Harriet M. Welch

I’m going to have to work on title creation. Today is Wednesday December 24th – Christmas Eve. We don’t celebrate Christmas, but Merry Christmas to all of you who do! I know this is a hard time for some people. Family issues, eating, traveling, the economy – it can all be difficult and I hope everyone is coping well.

I really thought I was done cooking for a while, but my in-laws are coming over for breakfast tomorrow, so I am making overnight cinnamon rolls and yeast waffles. I’ve been preparing those for the last hour or so, and now the dough for the rolls is rising and then I’ll put them together with the cinnamon filling and let them sit in the fridge overnight.

I really wanted to work out today, but I had to take the dog to the kennel, I worked for a while, a friend took me out to lunch and then we hung out at the mall, then I did errands, then I went out to dinner with my family and then I started cooking! I controlled myself at lunch because I knew I was going out for chinese food for dinner and I always overdo it with that. Just the sodium alone is enough to make me gain 3 pounds.

So let’s review yesterday. Yesterday was therapy day. I went to my appointment prepared with a topic to talk about. J (my therapist) started with, I have to ask you this since the holidays are coming up, how is your anxiety? I said that I have no problem with the holidays, there is something else I’d like to talk about, it’s not very interesting and I could talk about holidays if he would prefer. He smirked at the “not very interesting” comment, since that is one of my issues, but he said I should talk about my issue if that is what I want to talk about.

Notice that he did not bring up last week’s homework assignment. I’m wondering if he just forgets about these assignments, or if he assigns them strictly for my benefit and not to discuss at a future session. Well, if we’re not going to talk about them I’m not doing them. So there.

I explained the whole story about not contacting the therapist who could help us with some family sessions and how I dropped the ball and how it’s always my fault that my son isn’t successful and that there are family problems, blah blah blah. We talked about that for a while. He wanted to know what I thought the therapist could do for us, why I thought I was responsible for setting this up, how people are resistant to therapy and I can lead a horse to water but can’t make him drink (we have a horse by the way, and whenever we give him water he drinks it, but that’s another story). I told him that I thought we needed a plan and that having a third party help us develop it would take the responsibility off of me. He agreed that having a plan is good, but that my husband and I could make a plan. The main thing is how we are going to determine whether our son is successful at school next quarter. This quarter he got 3 F’s and one D. So do we just want improvement, i.e., 2 F’s and 2 D’s, or do we want to set a higher goal. J wants me to sit down and have a talk with my husband about what we expect from our son and then we tell our son what the plan is.

He tried to suggest certain times that might be good for me to talk to my husband, I thought that was a bit micromanagement-style, I mean, I think I can determine when it’s a good time. J suggested a good time would be on our four hour flight this Friday, but since I’ll hopefully be in a xanax induced stupor since I’m a fearful flyer I didn’t think that would work. Then he suggested there might be time while we’re relaxing on the beach; but I just said “Look, I don’t want to deal with this while I’m on vacation.” He said, well maybe you can talk to him while you’re home over the next couple of days, you’ll be packing, etc etc. OK, OK, I said I’ll talk to him, I’ll figure out a time.

So I think we wasted some time in minutiae details that I can handle on my own, but whatever. I also mentioned that I thought that we needed a plan in case my son had to come home in March. J didn’t understand what I was talking about. I explained that the 2nd quarter of school ends in March, and if he doesn’t do well he is coming home for good. I said, yes that is negative thinking and that is not good. I think before I even gave him a chance to say anything, I said “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be thinking negatively. Never mind.” I kept saying “never mind”. I can’t help it, based on my son’s academic history for the past 8 years I can’t help but think that he might not succeed in this last chance that we are offering him. But it’s negative thinking, I prefer to think of it as realistic thinking.

I was severely criticized by my son’s therapist about a year ago when I expressed negativity about his ability to be successful in college. It hurt me pretty badly, and here I am doing it again, this time with my own therapist, and I get the feeling that he is judging me and it’s hurting me. That’s transference I guess. Once again, no one is validating my feeling, or exploring my feeling, just judging me. That’s probably another thing I should add to the list of subjects to talk about with J.

We also talked once again about how I feel responsible for ruining my son’s life, and J asked if theoretically I can believe that isn’t true. I said, no, theoretically, realistically, rationally, whatever, I truly believe that I ruined his life. There is no doubt in my mind. Yes, it is up to my son to do his work, whether he likes the class or the professor, or whether he doesn’t. But the motivation isn’t there, and that is due to mistakes that I have made over the last 18 years. J said an interesting thing – that my husband’s attitude towards my son is “Do your work”, and my attitude is more empathetic. I said I agreed with my husband that my son needs to do his work, and J acknowledged that, but said that I have a more empathetic view of my son’s problems.

