Harriet M. Welch

Yesterday I took my son to the doctor because he has been having GI problems. He is always nauseous, particularly after he eats, and he often throws up after he eats. I thought the doctor would just give him some medicine, but he wants him to have some blood work and a barium xray. This would not be a problem for most people, but my son (who is 20) has a terrible phobia of doctors and needles. Now he is deciding whether to have the blood test this week or next. He knows he doesn’t want it at all, but he is trying to decide whether to put it off a week, which means a lot of anxiety for a week, or get it over with. And a friend of his told him she had the barium xray and she is sure he won’t be able to do it, because he won’t be able to drink the stuff because it is gross. He gags just eating chicken. I feel very badly for him. He is eating less than usual; he normally eats just once a day. And he eats junk, and drinks a lot of soda. I think he has lost weight – at the office he weighed 125 with clothes and shoes, and he is six feet tall. The doctor said it could be a sluggish stomach, or h. pylori, or celiac disease, or crohn’s disease. Great choices? NOT. My son was asking me about it last night, and he seems very worried. I asked the doctor if I could give him some klonopin or xanax before the blood test and he said that would be fine.

Tomorrow I see the gynecologist. I’m trying to decide how much to tell him. Maybe I don’t even need to say anything; I’ll just go back to taking the birth control pills continuously without the week off. I’m hesitant to tell him anything that will make him think I’m unstable. For example in June, when I was having my period, and I got into that rage and was “organizing” my daughter’s junk in the garage and broke a bottle, then picked up a piece of the broken glass and cut my arm with it. I didn’t even tell my t about that. My gynecologist will most likely not be so understanding. But I do want him to know that I think that my hormone levels seem to be effecting my emotions, so maybe I’ll just tone it down a little and tell him I was throwing the broken glass into the recycling bin trying to smash it.

Meanwhile, I’ve been bleeding for 7 days now. That’s a long period for me. It’s not heavy or crampy, just ongoing. But I start a new pill pack tonight, so hopefully it will stop. I also developed a migraine yesterday morning, I was having some stress as a combination of work and my daughter’s car having repairs and arguing with the warranty company, and this headache goes away when I take my migraine meds, but comes back after about 4 or 5 hours. That was the original reason I stopped taking the week off the pills, because whenever I stopped for a week I would get a migraine.

Then I had a terrible run this morning. It was pouring rain, and 95% humidity, and my Achilles’ are just hurting me so bad. I think I really have to admit I have Achilles tendonitis, and I need to stop running for a while. I just don’t have time for physical therapy. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to stop running.

I’m sorry this is whiney.

And this isn’t even everything – you wouldn’t believe what is happening at work.

But one good thing happened, my boss invited me to “movie night”, a weekly event he is having at his home for his sons and their friends. He has a home theater in the basement, complete with popcorn maker. So I brought a bottle of wine, and watched the movie “Serious Man” with boss, his two sons, and a few of their friends. Lots of testosterone in the room! It was a wonderful movie. One thing you can’t deny about the Coen brothers – they really know how to end a movie.

At first I wasn’t sure whether I would go, but I’m glad I did. It was fun.

Tags: gynecologist, hormones, running, son, work

The cake didn’t come out very good. I don’t like the way it looks. The frosting isn’t fluffy enough, and therefore not thick enough. I’m so tempted to throw it away and either leave work and spend the day making a new one, or just not go. Or buy one at a bakery and lie and say I made it.

But I’m trying to accept that this cake is good enough. It’s hard because the cake has been built up to be this super extraordinary masterpiece due to all the talk of it on facebook. And they saw the pictures of the one I made for Mother’s Day, which looked really beautiful. This one looks somewhat sad.

I’m really trying. It would normally be impossible for me to show up at a party, especially with people I hardly know, with anything less than perfect. But I’m really trying to believe that it is good enough and that they don’t really care.

