Belated Welcome, Shavtay2007

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Belated Welcome, Shavtay2007
1100
Tue, 03-20-2007 - 10:32am

Hi Tziporah,


I am so sorry that this is such a belated welcome to you. I've been absent from the board for nearly a month - so many things have been happening in my life that it was difficult to also come here. The good news is that life has somewhat calmed down (but I'm still crossing my fingers and my toes), which means that I'm back on iVillage.


I am so very happy to see you here, participating and sharing in our conversations! I hope that we'll get to know each other better in the coming weeks.


Welcome again!


(PS: I love the sound of your name!)


Please visit these other great message boards:
Cranio-Facial Abnormalities
In Vitro (IVF)



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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2005
Thu, 08-07-2008 - 6:05pm
Wow what a lot of difficulties Tziporah. I can see why you needed to get that out. Don't ever feel the need to apologize for that. I'm glad that the depression lifted in the end and you are back to studying scripture and that helped. I don't know if all these difficulties are a "sign" or not. I sometimes take things like that but really things just happen. I think that coaching is an excellent career for you if only these technical difficulties and all the frustrations would go away. That therapist sounds frustrating too. Excatly, why would you

Amanda

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Fri, 08-08-2008 - 8:04am
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for the moral support.
I am not sure which therapist you are referring to, the EFT one or my regular t. If it's the EFT guy you meant, well, I'm still very reserved with him. He is a no-nonsense, down-to-work sort of guy. So is my regular t., but it's still different. I mean, I could probably tell my regular t. most everything. This guy, the EFT one, I can't. I guess he's frustrated things aren't going faster or maybe that I am not responding as quickly or that the problems keep coming back. He tells me to practice between sessions, and I still am not really able to do that.
Still, after I have a session I do feel better. My back pain, which was really hurting before the last session, subsided significantly afterwards. Maybe it's just connected with my period--coincidence, or the depression lifting, or both.
As for the regular t., he is now concentrating on really deep stuff, at present my inner anger, which I have had to admit and acknowledge is still there, and the thoughts that I use in defining my life. He is very good at pointing out my pattern of cognitive errors. I've been in work with this t. for too long and gone too far with him to even think or consider going elsewhere. As for the EFT guy, he has many years of experience behind him, and although I don't divulge that much, he is very intuitive about reading me correctly. So, I guess, my frustration with them is really just that all of them, at some point, occasionally use the method, resort to the method, of giving the client a kick in the pants to get them moving. I think that is what he was doing--really challenging me. Why don't I, or can't I, practice the EFT at home?
As for the regular therapist, every statement I made in the session yesterday, he presented as just another cognitive error. If I didn't know myself as well as I do, or as he does, I would just get up and leave. But the truth is, he is correct. I do engage in these negative thoughts, see myself and my life negatively. His thesis is that the latest depression over the computer mess wasn't something that came upon me, but that I mostly brought it upon myself.
The fact is, this last round of computer complications was very inconvenient, but not a life-shaking crisis. I had exaggerated it up to a 10, when it was probably about a 5. It also has to do with the fact that I define myself by what I do, vs. who I am. It's computer or nothing, coaching or nothing. All-or-nothing thinking. That's what he says. Hard to hear it, but ture. And I still need to find a useful reframe. The one that is working right now is the one I wrote to Luosha, His timetable is not my timetable.
I had so many plans and because of the computr mess up a lot of them had to be changed and delayed.
Still, I have heard from other that they also have technological problems. I didn't cause them. It's just the price that comes with using this stuff. That helped. It's the self-doubt that gets in the way.
Also, working through the anxiety. Working through learning to wait for things, not needing to have everything right away WHEN I WANTED. It all goes back to when I was dependent on others for everything as a kid, being at their mercy. It's all tangled up.
It's learning to respond as an adult and not a kid.
That is the kind of stuff my regular t. tells me in almost every session now. Really tough stuff to hear.
I guess the frustration with the t., the EFT one, is that this was the first time he said something like that to me and I was not expecting that from him. My regular therapist--well, that kind of remark would have been no surprise. But not from this other one.
Well, I am engaging in occasional haircutting, and my parents are coming in exactly four weeks. Better leave the hair alone so it has a chance to grow out a little. But I am happy to report I don't have that much of an urge to bite my cuticles at present. I guess that's a good thing. Laugh. Tziporah
Ps. as for talking on skype, when things calm down a bit, will arrange it with you.
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2005
Fri, 08-08-2008 - 12:39pm
I was talking about the EFT therapist. I guess the same thing would frustrate and catch me off guard if it were the first time. For example, I went to my pdoc this week and usually I love seeing her but I walked away not exactly liking what she said and not being happy with the appointment - especially since it is a 9 hour day for me to do this.

