Harriet M. Welch

I thought I would check in because I always hate when bloggers just drop off the face of the earth, I never know if they just got tired of writing, or if something happened to them, or perhaps they recovered from all of their problems and didn’t need to write anymore.

I’m still writing my therapy recaps, but very brief summaries and I am not publishing them on the blog. I am trying to move away from Harriet, and become a more real me. I have another blog which I started last year, then abandoned for a while, and restarted last month. It is a health blog, about wellness, fitness, healthy eating, etc. I’m enjoying writing for that blog. If you want the link, write to me and I’ll give it to you. I don’t want the two blogs associated with each other however.

Via meetup.com I’ve connected with two hiking groups and a vegan group. I’ve been on 3 or 4 hikes, and two vegan lunches. I know that sounds like I am being so social, but frankly it is easier for me to be with these strangers than with people I know. They don’t know the “bad” stuff about me. I rarely go out with friends, or even talk to them, even though I would like to. I don’t call people to chat, that’s just not me. I’ve been feeling lonely lately.

My marriage still sucks. My husband and I went to NY for the weekend, and it wasn’t terrible, but it also wasn’t fun. He was a pain in the ass, he would not engage in any of the things we did, or any of the decisions about what we were doing. The only time he seemed interested in anything was when he was deciding which deli he wanted to go to. We ate dinner separately one night, even though he had told me before we left that he would go to a vegan restaurant with me.

I can’t sleep with him because he snores because he is overweight, and I end up going to sleep in another room in the middle of the night. When I wake up in the morning I can’t figure out where I am half the time. I dread having sex with him.

My jobs are incredibly boring, and one has become very stressful because my boss is under a lot of stress and it is the trickle down theory at work I suppose.

I did enroll in a year long nutrition course that I have wanted to take for a number of years, but never wanted to spend the money on myself. This course will train me to be a health coach with my own practice, however I know that there is no way I could have a business coaching women so I am doing this just for my own learning and knowledge. I don’t have the self confidence to have a business, not to mention I would probably be more screwed up than the clients I would be trying to help. Everyone thinks I have such a healthy lifestyle, but I have body image issues, food issues, exercise issues, etc etc. I definitely have not reached the point of self acceptance. I am, however, looking forward to, and even excited about, starting the course.

One thing I have talked about many times in therapy is having a purpose in life, and my therapist has convinced me that that is not going to happen, or isn’t necessary, so I have lowered my sights to just having a project. My purpose was raising my children, and I did that, it is too much to expect that I would have another purpose, so I have accepted that.

I registered for a half marathon that will take place at the end of April. Another project that I am excited about. I still love running, and find it meditative, a time when my mind can actually stop whirling around and be at peace.

My husband, son and I are starting family therapy. We met once with the psychologist, then my son met with him twice alone, and the three of us are meeting together with him on Monday. At our first meeting I was the one that had to do all the talking, even though I didn’t answer any questions until it was totally obvious that no one else was going to say anything. The psychologist told me that his plan is for me to talk less, therefore ensuring that my husband will talk more. I’m interested to see if this will work. My husband claims to be on board with the process, but based on past experience I could see him backing down and me doing all of the work. This is something that can definitely make or break our marriage.

I am currently not engaging in any self destructive behaviors. When I think about where I was 2 years ago I get very frightened because I don’t know how I got that way, and therefore I don’t know how to prevent it from happening again. I know it is not productive to worry about “what if” but I would feel more secure if I knew what the warning signs would be.

I’m still seeing J for therapy once a week, but I feel as though it is very disjointed and not getting to the roots of the issues. Both J and my pdoc say that I have changed, and I just don’t notice the positive changes. I try to believe them.

So that is where things stand. I don’t know if I will be writing here any time soon, I need to move on from Harriet. She served me well, but I think it will be healthier to be me. But one never knows.

J painted his waiting room green. When I got there he pointed at the wall and I said it was pretty. He said, “No more beige.”

I had some questions for J after he told me last week that he is taking over the first floor of the building for the people who work for him.

How many people work for you?

One.

You need a whole floor for one person?

Well I plan to hire more.

Are they all psychologists?

No.

What else are they – accountants, plumbers?

No, not exactly. They are all in the mental health field.

Why would someone work for another person rather than start their own practice?

Some people just want to work part time, or don’t want to worry about overhead and insurance billing, and I would handle all of that.

Doesn’t that take a lot of time?

No, I might have to see a few less clients.

Do you talk to them about their clients?

No.

Do you talk to them about your clients?

No.

Ok.