After the session I felt gross. Why is that? I felt like I had spent the last 45 minutes stark naked running around the therapist’s office. Which is ridiculous, I was fully dressed and sitting on the couch the whole time. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had 45 minutes to kill, I went to the bookstore and wandered around aimlessly, then I drove around for a while. I just felt awful. I guess it’s exposing myself emotionally, it feels like taking my clothes off in front of strangers. Ick ick ick.

In the afternoon my mother called to chat. She asked when we were leaving on our trip and I said Friday. She said, “Have you been checking the weather and watching the news? Oh this is a terrible time to fly. People are getting stranded at airports everywhere, there is so much bad weather and so many storms and you have to be careful.” I reminded her that I am a fearful flyer and that I don’t check and I use coping strategies so that I can remain calm prior to flying. “Oh yeah,” she said, as though she just remembered, “I shouldn’t be talking about this.” I was so pissed at her. What the hell was she thinking? I work so f**king hard at being able to fly and this is what she tells me? I’ve been in f**king therapy for 8 years so that I can go on vacations with my family!! I was so pissed, did I mention that? I said, “I have to go now, I’m busy. I’ll talk to you later.”

When my husband got home I told him what my mother said, and of course he didn’t give me the response that I wanted. Is it right to want a certain response from someone when you tell them something. Probably not. He was going on and on about how what is the point of checking weather and crowds, especially around Christmas time and winter, etc. What I wanted him to say was “She was wrong to say those things to you, you work hard at being able to fly, I’m very proud of you for your accomplishments, don’t listen to her, tell her to f**k herself, etc.” I kept saying “I know there is no point in checking which is why I don’t check, that isn’t why I’m telling you this story.” But he kept repeating himself, and he never said what I wanted him to say, and my daughter was sitting there and I could tell she knew what I was talking about, that I was saying my mother was being a thoughtless bitch and that’s what I wanted my husband to say, and he wasn’t saying it.

Then last night I drank too much – I had three drinks with no dinner of course. I was watching “Good Will Hunting” and I was crying during most of it. Sobbing I should say. I also decided that I didn’t need klonopin before bed anymore – just quit cold turkey! Dumb!!! I woke up at 3:15am with a panic attack, I haven’t had a panic attack in months. I also felt like I was getting a migraine. So I got up, took half a klonopin (yeah, I don’t even deserve a whole one I’m such a loser), and tried to breathe myself back to calm. The klonopin worked luckily and I did go back to sleep, but when I woke up this morning my eyes were swollen, my migraine was in full force and I felt nauseous. I drank coffee, took an imitrex, hot shower, and managed to get myself out of the house.

OK, I’ve been rambling on way too long here. Anyone reading this – I certainly don’t expect you to read the whole thing. It just feels good to get it all out here, it’s very cathartic. I’m writing this for myself, to clear my head, to get things out that I could never say to anyone in person. If no one ever reads this it’s perfectly fine. I never realized how good writing this all out would feel, and I even have more to say – but my fingers are getting sore.

So – have a Merry Christmas to everyone and I’ll write tomorrow about how my conversation with my husband went tonight about our plan for our son.

Tags: anxiety, beach, drinking, eating, family, feelings, flying, food, friends, husband, klonopin, negative thoughts, son, son's therapist, transference, vacation, validate, xanax

Worked Friday, did errands after work – I had to buy wrapping materials for gifts, and ingredients for all of the things I needed to cook. For my sister’s holiday party I made cookies, pecan pie and cheesecake. Her party was Saturday afternoon. Then we went out for dinner with friends on Saturday night. Lots of eating happening on Saturday. Then my daughter and I had a party to go to on Sunday evening, and for that one I made Asian Cabbage salad and Chocolate/Whipped Cream/Heath Bar trifle. Plus we needed to bring a little gift for a gift exchange, so I made some decorated cookies and wrapped them up and put them in a pretty basket. Here’s what they looked like:

And here is the trifle:

Basically it took me all day Sunday to do the cookies, trifle and salad. The party was kind of weird, there weren’t that many people there and I had a few too many glasses of wine and I think I got a little loud, although everyone was laughing. Not sure if they were laughing with me or at me, but what the hell, it’s the holiday season, right?

