Harriet M. Welch

It was really bad today. I actually wasn’t very anxious yesterday or this morning like I usually am before therapy, because of the email I sent J last week. I knew there was enough material in there to take us through at least two or three sessions, so I was off the hook as to coming up with something to talk about. But when I got there he asked me “What are we talking about?” I mentioned the email. I can’t remember what he said, but he blew that off. Softened the blow by telling me again that it was perfect. But no talking about the email today! Too bad for you!

Remember how I wrote a couple of days ago about not being resilient? This is another example. When I have something planned out and I’m expecting it to be a certain way, and then it doesn’t go that way, I’m floundering. I can’t regroup and go the new way. So for the next 45 minutes I was not all there. I know I definitely zoned out a few times – it’s amazing how easily that happens in therapy. It never happens in real life. Plus somehow we got onto one of my least favorite subjects – weight and eating. Combined with another of my least favorite subjects – putting myself down and not thinking positive thoughts about myself.

I don’t really remember much of what was said, except that I need to think more positive things about myself, which I don’t know how to do, and not focus so much on the negative things. I know I used the phrase “going to hell in a handbasket” which I can honestly say that I have never said before in my life and I don’t even know what it means. Microsoft doesn’t even think handbasket is a word.

I wish I could have a do-over.

J said he thought he would have gotten an email from me with my blog address. Oh yeah, like that is an easy decision to make. But I think I’ll give it to him, what the hell. I made some old blog entries password protected, and I’m not sure what I’ll do about future ones, but I’ll figure that out when it happens. And if it’s a disaster I’ll just start a new blog, although I’ll miss Harriet. I think this deserves two pairs of shoes, since I never did buy shoes after my dentist appointment last week when I found out I’m not a perfect patient.

I wish I knew the name for the feeling I get after therapy sessions like this. I’ve gotten this feeling many times in the past year, usually when talking about body image, or finding positive things about myself, or maybe when a session doesn’t go the way I’d like it to, or if it’s something we’ve talked about so many times before without the issue ever getting better. I have my list of feelings words and it’s kind of a combination of:

Upset
Disappointed
Discouraged
Perplexed
Distrustful
Uneasy
Alone
Useless
Frustrated
Dejected

Is there a word for all of that? Maybe fucked up would do. That’s how I felt today. When I left I felt that feeling and I drove around, then had lunch, then walked around, went into Barnes and Noble but couldn’t concentrate on anything, walked around some more, bought cupcakes for my kids at a bakery and came home. Sandra Lee was calling my name. Remember I went through that Apple-tini phase until I ran out of Apple Brandy? Now I have another Sandra Lee recipe using tequila, pomegranate juice and lime juice. Pom juice is really healthy.

And I’ve been thinking about the 16 year old who called the Lifeline on Sunday and told me that he is being picked on at school because he’s gay. That really sucks. We talked for a while and I think he decided to talk to his guidance counselor because he said he trusts her. He lives with his dad who doesn’t know he’s gay, and he doesn’t have a relationship with his mom. I asked him what he does at lunch, and he said he sits alone. Every day. How can no one care about this kid?

I was listening to John Prine in the car earlier. I like these lyrics:

Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing that I can hold on to
To believe in this living is just a hard way to go

Yep, it’s a hard way to go. And tomorrow is the 13th – four more months until my birthday.

A bad night’s sleep again last night. Is it too much to expect to sleep well two nights in a row? The dog threw up again. I think the treats I got her must be disagreeing with her sensitive stomach. Then she was crying to go out and I had to have a talk with her to let her know that it is the middle of the night and she can’t go out. Then she was crying for water, so I got up to fill her water bowl. Then at 6AM my shoulder started dislocating (I think I’ve mentioned my dislocating shoulders before haven’t I? It’s a common occurrence while I’m sleeping) and I woke up suddenly clutching my arm. Not sure exactly of the order of events, but I felt it slipping out of alignment and managed to grab it and put it back together, and woke up somewhere along the line. It’s not a good way to wake up. But the pain only lasts a few minutes and then I was able to go back to sleep until my alarm went off. I’m the only person I know who has to get up earlier on weekend days than on weekdays, but Sunday mornings I work on the hotline.

And I left the dog vomit for my husband to clean up – and he actually did it! He’s the man.

Remember a few weeks ago I wrote that I had a caller who affected me a little too much emotionally and I cried on the phone while I was talking to her (she didn’t know I was crying, it was the silent kind). Well, I have talked to her since then and I was fine. I haven’t cried while talking to anyone else since that day, so I’m feeling more confident again.

I’ve been thinking about love, and how many people I love and who loves me. Have you ever thought about how many people love you? How many people tell you that they love you? I tell my kids that I love them, and they usually respond by telling me they love me. My husband tells me he loves me, but only after we….well, you know. So there are strings attached. And last week the woman who has cleaned my house every week for the last three years gave me a big hug and said “I love you.” I didn’t really expect that, but it was nice. So that’s it, my kids when I say it first, my husband when…you know, and Maria. Well, I know my mother loves me, but she never says it. But I know she does.