J wanted to know how it went with family psychologist #2, so we spent the rest of the time talking about that session, which led to talking about my husband and me and why I don’t talk to my husband about how he is so lenient with my son in regards to buying him things. J thinks I should talk to him, to not only let him know how I feel about it, but to discuss other ways we can handle the situations that come up with my son. He thinks that my husband doesn’t see the big picture – that by giving my son money and things it is preventing him from being motivated to do things himself. J thinks I am better at big picture things than my husband.

He also thinks I need to train my husband, that he is not getting that what he is doing is detrimental. I said that I don’t want to train my husband, does he train his wife? He said that we all train people about how we need to be treated, and I said that this isn’t like that, it’s not about how I need to be treated. I said that I trained my dog, I trained my kids, I don’t want to train my husband. I also said that I’m not sure he isn’t seeing the big picture, I think he just hates conflict so much that he gives in to whatever my son asks.

Of course J gave me lots of things to say to my husband, none of which I remember. I mentioned the word “lecture” in regard to speaking to my husband, and J said it wouldn’t be a lecture if I was discussing things. I told him that I prefer not to get into arguments, to just let the resentment keep building up. (Not really of course, but that is what I do.)

J came up with some totally convoluted theory about why I don’t want to talk to my husband about this issue, which I didn’t understand at all, and I have no memory of so I can’t write it out here. I told him I thought the reason I don’t discuss this stuff with my husband is because I don’t want to have a fight. But maybe it is deeper than that. For once J is going deep and I don’t understand it. I’ll bring it up again next week.

That was about it, a lot about how my husband and I relate to our son and to each other. I saw pdoc yesterday too, and we kind of talked about this also. I told her that I don’t want to waste my individual sessions talking about my family therapy, and she said it wouldn’t be a waste. Maybe not.

Last night my husband and I met with family therapist #2 – Dr. S. He only wanted to meet with us, not with my son. He is a very nice guy, and the session went exactly how I thought it would, but not how I wanted it to go. I did 99% of the talking. I tried not to answer questions so that my husband would be forced to say something, but whenever Dr. S asked us a question and I would be silent my husband would just look at me. Finally I blurted out “Why do you keep looking at me? Why do I have to do all the talking?”

Dr. S didn’t do a good job of getting my husband to talk, maybe he didn’t even try. We got on the subject of us giving our son money, and I said that my son knows not to even ask me. So Dr. S asked if my husband gave him money, and my husband said that my son doesn’t need money because he doesn’t do anything. And it may be true that my husband doesn’t give him money, but he buys him concert tickets, pays $100 entry fees for poker tournaments for him, and is paying all of his expenses for the Coachella festival which is on the other side of the country. Dr. S didn’t ask if my husband buys my son anything, just if he gives him money.

I also brought up the fact that the children were always my domain and responsibility – health, education, activities, etc. I was the stay at home mom, and I didn’t really know what the job entailed until I was doing it. Even now, for example, my husband has no idea what courses our kids are taking at school. I know all of my daughter’s courses, her schedule, her current gpa, how many credits she has, etc. All he knows is that she goes to Tulane and is in her second year. He doesn’t know what medications they take, or their friends’ names.

I said that I work now. Neither my husband nor Dr. S responded. So I said “Well, I don’t really make much money, so I guess the kids are still my responsibility.” Neither of them said anything to that either.

Dr. S looked at me the whole time he was talking, so finally I stopped looking at him. Then I noticed he looked at me most of the time, with glances at my husband.

I wish that he had wanted to meet with all three of us. I like when the focus is on my son, and not on me. Dr. S asked if my husband and I are on the same page, he said he gets the feeling that we aren’t, and I said I agreed with that. My husband didn’t say anything.

So now my son is going to meet with Dr. S and then we’ll decide who we want to see – Dr. C or Dr. S. I don’t think we need to interview anymore psychologists. As of now I don’t have a preference for one or the other. But I hope whichever one we pick will be able to get my husband and my son to talk, because I don’t want to be the only one talking

Tags: husband, son, therapy

The construction on J’s office is done, the waiting room is smaller but his office is bigger.  I could see things that I had not seen before because of the way they were positioned, like his diplomas and the bookcase.  He said that he is getting some new furniture – a new couch and tables, and will be painting and getting new carpet. I asked what prompted him to do this and he said he is actually taking over the first floor of the building as well.  I asked why he needed the first floor and he said it will be for the people who work for him.

“the people who work for you?  You have people who work for you?”

“yes”

“where do they work now?”

“in my office when I’m not here, or in the other two offices on this floor.”

“do the people who work in those two offices work for you?”

“no they sublet.”