Tags: anxiety, cake, good enough

I’ve been trying to stay out of my head this week – you know, it’s a crazy world in there. Work is a life saver right now. My boss’s sister and mother came in from out of town to stay with him for a few days. They are extremely nice people. Within an hour or two of meeting his sister I knew her whole life story, the good, the bad, the ugly. She is very open. My boss also has a housekeeper who comes three times a week. On Friday she gave me her story, not her life story, but what is going on with her right now. It’s frustrating for her, and sad. I gave her a big hug, I really like her. She told me she never told any of the previous assistants any of the things she told me that day – I think we’ll have a good relationship and I hope she doesn’t quit. It’s nice having her there.

Today I ran the 10 mile race that has been my goal and what I’ve been training for since September. I was anxious since Thursday because I had a TERRIBLE run on Thursday night. First of all it was late afternoon and I was tired. Secondly, it was 85 degrees. It got hot here really quickly and I didn’t have time to acclimate. It was a really bad run. So I was very anxious about how I would do in the race today. Yesterday I was saying I’m never going to sign up for any more races, they are stupid, why do I do this etc. I had to go to the race expo yesterday to pick up my packet, and that was somewhat of an ordeal as there were 20,000 people signed up for this race. It was very organized and went smoothly, just super crowded.

But today was a beautiful day. I got up at 5:30am, left the house a little before 6:00am, took the metro, had to change trains (ack, very crowded), stood on line for the porta potty for half an hour and never got to use it because I ran out of time. But it was 50 degrees or so when we started, not a cloud in the sky, no wind, perfect. The course was flat flat flat, but very congested. There was one tiny hill on the last block of the race before the finish line. In the middle of the race I finally decided to stop to go to the bathroom, and I did have to wait about 5 minutes for the porta potty. My official chip time was 1:51:02, but that includes the 5 minute delay. My Garmin time was 1:47:52. My goal was 1:50:00, so I beat that. I really can’t believe I did it to tell you the truth. I’ve been icing my Achilles all day – both sides are in pain, particularly the left. I have to take it easy for a few days.

Another interesting thing happened this week. I got an email from an acquaintance that I’ve been out of touch with for a year or so. I met her through school; both her son and mine have the same type of learning disability. She sent me an email saying she wrote a book and is having a book signing at Barnes and Noble. I responded and we got into an email exchange about how our boys are doing. I told her about my son and his problems. She is an educational consultant and she gave me some referrals to people who can help. I called one of them – he is a “transition counselor”. He works with teenagers and young adults who are having trouble deciding what to do. He is retired from the school system; he worked with kids with learning disabilities. I told my son about him and he seemed interested in meeting with him, so I’m going to make an appointment for them to get together. This is the first thing my son seemed to go along with. I stressed that this is NOT therapy, and there won’t be any testing unless this counselor really thinks he needs it or my son requests it. I’m feeling very positive about this.

A few weeks ago my t, J, had told me that I should start talking to my husband about the things we are talking about in therapy in reference to my son, which I did. My husband was unresponsive. I told him about the ideas that J and I came up with to encourage my son to get on a proper sleep schedule, and I needed help implementing them. But my husband wasn’t too keen on doing anything, his response was, “We need to wake him up an hour earlier every day.” Huh? How are we going to do that when we aren’t even here during the day? And what’s with the “we”? We = me.

Before I called the transition counselor I emailed my husband and asked him if he wanted to get in on the conversation. His response was, “You can talk to him and if we hire him and have a meeting, I’ll go.” This is bringing back so many of the same feelings that I had when my son was younger and I was trying to get him services and testing and the things he needed educationally and mentally. My husband was never interested. I always felt like it was my fault because I wasn’t being assertive enough in letting him know what the problems are and what the solutions could be. And now the same thing is happening again. I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong here. I guess I should bring this up in therapy; I’ll put it on the list of the other 10 or 20 things that have come up recently that I wish I could talk about.

Tags: feelings, husband, running, son, work

Working is definitely getting in the way of blogging – both writing and reading. There have been days when I was out for 12 hours, and unlike many days over the last couple of months those hours did not include sitting at Starbucks or Panera reading and writing. Right now I am focusing on fitness, nutrition, time management, and work, not necessarily in that order.