Amanda

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Sun, 08-10-2008 - 3:23pm
Amanda,
You are not useless! Every message you send helps!
I know you haven't been going through an easy time from the messages you have sent me and others. You can talk here just as freely as anyone else, even if you are the CL.Or, you can always send me a private email.
As for myself, I can understand what you mean about your last session with your pdoc. They aren't there just to give us the pat on the back and sometimes they have to be blunt and brutally honest. I can remember times I walked out of my t.'s office, when he was still here, and saying: ...words unprintable.
We get angry at them.
They know that and take it as part of their job. I think it was the first time my EFT therapist was so blunt. I was thrown off guard by it.
Well, the last few days have been okay. I haven't done anything related to work since Thursday and that was probably a good thing, having a break from it.
Today, though, I began feeling stressed out about something else. My second therapist and I continued having a friendship after I switched to my current. t. We would book swap. She would bring me books on therapy subjects and I would give her books I had picked up on therapy or Jewish-related stuff.
We get together about once or twice a year.
She's supposed to be coming tomorrow to return me some books. I have been nervous about her visit all day. In a lot of ways she reminds me of my mother. She makes little comments about things, just like my mother does. I am sure part of it is transferrence. I get nervous when she comes, like she'll see something not clean and mention it. So, I started picking at a finger really badly.
The other fingers are okay, minor cuts, but nothing really significant and I had bandages on them. But then I really starte going at this one finger and mae a bloody mess. I put a bandaid on it. Still, I can't get over the nervousness about this visit tomorrow and I am really not sure I want to continue seeing her. It still fills me with nervousness.
I know about therapists who become friends of clients and seem to pull it off. I am not sure I can or even want to.
Then there is the thought, if she could do this to me, I mean trigger these kinds of reactions--the nail-biting and the nervousness, and she isn't my mother, just an old therapist with residual transferrence, what is going to happen when my mother really shows up? Just a few weeks to go till her actual visit!
Tziporah
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2005
Tue, 08-12-2008 - 10:52pm

I think part of the reason I was disappointed in my last session with pdoc is because to see her is a 9 hour day. So I guess, I expect to get more out of it since I have to put so much work into going to see her (City bus, intercity buses, walking, taxi, subway). I made an appointment for next month though, since part of the problem was it was almost 4 months since the last time I saw her and we barely touched the surface. So, I won't wait as long before going again.


That sounds difficult, having that relationship with your previous therapist. I think it's great if that works for you, but does it? Of course we can't avoid all criticism and that kind of thing, but I guess what I'm saying is we have to decide if the good in the relationship is worth more than the negative parts. It sounds like you're leaning more towards "no" on that.


I tried to get home by 10pm tonight so I would be here if you wanted to skype me (your Wednesday morning), but I was a little late. I will be home tomorrow