“so you are becoming a conglomerate.”  (kidding?)

“mctherapy”  (kidding?)

Hmmm….

I didn’t want to talk about problems. I did say that I noticed that the six month anniversary of my cancer diagnosis is January 28 which is also the day my dad died. Nothing much to pursue in that topic.

I had a list of recent changes I have made and we talked about those. I started hiking with groups of strangers, signed up for a yoga class, created a “personal” first aid kit (I’ll write more about that later), am considering doing a mind/body cancer workshop (stuff about nutrition/fitness/mental stuff/etc) and I plan to take a nutrition/wellness course that I have been wanting to do for a couple of years. We talked about how people make changes when it is a new year, but I had actually started these in December. He said that every January he makes 15 or so goals, and I said “I used to do that when I was your age.”

Then I mentioned my frustration about my vitamin b12 deficiency because I had gotten a call from my doctor’s office that morning saying that after 3 months of shots my level has only gone up 11 points, from 147 to 158. She wants me to do 3 more months of shots and get tested again, but I am ready to get a second opinion. There is a naturopathic doctor that I had researched last summer but never called, and I plan to call her now.

I think I will spend the rest of week processing why I feel upset that people work for J, so many that he needs to take over a whole other level of the building.

Tags: therapy

After having missed a week of therapy because I was away on vacation, it was hard to get started of course. I spent a bit of time looking around the room to see if anything was different. J did his best to not try to lead the conversation, he asked me how the vacation was and I said it was very good. He mentioned that he knows nothing is new with our interviews with family therapists since we are meeting our second one next week.

I told him that when I was on vacation I talked to my husband about how Dr. C said that my son can’t be honest when “mom” is in the room, but didn’t say anything about dad. My husband said I was overreacting. I also told J that Dr. C asked me about my job, and I wasn’t sure how to answer without looking like I am to blame for my son’s problems (which is what his vice principal did at a meeting we had at school in 11th grade). I tried to explain that although my job is full time, it really doesn’t require any skills and I have flexible hours. I tried to middle of the road about the job, and we talked about that, how possibly Dr. C just wanted to know what I did at work, and wasn’t “out to get me”.

J and I talked more about how I think it will go with the family therapy, and my concerns.

Then I mentioned that I have been moody, possibly because my medication dosage was changed. My pdoc was concerned about the wellbutrin affecting my kidneys, so now I am on alternating days of 300mg and 150mg. I have been having some mood issues, and I talked to J about those. Some of the mood problem is anger, and this is very frightening to me because it is how I used to be until I went on medication, and I have a terrible fear of being that way again. J was very supportive and said that my anger in these few situations lately was justified, and I was able to control myself. I agreed, but I also said that I felt that horrible feeling like I would be getting out of control at any moment, and I don’t like the feeling first of all, and I’m afraid of it getting worse. J said I should monitor these mood changes and report back to my pdoc. He said we will also talk about it in sessions to keep tabs on it.

At the end of the session he said that he noticed me looking around the room when I came in, to see if anything changed. He said that next week I will notice a big change, because he is knocking down a wall and combining his office with the little room next door. I was surprised that it would all be done in a week, but he said that just the construction will be done, he will still have to do something about the carpet. I asked if he would be painting the room beige, and he said no! He said that he was going to add some color to the room and I congratulated him. He said it would be earthtones, and I said that I like earthtones.

It will be strange to have the office be different, but nice not to have to be beiged out all the time.

This was a good session, I felt very supported and validated in my concerns both about the family therapy, and the mood issues. I did feel bad the rest of the day, I think talking and thinking about the anger made me upset, but I did a smart thing and called a friend to go out to dinner. That was very nice, and we spent some time talking about my son and how it is going to go with the family therapy. She has some experience in this area, so it was nice to talk to her.

I was thinking that 2011 wasn’t a very good year.  My cousin attempted suicide and I basically was her sole caregiver for weeks, and then I had cancer.

Then I was thinking that 2010 wasn’t a very good year either – I was suicidal that year.

2009 wasn’t a very good year, I was about to turn 50 and my daughter was leaving home, I was very depressed.

How can every year be not a very good year?  Maybe this is life?  Little bits of good year interspersed with long periods of bad year?  Why is it so easy to remember the bad, and so hard to remember the good?

Happy New Year everyone.  I hope everybody’s 2012 is a happy one, or at least not a not very good one.

I was listening to a vegan podcast today, and the woman podcaster was telling us how last year for Christmas she sponsored animals for each person on her gift list, rather than giving material gifts.  Sponsoring an animal involves sending money to a sanctuary or a humane society which contributes to the costs of caring for the animal.  You can do this in honor of someone, and that person will receive some kind of certificate of a photo of the animal.