I’m feeling a lot more energized. The less time I have the less time I waste.

I don’t think about killing myself all of the time. I’m still waking up in the middle of the night a lot, and when I do I continue to get that sick feeling that I’ve been getting for the last year or so – crap, I’m still alive? I don’t like that. But during the day I’m really too busy to fantasize much about dying.

I am feeling a lot of anxiety about work, and how capable I am and whether I can get everything in, etc…. I guess that is to be expected. I’ve started major to do lists and calendars to stay on top of it all.

Tomorrow I see J. I’m thinking I should quit therapy. Maybe all I needed to feel better was a job. But maybe we can try again to figure out a way for me to help my son. Maybe I’m in a better frame of mind now. I don’t think I’ll see Parrot T anymore. I just don’t have the time or energy to start over with someone new. Not right now.

I’m sorry I haven’t been commenting on blogs. I try to skim them, but I really need to take some time and catch up.

Tags: anxiety, blog, death, work

Well I think my life has changed since the last time I wrote, which was a mere two days ago.

I’ve been answering ads on Craig’s List in an attempt to find a job. Whenever I send an email in response to an ad I get no reply. However on Saturday, as I was sitting at my desk in a stupor after running 13 miles, I saw a new ad posted. Someone looking for a part time personal/executive assistant, which is exactly the type of position I was looking for.

I crafted a cover email and attached my resume, sent it off, and kind of forgot about it. No one ever responds. But a couple of hours later I did get a response and it was a positive one. He asked me some questions, I answered, and he asked if we could talk on the phone. We set up a time to talk on Sunday. That call went well, we chatted for about half an hour, and he decided we should have a meeting. We were both free an hour later, so we met at his home office in the afternoon. I was there for 1 ½ hours, and it seemed like a real connection. You know me and my connections! Well, I really felt the connection, and it seemed as though he did too. But he said he was interviewing another person and he would get back to me by Wednesday.

Today, Monday, I got an email from him saying that he really has mostly made his decision, but he wants me to fill out some forms for a background check and wants me to take a test that he found online. He said that the position is not contingent on me doing well on the test, but it’s a way to determine my strengths and qualifications. He had given me a sample question when we met yesterday and it was kind of fun, so I told him I am looking forward to taking the test.

I emailed him back the forms for the background check, and I am going over to his office on Wednesday morning, both to take the test, and to actually begin working.

This has all happened so quickly that I haven’t even had time to process it all. All I can say at this point is:

– This man is very intelligent, seems caring, seems like he also feels the importance of connecting with people, and owns a very busy business with which he needs help staying on top of
- During our discussions I felt quite at ease, both with his personality and with the degree of difficulty of his questions in regard to my abilities and experience
- We both seem to have some of the same interests, beliefs and values
- We each have two children, his are one year apart in age from my own
- He has a beautiful home in which I’ll be doing some of the work, and a lot of the work from my own home
- It’s a perfect type of position for me in terms of flexibility, number of hours, and salary
- I can still do my volunteer work, but will be giving up my other business which is the professional organizing. Not enough consistency, hours, and therefore income, in that type of work
- I will still be able to work for the college consultant, who is a great friend and so supportive of me, and for whom I work about 3 hours a week
- I’ll be making $350 to $450 per week, which will enable me to keep my personal trainer (assuming I’m not working during those hours!) and I will be able to see whatever therapist I want to see, regardless of whether or not he/she is participating in my insurance and I won’t have to ask my husband for money
- I actually feel pretty good about myself, well, when I’m not feeling like I’m a total fake or fraud and it’s just a matter of time before he finds out

Other than that, I feel excited about starting a new direction with my life. This businessman for whom I’ll be working, I’ll call him R, is really serious about doing his research before hiring anyone, so I feel comfortable that if he does decide to definitely hire me it will be for the long run.

We’ve already had conversations about marriage, children, psychology, passions, nutrition, health, exercise and each other’s personality. And that’s in addition to the discussions we have had about office systems, productivity, finance, internet research, computers, international travel, the college search process and various other professional topics.

