Couch 244: Great Expectations

Thank you LT

The poetry writing course I signed up for starts tomorrow, yay! I'm having trouble getting back into the swing of writing every day since I was on vacation, so this course should help.

hugs/headnods all around as needed/wanted/appropriate.

oof. the feels, they are big tonight.

morning couch! i have a full day of webinar training at work today (and half day tomorrow) some upskill training thing. the trainer just said she'll be starting in 3 minutes, to give everyone a chance to log on so I have a minute to pop on here and say hello, and send hugs/headnods all around as wanted/needed/appropriate.

Off to my training....

ugh we have been doing introductions for a solid hour already in this training... and the trainer is like overly enthusiastic and way too bubbly yeesh, it's gonna be a long day!!

Well since Social Security kicked me off of disability I have been picking up whatever hours I can (luckily the past few weeks we've had one on maternity leave, two on vacation and one has worked there nearly 40 years and is just sick and tired of working and has a lot of available PTO time. so I've been working full-time. Unfortunately, the hours have dried up for the foreseeable future. I talked with my boss and asked if I could potentially work in another department and make it full-time. He said he'd talk to the directors of the other departments and see what they need.

I got off work at 1pm today. My boss called me at 4pm and told me that a full-time, Mon-Fri position had opened up unexpectedly. He wanted to know if I was interested. I said YES. He said I'll have to interview for it of course, but here's keeping my fingers crossed.

Hope you get the job!

Wishing you all the best, Polibeth!

I got a new pillow and man did I sleep like a log last night. I should have done this long before now, gotten a new pillow I mean!!

My therapist is flying to Europe today for three weeks. I'm trying to deal with the anxiety this is bringing up for me, but it's hard.

So sorry you're dealing with this, NP.

Did P give any more context as to what contact might look like while he's away?

We have some prearranged days to do a video session, he's going to send me the occasional picture from his trip as a way to maintain connection, and he's fine if I email him. He's going to send me a pic from the Dolomites on my birthday Friday, so that'll probably be the first bit of contact. I really appreciate that he's going to stay in contact with me. I think a lot of my anxiety is fear that the relationship is just going to disintegrate, I won't be able to hold on to our connection and he'll change his mind about working with me. Not very logical, I know. Also just loneliness. Luckily he doesn't actually seem phased by my attachment to him. I'm also babysitting his plant (that I gave to him) while he's away.

Ugh, I'm sorry. That's a long trip... I'm glad he is staying in contact some (seeing your other post). Hugs, if wanted.

Today was a heavy session. When I left, Dr. T even said, "That was an intense meeting!"

We talked about a lot of important stuff though. Some tied to the pandemic and my reaction to things like seeing his dog, why I want to know more about him, how I feel inferior to him (and like we were on more level playing field earlier in the pandemic, in part because he couldn't play his sport), how I feel I'm not accomplishing enough in life, my writing, plus some related stuff about ex-MC's wife dying and my reaction to that, etc. It was a LOT. But I think it was productive. And he seemed very open to talking about attachment and related things. He even said part of why he's encouraging me to do more writing is so that I can explore my feelings around some of those things and we can then discuss them in sessions.

Just feeling a bit of a therapy hangover now. What's funny is that I went into the session unsure of what I wanted to talk about, thinking I might share my latest writing (I didn't, but we talked about some of what it was about). Though sometimes, I think those end up being the most productive sessions, when I'm unsure what I want to address. Where I'm more open to going in whatever direction things go.

hugs, LT. that does sound like an intense session. I'm glad he was open to talking about the attachment stuff.

you sound like me with the writing we've both been doing lately - for me it has opened up some stuff, or maybe has shaken loose my feelings about some stuff - that's made my sessions kinda intense lately too. the poetry course i started yesterday is no exception; I've already written one poem that brought to light something I hadn't realized until I wrote the poem - the reason why i didn't want to do something L suggested last week.

I wrote a poem recently that's about being a recovering codependent. I saw on the coda.org website their call for submissions for recovery stories/poems etc so I took a deep breath and submitted my poem for consideration. We'll see what happens.

i am back!! very mixed feelings. my therapist got the director before i left today. that is not normal. and turns out it wasn’t.

Trigger for SH:

Dug my COVID masks out today in honor of the (incredibly bad) air quality today.

Ours is getting bad, too--it's supposed to be worse tomorrow, the way the wind is blowing from Canada. Last week, I was wearing masks in my house, to (apparently successfully) keep H and D from getting COVID from me. Now, I'll be wearing them outside to not breathe in smoke.

Hugs, Velcro. I understand the fear of losing a safety net. Is there any sort of step-down program, like partial hospitalization (PHP), that they can offer you as additional support? Or could you see your T any extra times or at least email or call her for support in the meantime? I know money is a concern, but at least to get you through the transition from being there to being back home?

And please post here as much as you want if it helps.

Thanks for the hugs. I do think writing can have that effect--I guess it's good we're both doing that, even if it's making things intense. Maybe this is stuff we need to work through, and writing is a way to get us there.

And I hope your poem that you mentioned in the other post gets accepted!

Hm, it occurs to me that I could use some of what I talked about with Dr. T today to finish out my assignment that I'm aiming to turn in this week. I felt like the part I was writing about just sort of ended, and I wasn't sure where to go with it. Perhaps this is where I could go.

Well I posted yesterday that a full-time job opened up. This morning, I was perusing my company's website (they own a bunch of retirement communities) for career openings when I saw a new one, that would be a step up from the full-time job I already mentioned, at one our sister retirement communities. It would be a further drive but I would receive a $25,000 raise! I texted my boss about the new position I found and that I was interested in that one as well. He told me to definitely apply for it.

I'll be happy if either one of these comes to fruition!

That's excellent news, Polibeth! I hope one of them pans out for you.

I'm looking at places to rent for when I move out. It's like being in a candy shop for the first time as a kid. I'm still watching my budget at the moment, but even then, there's so many nice cozy places that I could have never gotten with my partner since he'd have complaints. Makes me feel less bad about moving out of a place we literally built together... will probably still miss some stuff, but if I can at least plant some veggies and have a place to sit outside in a garden, that sounds great!