The podcaster said that there some people in her family who rolled their eyes at this gift, and some that just didn’t like it at all.  But she felt this was an important thing for her to do, and if her family didn’t like it, it was their problem, not hers.

This has come up in therapy at times.  If someone says a hurtful comment to me, perhaps it is because they are feeling xyz when I mentioned abc, and the problem isn’t mine, it is theirs.  Or if I try to do something nice for someone and they don’t act appreciative, the problem is theirs, not mine, so I should not feel hurt by that.

I can see this being the case sometimes, but as for gifts, I don’t get it.  Why would one give a loved one something that they wouldn’t like?  Sure, animals are important to me, but I won’t go sponsoring animals in honor of my friends and family if I know they don’t care about animals or sanctuaries.  When I give a gift to someone, part of the enjoyment of it is finding something that I know is special for them, and that they will love.

When you give gifts, do you choose things that are important to you, or to the recipient?  Do you think this podcaster’s attitude about who is owning the problem is correct?

Tags: family, friends, gifts

After I asked J how his Christmas was, he immediately asked me how it went with the family therapist.  First I had to find out if J was a friend of Dr. C, but he said although he has met him once or twice they are not friends.  I basically told him my impressions, the good and the bad, and then said that I am having second thoughts about seeing a family therapist.

We discussed that for some time.  J is really encouraging me to do this family therapy, he never said anything like, “If you feel it’s not right then don’t do it.”  I guess he thinks my son, and my husband and I, really need to move forward or we’ll be 90 years old, my son will be 60 and we’ll all still be living together.

At one point we went off on a tangent.  J was saying that there are certain things your kids have to do, that there is no wiggle room.  Like getting vaccinations, you don’t tell your child “It’s ok, you don’t have to get shots today.”  Well, that is exactly what I did with my son, and I thought that J was saying it is a bad thing, but when I explained what I was doing he said I was using a good strategy, and what he was talking about was saying to the child “You have to get shots today….you have to get shots today….oh, ok, you don’t want shots?  OK, you don’t need to get them today.”

What I did with my son, because he had and still has a horrible needle phobia, was to tell the doctor that if it is time for vaccinations we would come back for them.  If my son knew he was getting shots he would be in a panic during the whole exam, and he would be unable to talk to the doctor, even unable to stand on the scale sometimes.  Needless to say his pulse and blood pressure were off the charts.  When he knew that no needles were coming he was calm and relaxed and was able to have a complete exam and talk about any concerns with the doctor.  Now, I did not do this when he was a baby or toddler, it was later in his childhood.

I find that this happens somewhat often, and I know it is something that I do.  I latch onto something that J says and go off on a tangent, this time it must have been about 10 minutes of talking about this.  I get angry at myself later for doing this, because really, discussing this had nothing to do with the topic of the family therapist and why I am having negative thoughts about proceeding.  I think I do this to avoid talking about the real issues?

J and I talked more about how I believe it is my fault that my son is where he is today, and I don’t want to do anything else that will end up being my fault.  I wasn’t very happy that Dr. C didn’t engage my husband more, but J said he was probably just observing the family dynamics at this point.  J also says that nothing was my fault, and I said “You weren’t there” which is how the conversation always goes when we get to this topic.  I told J that I don’t want any of this to be about me, I want the therapy to focus on my son.

He also started in with what I should say to my husband, and to the therapist, and I just looked at him.  He said, “Do you think you can say those things?”  I told him that no, I could not.  He asked how a therapist might figure out that my husband was not too involved in the raising of the kids, and I said that when the therapist asks us a question, I won’t answer.  Of course my husband won’t be able to answer.  When the therapist sees that my husband can’t answer, I’ll do the answering.  J said, “So you will hint as to the relationship you and your husband have with your son.”  I said that if he is a good therapist he should figure it out pretty quickly.  J said that as I get more comfortable with the family therapist I can mention how I feel about my husband’s lack of involvement.  But that is not something I need to think about now, now I just want to find someone that we are all comfortable with.

The next therapist interview isn’t until the middle of January, and this one just wants to see my husband and me.  I’m curious as to how that will go.  Dr. C was very focused on my son and asking him questions.  Without my son being in the session my husband and I won’t have that buffer, the therapist will just be talking to us, and asking us questions.  It could be very different.