Tomorrow I meet with Parrot T. I’m not feeling anxious right now. What is there to be anxious about? We meet, we talk, we click or we don’t. If we do, I make a decision. If we don’t, I won’t see her again. I believe that I am feeling anxious about the prospect of leaving J, more so than starting with a new T.

This morning when I had my workout with my trainer I was wearing long sleeves to cover some self inflicted injuries incurred over the weekend. Despite the long sleeves my cuts were visible, you know when you are working out your sleeves don’t always stay all the way down. He asked, “Have an encounter with a cat?” I replied in the affirmative. He said, “The cat win?” I said, “Yep.” I don’t know what he imagined, and I’m wondering why I cut so low on my forearms, which I don’t usually do. I’m unclear as to whether I was flirting with the idea of cutting my wrists, or if I cut in a place where someone might notice. Either option doesn’t really sit well with me.

I want to thank my dear friend Grace for her support when I am feeling hateful of myself, despite her own troubles and being so sick that she was in the hospital, she is caring and loving and selfless. I only wish her happiness and love and peace, and for her therapist to come back from vacation and tell her that she’ll be ok. Thank you dear Gracie!

Tags: anxiety, connection, cutting, friends, work

I’m still here. I ran a half marathon this morning. Now I’m alone in the house. I’ve been thinking. Of course. How does one stop oneself from thinking?

So in July of 2007 I needed a therapist to help me with some issues I was having with my son, who was 17 years old at the time. That is when I started to see J. I went in, told him about my son’s problems, I must have mentioned my son’s name because in looking at old emails (a nice thing about Gmail, you can save everything!) from that time J mentions my son’s name, and he helped me come up with plan. We had a whole thing in writing, like a contract sort of. I met with him a few times. In one email I sent him I mentioned the guilt I felt about all of the mistakes I made with my son. He replied that he wanted to know when we’d like to meet again and how it would be helpful to talk about that guilt. But I never pursued it.

This time around, when I needed help with my son’s issues it’s a whole other situation. Now it’s all about feelings, and J trying to get me to see that my son is being unfair. He said if I see the unfairness of the situation it will give me permission to implement a plan. Now it’s all about me. I don’t really understand it. I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to working this out with him.

I meet with new T on Tuesday. Parrot T. Woman T. Stranger T. Causing me a lot of anxiety T. I have anxiety with J, even though I’ve been seeing him for so long. But Parrot T might be worse. I should stop worrying. Living in the future – none of this has happened yet.

Tags: guilt, running, son

Click on them if you want to see the photos full size. Doing some cleaning and organizing around the house too. Trying to decide what to throw away. It’s hard.

Tags: cooking, family

On Friday, before the snow started, I sent J an email with my homework assignment. I was supposed to figure out what a parent’s responsibility is for their adult child. Basically what I said in the email was that I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to write about parents in general, or me specifically. If it was about me specifically, then I feel a lot of responsibility towards my son because of the things I didn’t do properly during his childhood. I gave him a link to a post on my blog where I wrote about my son and the difficulties he had academically, and what I tried to do for him, and how I ended up messing things up pretty badly. I also told him that he was welcome to read other posts on my blog about my son, but he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to.

Then I told him that thinking about this has brought up old bad feelings that I don’t want to deal with. I would rather focus on the problem. And don’t I have responsibilities for my daughter, my family, and myself? I told him that I just wanted to solve the problem without it being about me.

And I told him my son’s name.

And then I mentioned the insurance company difficulties, and how I am concerned that I had to lie to the insurance customer service woman, and now I am concerned that they will find out that I lied because of whatever paperwork J has to send in to them with my claims. And that was about it.

I wasn’t really expecting a reply, since I didn’t ask him anything, and this was just an assignment that he asked me to email to him, and the last time I emailed him he didn’t reply. I’m glad he didn’t send me back an email because I had enough to deal with over the weekend with the weather situation.