So I’ve been off the wellbutrin for 5 days now and I don’t really feel any different. I still have the irritability, which kicks in around 2 or 3PM every day, and most of it is directed towards my daughter. Not coincidentally I guess, she gets home at about 2:30PM. I am just so frustrated with her leaving her messes all over the place, I’ve almost fell at least three times over her shoes, coats and bags in the garage, and then she leaves half eaten and half drank food and drink all around and the dog gets into it, and she doesn’t throw her used tissues away, they are just scattered around her chairs – ICK!! I’m feeling overwhelmed by this mess of a house and it is making me very irritable. Dare I say angry?

Maybe being on the anti-depressant made me less sensitive to these things. But there really does have to be a limit to how much of a mess one member of a family is allowed to make. It’s just so disrespectful to everyone else.

And then there is my son, and his college issues, and my husband is not getting along with him right now either, so he is irritable, which is making me more irritable.

Tomorrow is therapy. I didn’t do my homework. It’s not that I didn’t think about it – I was supposed to notice when I got urges like driving off of bridges, etc, and write down what might be causing these urges. First of all I had a lot more on my mind this week, and I was very busy. And those really aren’t excuses, I swear. But secondly, I really really believe that there isn’t anything causing these urges, I think I just have a mental illness that makes me have bad thoughts. Or “irrational mental impulses”. I don’t know, I just don’t know.

Most of the time my therapist doesn’t even remember assigning homework, so I’m not too worried about it. I would prefer to talk about my feelings of guilt and self beratement that I am having about not calling the family therapist that my friend recommended. I think that is an area that would be beneficial to be explored, and hey, I’m the patient so I’m in charge, right?

I’m actually not as anxious tonight as I usually am the night before my appointments. I’m wondering if that is because I’m not on the wellbutrin anymore, although I don’t know if the effects would be apparent only 5 days after totally stopping. Wellbutrin can be activating, and maybe it was making me more anxious. Or maybe I’m just getting less anxious about therapy in general, finally after how many months? I worked out on the treadmill this morning and I’m going to yoga tonight, so maybe all of the exercise will help too. And feeling like I have something to talk to him about is reassuring as well. We’ll see how it goes, it never seems to go like I imagine it will!

Tags: anger, daughter, eating, food, friends, guilt, husband, intrusive thoughts, running, sister, son, wellbutrin, yoga

This is pathetic, isn’t it? I have something to talk to my therapist about and I’m excited about it! I agonize all week about what I am going to talk to him about, whether it will be interesting to him, whether it will represent myself, whether it will help him to understand me.

So the situation is that my son basically failed his first quarter at college. He got three F’s and one D minus, so his GPA is 0.167. He didn’t do any work which is why he did so poorly, it’s not because he had a hard time adjusting or he doesn’t have the intelligence. He is extremely smart, he just has some learned behaviors from middle and high school and has figured out how to get by without doing any work. So he used this same technique in college, and ended up failing. However, he did have a successful social experience, which I am very happy about because he has had social skill dysfunction since he was a small child. He also suffers from dysthymia, anxiety, phobias, etc.

His school is on the quarter system, so he came home before Thanksgiving and is going back around January 4th. Since he came home he has remained in his room watching tv, playing World of Warcraft, sleeping all day and staying up all night. His high school friends were home for Thanksgiving, so he got together with them a few times, but then they went back to school.

My husband and I decided that we would let him return to school for one more quarter to see if he could improve his grades. The school put him on academic probation as well. He also lost his scholarship, and he doesn’t seem to care about the fact that we now will have to spend $8,000 more on tuition than we were prior to the failing grades. My good friend told me that she knew of a good therapist who could perhaps help us develop a plan as a family to ensure my son’s success.

On Wednesday she told me that she talked to her friend and he thought it should be a condition of my son returning to school that he talk to a therapist, and that some family sessions could benefit us. I think this is a great idea. Then she told me that this therapist’s office is one hour away from our home, which makes it about 2 hours away from my husband’s office. And I knew that my husband and my son would be very opposed to the idea of seeing a professional to get outside help. My husband and I have talked about what we are going to do if my son’s grades do not improve next quarter, and we will have him come home in March permanently if he continues to fail. However, what will we do with him them? He doesn’t want to get a job, he doesn’t drive, he doesn’t want to take classes, he refuses to see a therapist.

So now it is up to me to convince my husband and son to see this therapist who is not anywhere near our home. In addition, my son is going back to school in two weeks, and we are going on vacation for 6 days next week, so we are on an extreme time restriction. I thought about it all day yesterday and basically just decided that I can’t do it. I can’t even try to convince them that this is an important thing to do as a family, I am afraid of conflict, I once again am failing my son. This has been a pattern of mine for as long as I have known that my son has had problems.