So that was about it, and I won’t see J next week because I am going on vacation to the Dominican Republic with my husband.  Another couple that we are friends with are joining us after the first three days.  I am so looking forward to this vacation.  Right now though, I am feeling somewhat overwhelmed – I need to get all of my summer clothes together, they get packed away every winter and I have to find some to take with me, and my daughter volunteered our house for her horse barn holiday party on Friday night, which means cleaning, organizing and cooking.  Ack.

Tags: family, husband, son, therapy

Last Thursday my husband, son and I met with the first family therapist that we are interviewing. I wasn’t particularly crazy about him on the phone, he kept referring to himself as Dr. C, even when he called me back he said “This is Dr. C.” No first name, and his last name is an extremely common name, as a matter of fact I have another doctor named Dr. C. He also has a voice similar to my son’s old therapist, and the photo of him on his website reminded me of my son’s old therapist as well. But I thought we would give it a try.

His waiting room was small, but decorated very nicely. One of the walls was painted a terracotta color, which was really attractive. He came out to get us and shook each of our hands saying, “Hi, I’m Dr. C” each time. His office is beautiful, large and with color and comfy furniture. No beige at all. He did remind me a bit of my son’s therapist, but he was dressed like an adult, unlike how my son’s therapist dressed. He had on a collared shirt with a nice sweater over it, dark pleated wool trousers, dark socks and dress shoes.

Dr. C asked what brought us there and I told him that my son seems to be having a case of “failure to launch”.

He spent a lot of time asking my son questions, and I thought they were good questions. It turns out that he has the same kind of dog we do, but his is a 6 month old male. He even told us the dog’s name, and we talked wheaten terriers for a while. I tried not to talk much, I wanted my son to talk, and even though I didn’t have high expectations for it, I wanted my husband to talk. Of course he didn’t say much, and he didn’t exactly say what he felt. For example Dr. C asked me why my son doesn’t drive, and I said I thought it was a combination of his anxiety, panic disorder, poor fine and gross motor skills, and spatial issues. I said, “But that is just my opinion, my husband thinks differently.” So Dr. C asked my husband why my son doesn’t drive and he answered, “I don’t know, he started out driving when he was 16, but then just stopped. I don’t know why.” Which is bullshit, because he always said the reason my son doesn’t drive is because he is lazy.

Dr. C said that if we do decide to use him as our therapist he would like to meet with our son a few times alone. He wants to establish some trust with him, and he feels that my son perhaps isn’t answering questions honestly because “mom is in the room.” Nothing about dad of course, just me, I am the reason my son can’t be honest.

Another thing that bothered me is that Dr. C belonged to the same synagogue that we did. He was close to the rabbi, as a matter of fact the rabbi married he and his wife. I was close to the rabbi because I worked in the preschool at the synagogue. Then the rabbi turned out to be a pedophile and went to jail. Dr. C said he visited him in jail.

My failure to get my son what he needed in school despite having him tested and having many many school meetings came up in the conversation. Dr. C tried to make me feel better by saying that our county is notoriously difficult to deal with when getting services for a student. I said that, no, I was just unable to get him services because I wasn’t assertive enough, and I wasn’t knowledgeable enough, and I wasn’t smart enough. My husband couldn’t participate in this conversation at all because he was not involved in my son’s education in any way. He had no clue what went on for the 7 years I was trying to get my son an IEP. I did all of the explaining to Dr. C about my son’s educational difficulties.

Dr. C said this would be hard work, and we’d all have to step out of our comfort zones, but that he would support us in the difficulties.

We all thought he was nice enough, and my son said he would think about whether he wants to meet with a therapist on a one-on-one basis. My concerns are that he didn’t draw my husband into the conversation much, he didn’t ask him any questions, and I will be the one dealing with all of this while my husband flies under the radar, which is how it always is. I’m having second thoughts about family therapy. Maybe things aren’t so bad the way they are. I don’t want our situation to get worse, and if it does it will be my fault. Dr. C also lives near us (I googled him) and that might be a little close for comfort.

We meet family therapist #2 in the middle of January.

Yesterday was Christmas and I went on a hike up a local mountain with 17 people I didn’t know. I found the group on meetup.com. They were all very nice people, I chatted with two or three of them for a while. It was a beautiful day, sunny and not too hot or cold. The hike ended up being 8.5 miles, and we were out there for 5 hours, but actually walking for three. I’m sore today, I guess I’m not used to climbing mountains, even little ones like this one is.

I was observing the other hikers, and they all seemed to be alone and/or lonely. I guess if a person has nothing to do on Christmas it might mean that they are alone in their lives. No one talked about a spouse or children. A couple people had moved to the area recently and didn’t seem to have many or any friends. I’d like to hike with them again, hiking seems to be a good activity for introverts like me.

Tags: exercise, family, therapy