I'm struggling tonight with my thoughts. Today, L and I talked about the hardest topic for me. We barely touch the topic, and I'm super triggered and my SI and SH thoughts are intensified.

Hugs, Scarlet. I hope you were able to get some sleep. Could you talk to her a bit today maybe?

Aw, that sounds sweet. I think your sending the photos to your mom should be OK--I imagine she'll appreciate them.

And yeah, I'd suggest not telling your T! Just knowing yours is sort of like mine.

Now I need to resist the urge to try to find mine on Ancestry. He did include a pic of him when he was fairly young, like 18? 20? in of of his articles. He was also shirtless in it, so that was....a thing to see. I did not mention it, even though it was a public article on a place where I've mentioned reading things before (I think I've mentioned it?). It's listed in his CV, so I figure it's fair game!

I want to say I’m sick and cancel my one class today. Everything else is zoom meetings this afternoon.

I’m not actually sick; I just can’t bear the thought of going into that workplace.

I haven’t canceled a class due to my own illness in years. I had to cancel a few when my mother was ill, but otherwise it’s rare for me.

You sound like me, I would have to be pretty much dying before I dont go into work

I guess there's no option to convert the class today to virtual? And it is OK to cancel on occasion. Could you just say a personal conflict came up and you won't be able to make it? (You don't have to tell them the personal conflict is that you can't deal with the thought of going there!) Though probably too late for today.

That second session with K was fine. Aggressively fine. Not bad, not good, just fine. We focused on stuff about my D, like her behavior issues at school. I didn't get emotional at all. I stayed fairly detached, I think as protection. It's really telling when last time she gave me an hour (after saying she was fine with 45, 50, or 60 minutes), and this time I was like, at minute 47, "I'm good at stopping at 50 minutes today." She was like, "Oh. OK." She shared a couple potentially helpful things regarding D. But it was just meh.

Hoping R will be around next time Dr. T goes out of town!

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

I'm sorry you had to go in there with your guard up, LT.
Given the difficulty in the first session, I'm hardly surprised.

I hope R will be able to support you the next time Dr. T goes out of town.

Thankfully I am not on phones today at work, only have to do 3 days of phones this week praise be (monday, yesterday, and tomorrow). Yesterday was a rough 10 hours, although I only cried once which in past years it has been more than that. This woman yesterday just did not let up yelling at me for like 35 minutes no matter what I said or tried to say. Yes, I had wine for dinner after I finally logged off. ha. So done with this month.

On lunch now, then 4 more hours of work today.... they removed one hour of OT today, and since I already worked one hour this morning from 5a-6a, I get off at 3 like normal instead of at 4. Hooray!

I'm sorry that session didn't go better, and I hope you're able to see R instead next time Dr T is out of town. Or that his future trips don't interfere with your sessions in the first place.

Thanks, Lost! I think it's OK I had my guard up. I was tempted to just cancel entirely or just meet virtually, but I feel better in a way that I still went in to face my fears. I only reacted slightly to the building this time.

Hi Couch,

I'd like to share something awesome that I'm still basking in - it happened last night.
I'm doing an online course called Poetry As a Spiritual Practice, with an amazing tutor called Chris La Tray.

This week's theme was impermanence, and Chris invited us to bring any poems dealing with that.

I had one of mine memorised, but dealing with my arm over the last few days meant that I had to have the text to hand for reassurance.

The piece was extremely well received, and Chris said I'd read it well.

Then he said 'I'm about ready to be done, if you guys are.'

I didn't realise that my work could have such an impact on people.

One person asked to hear a specific bit again...but the time I almost prompted a facilitator to call time on their workshop will live with me for a long time.

Thanks, Artie! When he told me about this trip, he said he didn't think there would be anything else till the summer. So I'm hoping that's the case. Or at least that if there is something, it would be more of a long weekend sort of thing, rather than 10 days (with spanning over two weekends).

I want to be able to manage better when he's away, and I did fairly well when he was gone in the summer (I think?) I do feel part of this is that we were on what seemed like the tail end of working through a rupture just before this. Like things were starting to feel OK again, more connected, and then he went on vacation. So I'm hoping that didn't disrupt all that.

In a way, it almost would have been easier had the trip been in the early part of the rupture, when I was upset with him. Though I'd have struggled for other reasons then, I guess.

That's awesome, Lost!

Wow, that's awesome, Lost!

sorry guys. I know I'm poisoning my own soul with all of this, no need for me to poison the couch with it. Please accept my humble apologies to anyone who saw my rant. I'll go hide in a cave now or something.

I wish.

Wonderful, Lost! What a great experience!

You don't need to apologize for talking about your feelings on here, Artie.

My session got cancelled today because P is feeling sick. He was out of town so we had a larger gap between sessions than normal. It feels like a lot happened in that gap. We met yesterday, so it feels like I should be okay, but I'm really feeling down about not meeting today. I've been struggling more with depression lately and it feels like it doesn't take much to knock me completely down. I'm feeling very intensely today that I have no one to confide in besides him. Loneliness and hopelessness are a really bad combo for me.

HUGS if wanted NP_Complete. I hear you.

Also giving you hugs if wanted, NP. I know it can be really difficult when a session gets canceled, especially when he'd been away. Post here more if you think it might help.

Artie, feel free to rant away.

@ArtieTheSequal, I don't know how you manage all the OT hours you do, and putting up with verbally abusive calls as well... You definitely deserve to have a rant sometimes!
I hope the rest of the month goes quickly for you.

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