I have been successful at times in the past at convincing my husband that my son needed professional help, but usually he gives in by saying “whatever you say, fine” and then when things don’t work out he complains about the waste of time and money that I insisted on. I just don’t want to go through this anymore. My son is now 18 years old! But I still feel like everything that goes wrong is my fault because I am too weak, too ineffectual, too afraid of conflict to take a stand and say “This is what we need to do”.

I emailed the therapist last night and explained how this would not work out for us at this time, and of course he responded so nicely with offers of help including referring us to someone closer to our home. Which totally takes away my excuse of why we can’t go to see someone. And I hated that he was so nice to me – it really bothers me when people are nice to me.

Now I feel like a total worthless failure, which is how I basically feel all of the time, and this just serves to prove that it is true. And now I have something to tell my therapist so that he can see just how worthless I am and how badly I parent. And maybe he’ll finally get it.

Tags: friends, husband, parenting, son

Tags: cat, daughter, eating, friends, intrusive thoughts, sensitive

So of course the first thing he asked me is about my anxiety, but he worded it differently today, he said “How has your anxiety been outside of the office?” I didn’t answer, just launched into my little speech so that I could ask him to read my letter. Which he had no problem with, he read the whole thing. He frowned at part of it, smiled at part of it. He talked about therapy being able to start at the bottom or start at the top, which I guess means if you are having problems you can start to figure it out by analyzing the problems and then working to the root of the problems, which would be starting at the top, or if you already know the cause of the problems then you can just jump right in and start figuring out how to resolve things. I think I’d rather start at the bottom. I have a lot of problems due to the BIG things, so why waste time fixing the problems when I should just fix the BIG thing, and then all the problems will be fixed as well. Theoretically.

We talked about resistance and holding back, and he said that is common, which he has said before. He gave me two or three examples of things I’ve told him that have been very valuable and he acknowledged that those things must have been difficult for me to talk about. I like when he acknowledges that instead of just trying to resolve things or explain things, it’s nice to hear “that sounds like it was difficult for you.” I guess I need to have my feelings validated every once in a while, which sounds ridiculous. They are my feelings, what difference should it make whether anyone validates them? But, that’s the way I am. I did say that one of things I told him about last month was because I just really needed something to talk about in our session and I was kind of testing him to see what would happen.

We talked a bit about “obsessions” which I prefer to call “bad thoughts”, although a term like “irrational mental impulses” sounds very scientific as well. So I have these bad thoughts, which he confused with fantasies. I was getting a little frustrated, there is a big difference between fantasies and irrational mental impulses. The example he gave was if he is driving behind a crazy driver he can have a fantasy about getting a gun and blowing the guy’s tires out. I said “so, if you do have a gun in your car would you have to pull over and hide the gun so that you don’t actually act on the urge to blow the guy’s tires out?” That’s the difference between a fantasy and a bad thought. He tried to get me to figure out what I get from the bad thoughts, for example if I have an urge to drive off a bridge is it because I really want sympathy from people, or I want to imagine what my funeral would be like, etc. I have no damn idea, I just get the urge and I don’t want to have the urge. Do I want sympathy from people? Maybe, but is that why I get the urge? He continued to talk about fantasies, like even though he doesn’t want his wife to die he sometimes fantasizes about her being dead and he knows that it’s perfectly normal because there are times in his life when he hasn’t been getting enough attention or feels like he is being taken for granted. OK, that makes sense, but then I asked him if he has ever had the urge to pick up a kitchen knife and stab his wife to death. I think that he finally realized what I was talking about when I was trying to explain the difference between fantasy and “bad thought”.

I’ll write more about this session tomorrow, it’s too hard to write it all out in one day. But I did feel icky after the session, so I came home and wrapped up the cookies that I’m giving as gifts. That was fun, and I tried not to make them too perfect, trying to be less than perfect is so hard for me.

Tags: anxiety, feelings, intrusive thoughts, resistance, validate

I spent practically all of yesterday baking cookies, and I’m in the middle of another batch today. I decided to give cookies as holiday gifts to various people in my life. Today I went to the store and bought chinese take out boxes, cellophane bags, ribbon, shred, etc, everything I need to wrap up the cookies and have them look pretty. I get into these Martha Stewart frenzies every once in a while. I used to be like that all the time (pre-SSRI), but now I just have twinges.

