Couch 242: madam i'm adam

thanks for sharing that, scarlet.

Just saw on Facebook that an old Therapist of mine is on a vacation in Panama right now, interesting that after all of these years I still feel a connection to her.

Finally! New pdoc is a keeper. She's actually the pdoc my ex-pdoc was going to refer me to before I moved. By chance, she started working for a group up here. She was so nice and engaged. She doesn't prescribe benzos but she is starting me on a new anxiety med: Effexor. I was on it when I was 18, but don't remember if it worked or not. Well, at least she didn't try to put me on Hydroxizine again. I know that did not work. I'm very happy with her.

I am so sick of students thinking just because they say the word stress or anxiety it means they don't have to do the work. I am seriously thinking of hanging a sign in my office that says "stress is not the problem - the problem is how you are not handling it" - Just because there is stress does not mean it is bad.

Or that one’s stress is someone else’s job to fix.

Yes, it’s midterm season here…

Yep = they are dropping like flies right now - spring break is a couple of weeks away still

Woke up to this today (which I will grudgingly say yes, it is pretty) and also the cold that I've been fighting all week has won, I worked for an hour but then called out sick and went back to bed because my head hurts just too much to have to deal with people today. The only reason I'm even awake enough to take a picture is because H got a job and his phone ringing woke me up. Back to bed with me.

I hope you feel better soon, Artie!

Artie when did you move to michigan?!

I hope you feel better soon, Artie! It's been snowing a lot here too. It's not such a problem for us here in the desert but the mountains near us have been slammed with snow and people can't get food or fuel or get up or down the mountain. It's a disaster!

New T seems to be pretty good. She didn't go too deep into a few things yesterday which I was surprised at but maybe because it was only our third session. Her birds are annoying though. They squawk loudly during our sessions and they scare the crap out of me. I can't see them. But they must be in the room with her. I like her so far. She seems pretty boundaried. Although she says it is okay to text her. But like she pretty much ends the session right on the 45 minute mark. She bills me quickly (like within 10 or 15 minutes) so that's nice too. I hope she will be a good fit for me going forward. I feel hopeful at least.

I hope you feel better soon, Artie!

I hope she'll be a good fit, too, Kit! She does sound promising so far, aside from the birds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SlumberKitty New T seems to be pretty good. She didn't go too deep into a few things yesterday which I was surprised at but maybe because it was only our third session. Her birds are annoying though. They squawk loudly during our sessions and they scare the crap out of me. I can't see them. But they must be in the room with her. I like her so far. She seems pretty boundaried. Although she says it is okay to text her. But like she pretty much ends the session right on the 45 minute mark. She bills me quickly (like within 10 or 15 minutes) so that's nice too. I hope she will be a good fit for me going forward. I feel hopeful at least.

I'm glad she seems pretty good. The birds, though...yikes. That sounds so disruptive! Do you think you might mention it to her?

Quote:

Originally Posted by unaluna Okay, you know how they say therapy is an onion and you peel back the layers? Maybe its a watchamacallit a shallot where there is more than one section, and you do one t per section.

That is excellent, una. Yes.

I think I might. I think I might say something like, Yikes! Your birds just scared me! Instead of making it a confrontation about her birds. Maybe she will come up with a solution for making them quieter during our sessions. I don't know anything about birds so I don't know if covering up their cages will make them quieter or maybe she can move to a different room. I don't know. But they are awfully distracting.

I would comment. I don't see why she can't move them for the duration of the session. If they're in the cage they can still be in the cage but in the hallway or the kitchen.:

It's not professional. You are paying and they are distracting.

I was going through my inbox and deleting old emails I had from Rob. I removed 95% of them. I'm glad I'm no longer that person, but I honestly can't believe I used to be like and that I couldn't see how toxic the relationship had become. That I also choose to stay, even when I knew it had ended.

I had one session with Fin last week and the usual obsessive chatter in my head has completely died down.

I was wondering something similar myself when I looked outside this morning! I just woke up again and went to get the mail and it's almost all gone already. Calling in sick and going back to bed was definitely what I needed. My throat's still sore, but headache is better and I feel a little less run-over-by-a-bus.

I'm glad she seems pretty good and that you're feeling hopeful, Kit!
I hope you're able to feel comfortable enough to say something about the birds being distracting/scaring you. The sudden squawking can be very jarring; when I was a kid we sometimes used to babysit our cousin's grandma's parrot; he was mostly funny, but every now and then would let out an unexpected shrill shrieking kind of thing, that would startle me! (I have always been easily startled especially as a kid.) Anyway you're paying for her time and attention, and you should not have to worry about birds. Surely she can move them, or move herself to a quieter space, for your session.

Lemon. I'm glad your session was helpful.

I saw my GP yesterday about some self harm, which has been a bit more frequent lately. She told me I need to see T at least twice a week. I told her I just started seeing T and I couldn't ask her that yet. (Although I did ask for two sessions the first week because the first one was an intake and I really needed an actual session.) She told me to tell Pdoc too. Which I haven't. I don't know what he is going to do about it. There is no specific medicine for it. But GP said maybe I need my antidepressant increased. Hmm. T said I could text her so I texted her yesterday but no response. Then I had a crappy day at work today (too many bosses and not understanding what the heck they are wanting or talking about!) and my friends aren't available so some of my support isn't there and since I am in a bit of a crappy mood now I am kind of pushing people away. So I thought I would take a chance and reach out to T but I regret it now. I hate waiting for text messages that may or may not ever come. I have had this core belief since I was a very small child--pre kindergarten--that people (in those days adults) were not going to help me, that they weren't interested in helping me, and I had to just figure things out on my own. This core belief has been reinforced over time mostly by my parents. So when I do reach out it's fighting against that core belief and then if I don't get a response, it reinforces it. At least I am off of work soon. I can hopefully zone out with my beagle Zoey and chill tonight. Hopefully no one will have any expectations of me or try to make conversation with me or anything. I'm sure my parents will be bugging me about how work was. Sometimes I can get away with shrugging my shoulders but other times they press. And I don't have enough boundaries with them to tell them I just don't feel like talking right now. I hope tomorrow goes better. At least tomorrow is payday. That's something!

Pissed off at a few people right now, but I seem to always be.

Hugs, Kit. I hope the rest of your day is better.

In terms of a med for SH, naltrexone is sometimes used as a treatment for that, so you could ask about that maybe?

Kit, I’ve asked for two sessions/week very early on, sometimes at the first session. You don’t have to know the therapist well before asking.

Today I got a call from the vet my mother took new cat to. Apparently last spring my mother had pre-scheduled new cat’s annual 2023 checkup for tomorrow. I explained new cat was no longer in-state, and at first the receptionist thought new cat was dead and offered condolences, then I set her straight on who was dead. No condolences for my mother.

Also had the blood work for my annual check up today, kept thinking of how my mother had her annual blood work almost a year ago and it showed the kidney failure that would kill her five weeks later.