Is it possible to have flashbacks of things that never actually happened? Or is that a symptom of being truly crazy? I’ve mentioned before my obsessive bad thoughts – these are quite vivid and I see pictures of them in my mind. Every once in a while one of these pictures will pop into my mind, seemingly out of nowhere, even if they are things I thought of years ago. And then I don’t feel well. I get an actual physiological reaction, like a sick stomach, spinning head, and a feeling like I need to get up and move around, as though something might jump out from underneath my skin. Plus the emotional reaction – fear, anxiety, etc. I don’t understand this, because none of these things has ever actually happened, they are just things my mind has made up. I think I may be crazier than I thought.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about the hotline and how I might be kind of pretty good at it. I’ve been getting good feedback, and the callers seem to feel a bit better at the end of the calls. I was even thinking about taking on a second shift, maybe every other week. But then today I started to cry while I was on the phone with a caller. She didn’t know I was crying of course, but still. Now I think I must suck at this, I’m getting too emotionally involved or something.

We have a regular caller on the hotline, I’ll call him Mike (lots of guys call themselves Mike on the hotline for some reason). I’ve talked with him a few times. He has an obsession that he thinks about/talks about all of the time. Every time he calls he talks about this scenario that he is obsessed with. He is a very nice guy, articulate, intelligent, open to feedback, and easy to talk to. I often hope that he will get help from a professional to get over this obsession.

Mike called a few weeks ago and we had our usual type of conversation. Nothing to really think about. A couple of hours later I got a call from a man I’ll call Vince. He sounded anxious, somewhat high strung, and angry. He said he was suicidal and has attempted suicide one or more times in the past few years. He is angry at God for not letting his attempts succeed.

We talked for about five minutes, and then got cut off. I was really hoping he would call back, but he didn’t. I was very concerned about him, but he said he was not planning to hurt himself in any way today, as he was with his nephew. I thought about him a lot during the week and I was anxious to get back to the hotline the next Sunday so that I could see if he called again.

The first thing I do when I get to the office is check my feedback from the previous week. We get feedback from one of three supervisors on all of our calls. I saw the call report from Mike and read my feedback, but I didn’t see the call report for Vince. Then I noticed a second call report from Mike, that happened at the same time as the call from Vince, and I opened it. It was Vince’s call report, with a note saying “Caller has been identified as Mike by supervisor.” I was very confused, why did the supervisor think Vince was Mike? I called her and she explained that when she checked the caller ID records, the call did indeed come from Mike. She also added to Mike’s caller profile that he has been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, and did indeed attempt suicide in the past.

Then I was baffled. First, I was not under the impression that Mike was receiving any mental health treatment, but he must have, at least at some time, in order to be given that diagnosis. I also could not wrap my head around the fact that Vince was Mike, because he sounded like a completely different person. They had a different voice, different inflections, different topics of conversation, and even a different level of intelligence. I asked my supervisor if Mike was aware that Vince called, if Vince is aware of Mike. She said that she didn’t know a lot about DID, but it can manifest itself differently in different people. I wondered if Mike suddenly found himself in his home with the phone in his hand, wondering who he was talking to and why, and hung up.

I resolved to learn more about DID so I put a book on hold at the library. I picked it up a couple of days ago and have been reading it. I am learning a lot about this disorder, which I’m not even sure can be called a disorder. After all, dissociation is a brilliant coping mechanism that the human mind/body uses to get through trauma such as abuse. The disorder comes when the person begins to function poorly, or suffers from anxiety/depression, or PTSD symptoms. Sometimes people are not aware that they have DID, they visit a mental health professional due to other issues, and then are diagnosed later on. I haven’t finished the book yet, so most of my questions haven’t been answered. I did learn that DID isn’t really as rare as my supervisor implied. And that not everyone behaves like the characters in the movies or TV like Sybil or the United States of Tara.

I truly hope that Mike is seeing a professional to get help with his DID and his obsession. He must be in a lot of pain.

I keep thinking about the girl who called the hotline Sunday who wanted to cut. I think about her every day, and every time I think about her I cry. She said she was holding her stuffed tiger while she was talking to me. I can picture her curled up on her bed with her tiger in one hand and her phone in the other. It makes me sad.

So I called my supervisor today to see if the girl has called again, and my supervisor said that she talked to her yesterday and she is adding her to regular callers list. I’m so glad that she is continuing to call. She shared some more details, which I won’t go into here for confidentiality purposes, but it’s good that she is opening up. My supervisor said, “I’m sorry you’ve been thinking about her so much.” This got me worried, I don’t want her to think that I’m getting too emotionally attached to anyone. I explained that this was the first child that I’ve talked to on the hotline and I was just concerned, but I’m fine. Yikes, I don’t want to get kicked off the hotline. I’m missing my shift this weekend because I’m running in a 10K, and I’m disappointed that I won’t be there. I think I may check and see if anyone is looking for a sub for next week so I can fill in a shift or two.

I’ve been taking a break from thinking for the past few days. It’s been nice. Things are moving along, nothing bad is happening, my family is healthy, the weather has been pretty good except for a major downpour yesterday which luckily happened after my run, and it is nice to not be obsessing about anything.

This morning on the hotline a 15 year old girl called and she said she wanted to cut. I’m not sure I was helpful to her. This was the first child I talked to on the hotline, and the first cutter. She was very sweet and I hope I helped in some small way. I won’t ever know though. I’m glad she called.