As for the terror, tomorrow morning is my weekly therapy appointment. I think I finally finished revising the letter I’m planning to give to my psychologist explaining how I think we’re not on the same page in regard to my issues and why I think that is and why I have trouble explaining myself in therapy and why I think I’m never going to be successful in therapy. I don’t know how he’ll feel about reading it, so I’m a bit terrified about asking him to read it. I mean on a good day I’m terrified about being in that room with him and having to talk about myself. Not that there is anything wrong with him, he is so nice and patient and he has a good sense of humor and he actually says things about himself. He looks like a combination of Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, which could be the problem. Since I have such a low self opinion of myself, and since I think I’m so fat and ugly and stupid and worthless, why would a Brad Pitt/Matt Damon combo want to have anything to do with me?

I actually got brave and said to him “I don’t think you could possibly be interested in anything I have to say”. His reply was “I thought you felt that way.” He assured me that anything I or or any of his patients have to say is fascinating to him because he is fascinated by people and that is why he is a psychologist. Is that a good answer, I don’t know.

I’m going to my favorite yoga class of the week tonight, so hopefully that plus a couple glasses of wine and a klonopin will calm me down.

Tags: anxiety, drinking, klonopin, self esteem, yoga

Tags: cat, random

When I was 9 years old I read Harriet The Spy.  It was the first book I read with a main character that was just like me.  She is smart, observant, wry, independent, private and stubborn.  Harriet is rich and is raised by her nanny, whereas I was not.  But I don’t think I understood the social class aspect of the story when I read it, I was just enthralled with Harriet.

I wanted to do everything Harriet did, and go everywhere she went.  I started writing in a journal, observing people’s behavior and making comments about them, usually rude ones.

I was socially awkward as is Harriet, so I’m surprised I would take such a risk with my meager social life by putting mean thoughts into writing.  I also did mean things like put tacks on a classmate’s chair.  Ow.

Yeah, I was a bit screwed up as a kid.

Tags: book, childhood, different

I’ve been feeling very irritable for the last couple of days. I’m sure it’s from reducing my wellbutrin dosage. I’m down to 150mg from 450mg. The buzzing in my head has definitely lessened, which is such a relief. I was afraid that it would never go away even when I stopped the wellbutrin completely, but I can really tell a difference. I’ve slept great for the last week and a half also. The combination of reducing the wellbutrin, drinking two glasses of wine and taking 1mg of klonopin before bed (a practice I don’t recommend to anyone else by the way) has worked like a charm. I hadn’t slept through the night in months. It’s actually a shock when I wake up and see the clock says 7:30am! I’m so used to seeing it say 4:00am, 5:00am, 6:00am, etc.

This morning some nasty neighborhood dog was outside barking at 6AM, which set my dog off, but I was able to go back to sleep until 7:30. I went to a great yoga class this morning, one of my favorite teachers. She will be teaching this class every Friday morning, so I’m going to have to set up my schedule around it. Between physical therapy, mental therapy and yoga my January weeks will be full.

So about this irritability. Yesterday I came home from errands with lots of bags and groceries and I was carrying it all from the car to the house. My daughter has her crap all over the garage and there isn’t even a path to walk to the door, I almost fell and broke my neck. I walked in the kitchen, slammed everything down on the counter, threw some things around, didn’t talk to anyone, took off my coat, gave the dog a bone, threw some more things around. Finally my daughter asked what was wrong and I said in a stern, verging on yelling, tone – I almost fell and broke my neck on your stuff on the garage floor!

I think she realized the severity of the situation and she did pick up everything. I’m having a hard time controlling the irritability and I’m so worried that my even mood of the last 8 years is totally due to meds and not to any work on my part. So if I go off the meds completely I’ll end up the horrible person I was before I started meds. But I just want to get off this wellbutrin to see how I feel, I don’t even know the person I am anymore. If it turns out I’m a horror, I can always go back on the wellbutrin, or something else. As someone told me, you don’t realize the drugs are doing anything until you stop them. Time will tell.

I also finished the letter to the therapist, I think it’s pretty good. I’m hoping he is amenable to reading it at our next session and that it will facilitate communication between us about the issues that I feel are important.

Tomorrow is flying group (my support group for fearful flyers). I love flying group and I’m really looking forward to it. I need the boost since I’m flying to the Caribbean in a couple of weeks. This is going to be the first flying group since one of the two leaders retired. I had been in group with her for about 10 years, so it’s going to be hard without her there. I miss her already. She is such a special person and one I’ll never forget.

Tags: anger, daughter, drinking, flying, klonopin, wellbutrin, yoga

Tags: anxiety, cat