But this morning I did get an email from him saying that I bring up some good points and that this assignment was a prelude to coming up with a plan for my son. He said he would be happy to develop a plan but whatever he suggests would be just that – a suggestion, but he wanted to conceptualize my role first.

I felt really stupid once again when I read the email, and I was even more happy that he didn’t send it to me last week, because I would have been thinking about it all weekend and thinking about how I suck at therapy and here I am messing things up again. Of course he had a plan, why would I think he didn’t have a plan? And here I am saying I don’t want this to be about me, I just want suggestions for dealing with the problem and I don’t want to think about my feelings and all he was asking was for me to conceptualize my role in order to be able to make a plan.

And then he addressed the insurance issue – he said that he can handle it with minimal disclosure and he can show me what he submits to them. I don’t understand this at all, I really asked him if I could just pay him, and not deal with the insurance company at all. Why would he be opposed to that – maybe he thinks I don’t have the money to pay him and he’s afraid my check will bounce or something.

He didn’t say whether he read the blog post that I sent him the link for.

This morning I was talking to my husband about how I am “sharing” my friend’s personal trainer. We signed up for 12 sessions – which is 6 weeks – and he asked how much it was costing. I told him it was $55 per session, but it is a onetime thing, I’m only doing the 12 sessions and that is it. He said, “$100 a week???” OK, I guess that is a lot of money, but he has a gym membership that is $100 a month. Yes, that is $300 a month cheaper, but he has been going for a couple of years and I only want to do this for 12 sessions. After that I can do the workout on my own, or with my friend.

This afternoon, right after I got the email from J, my husband finally got around to asking how my workout went this morning, which I was surprised about since he never asks me how anything goes in my life. I told him that I had to pay the trainer the full amount in advance, so could he put $600 in my account. He got really pissed off and scowled and finally mumbled, “Fine.” Then I felt like a real piece of shit. Here I am using my family’s money to work out with a personal trainer 12 times, a real luxury, and how dare I do that? He plays golf all summer, which is expensive, and belongs to a gym, and my daughter has her own horse that we pay for board and lessons and horse shows, etc etc. And I want to spend $600 on a trainer and he gets pissed off. Just thinking about it is making me upset. I hate having to ask him for money.

I really want a new job. I’ve been answering job ads on Craig’s List, but no one ever gets back to me. I guess I have no marketable skills that anyone wants, and I have no way to make any money. The people that I normally work for haven’t been calling me because their workloads have dwindled lately, and they don’t want to spend the money on me. Or maybe they just don’t like me, who knows.

I just really feel like a worthless piece of garbage right now. And I have gained 5 pounds recently. It seems every day when I step on the scale there is another pound. I’m not sure if it is due to stopping the wellbutrin, or maybe I’m drinking more. I do keep track of all of my calories, but maybe I’ve been cheating too much. I really need to get my act together. I even bought some diet pills, but they don’t seem to do a thing. I certainly don’t feel any different or eat any less when I’m taking them. That was a waste.

This evening I got an email from the trainer asking, “How was today?” That was all he asked, and I started to read all kinds of things into it: He doesn’t want to work with me, he thinks I’m lazy, I complain too much, I’m not strong enough, I’m too fat, I’m too weak. I emailed him back asking, “I thought it was fine. Did you think it was ok? Did I complain too much?” He replied that I did fine and he wanted to be sure he was addressing my needs. Now I’m wondering what he really means, when maybe what he really means is what he really said. My mind is just totally spiraling out of control at this point.

Tomorrow is therapy and I get to go in there and feel like an idiot again. Isn’t therapy supposed to make me feel better about myself? When does that start happening?

Tags: blog, daughter, email, exercise, feelings, insurance, money, negative thoughts, son, weight, wellbutrin, work

Today is the day I was supposed to meet my mother, my sister, and my sister’s friend for lunch and shopping. My mother already backed out, and yesterday my sister said she can’t go either. So it’s just me and her friend, L. L is the one who gets messages from dead people. Other than that, I like her, and she is easy to be with. I really need to get out more, so it should be good. I also went out to lunch with another friend yesterday, and that went well. I think know I spend too much time inside of my own head. I also haven’t been working enough hours, I need to work more. Especially now that I’ll be paying full price for therapy. Hopefully therapy will end soon. How do you know when it’s over anyway? My t once said that he works with people for an average of 6 months, and I’ve been going way longer than that.

Thank you for all of the kind wishes about my father. Yeah, I miss him.

I ran along a different part of the river yesterday. It’s the part with the rapids and waterfalls and it is really dangerous. There is a bridge built over the wildest section and I stood on that for a while. The water was so crazy it was making me dizzy. Here is a photo, I didn’t take this, but it shows the intensity pretty well:

I saw four people carrying rafts down to the water – I can’t believe anyone would raft in that ferocious water. And the water must be incredibly cold too. It was even too intense for me, I would not want to die that way. Not peaceful at all.

I’ve been thinking about how the act of suicide affects those left behind. I know someone whose mother committed suicide when she was teenager, and I’ve been doing some reading. Apparently, and judging by this person I know who is pretty screwed up, suicide of a parent or loved one has a lasting impact on the survivors. What isn’t fair, though, is that these people don’t generally show appreciation or gratitude for the suicidal person when she is alive. But after she is gone they get all fucked up. I guess one can’t really expect the people in one’s life to be constantly reassuring them that they are needed and valued though, especially when that person acts like nothing is ever wrong.

Tags: dad, death, friends, mother, running, sister, suicide

I’ve been swinging wildly between believing 100% that J is lying to me, to believing 100% that he is telling the truth and that there is another explanation, to everywhere in the middle. This is not helpful, it is not doing me any good to think about this. I will never know the truth, even if I come right out and ask him, I still won’t know. So I have to make the decision as to whether I am going to move on regardless of the truth. The truth is a moot point right now.

It was not a great night. I called in sick to my PTA meeting. I hate those things anyway, but I am the Vice President, so I am kind of obligated to go. I ate a cupcake! Remember my cupcake post from back in the fall? I bought a cupcake at the cupcake bakery yesterday – salted caramel. There was a 3:2 ratio of frosting to cake – perfect. I ate it. Yes, I ate it in lieu of a real dinner, but I did eat it. I counted it as 500 calories. Second course was klonopin. Dessert was vodka. So many MalCopS (maladaptive coping strategies) in one night. Too many to mention.

What am I going to do about therapy? My goal was to continue until May. J doesn’t seem to think this is worth it. No, wait, he didn’t say that. He asked me if this is worth it. That is all he said, it’s me deciding that he believes it’s not worth it. Although I didn’t ask him if he thinks it is.

I realized at some point between last night and now, that what I have gotten from therapy thus far is awareness. I am more aware of how I think about things, about how I react, about how my sensitivity is me, and not necessarily other people trying to hurt me, about how I treat myself. I never used to be aware of those things, I guess I knew about them on a subconscious level, but now it’s conscious. I think this is part of the reason why therapy continues to be hard for me, now that I am aware of them I need to talk about them and figure out what to do about them. I have written so many times about making that leap from knowing something intellectually to really feeling it and believing it but not knowing how to do that. Is it better to continue to be in denial about the things that are making my life less than what I want it to be, or to be aware of the problems and yet still be unable to change them? If I continue in therapy will the point come where awareness becomes change?

Becoming aware of all of these issues was really hard, and reading my blog last year reconfirms that I was having some unpleasant periods of time. But I’m afraid that moving from awareness to change is going to be even more hard, because it will involve taking more and bigger risks. So maybe that is why I am currently stalled. I thought that writing that 2009 recap based on last year’s blog was kind of a eureka moment, but in actuality maybe it was a catalyst about to precipitate change. It wasn’t an end product, it is a beginning. And that scares me a lot. So last week when I went into my session expecting that we would talk about the email, and then we didn’t, maybe I didn’t push the issue because I really don’t want to talk about it. So I blamed J for blowing it off when maybe it was really me.

Tags: drinking, eating, food, klonopin