Amanda

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Wed, 08-13-2008 - 3:37am
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for the skype offer. I have an EFT session on Sunday, plus my regular therapy sessions on Mondays and Thursdays at 5:30am my time--which is 10?30 Cqanadian time. Plus, I have a big wedding coming up next week in the family and I am also hosting one of the post-wedding dinners. Jewish custom has it that the bride and groom are treated to festive meals during the first seven days of their marriage. We are doing one of them. So I think I have enough going on right now. Not that your conversations with me on skype haven't helped--they have. It's just that my time is limitted and I need it for doing the schoolwork.
Also, my t. has assigned me a new cognitive exercise. Not really new, because I have done it before, but new because I am now starting it again. It's the old familiar exercise of writing down one's thoughts and then challenging them. Not an easy exercise. But it has come out in the latest sessions that I tend to have negative thoughts about almost everything, so he is really using the cognitive therapy strategies to get me out of it. It is true that I do have a lot of spontaneous negative thoughts. I decided I would seriously start doing the exercise again. It does take time to write it down. However, when I do it I actually find it helps--I feel better by the end of it, once I am able to find a suitable reframe and am able to challenge the initial thoughts. It is important because a lot of the time the depression and anxiety lead to biting my cuticles. So I have committed myself to doing that exercise for the next little while.
Anyway, the thing about my second therapist is also true. She didn't come in the end and I was relieved she didn't come. I saw in therapy that I tend to see it as an all-over-nothing relationship. Still, I'm not sure about it.
Right now, my cuticles are at the intermediate stage--not perfect, not totally messed up. Somewhere in between.
As far as your pdoc is concerned, I could not see myself traveling 9 hours just for a one-hour session, so my hat goes off to you, as the saying goes.
Probably 4 months is too long a stretch between appointments, to be fair. How could it be anything but a catching-up session? The only way to get around this is perhaps to have a double session. Is that a viable option?
Tziporah
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2005
Thu, 08-14-2008 - 12:22pm

Hi Tziporah,


Yeah 9 hours is a long day - although it's only 2 hours each way on the GO bus with a little bit of travel before and after that within the cities. And then there is the wait. She is always late. I usually have to wait an hour or more for my appointment. So the earliest I can get to the city is 10:30 am because of buses. The last bus from that city to mine is 2:15 pm and with the extra hour leeway to wait for my appointment that leaves me able to book an appointment only between 11 and 12 am. So if I had a 12:00 appointment and waited an hour I would hope to be out by 2 pm. I guess it would be possible to have an appointment from 11:00 for a double (which would end up being 12:00-2:00 by the time I waited). I don't know if she'd do that, but I guess I could check. Although I am kind of quiet about asking for those kind of things. I don't want to impose. Now I must say that it is also possible for me to go home after the 2:15 bus because I can take 2 city buses and a subway to the main GO bus station in Toronto and catch my GO bus home from there, but that is a lot more work. I also have booked my next appointment for a month, because 4 months is definately not soon enough. We were supposed to have phone appointments before, on the weeks when I wasn't coming in to the office for appointments but those were never kept, so I've stopped making them. That is disappointing, but I can't change who she is.


It does sound like you are very busy right now and things could get very stressful. I hope you will have some time for yourself in between all these things. I'm glad the cognitive therapy exercise you are doing is helpful. I did something like that before, well actually a CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) group at school. Take care and talk to you soon.


Amanda


cl of the Self-Injury

Amanda

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Sun, 08-17-2008 - 2:35pm
Hi amanda,
Things are stressful right now. A lot going on. My maid has a bad back and she did not come to work today. She was on vacation last week and the house needs a good tidying-up.
I had a replacement, but she was just a igh school girl filling in so things wouldn't totally fall apart. Still, it isn't the same.
Also, got a family wedding this week and I really need to buy clothes. I could have done that sooner, but kept putting it off. Didn't want to face the fact I have gained weight. Can hardly fit into anything now. Can you believe it?
Someone last week thought I was pregnant. That, plus the previously mentioned remark from the lady ritualarium attendant are really wake-up calls for me. If they notice it, what will my parents say? Shudder. Dread.
Plus I am thinking of starting a special course on finding one's life purpose, but want to discuss this with my therapist first. Am leaning towards it. But I also know I have the tendency to flip from one thing to the other without ever completing anything. Plus it does cost money, which I have, and a lot of time investment. It is a serious course, so the commitment has to be serious if I am going to do it.
Computer working better, thank G-d.
Nail biting on the increase, but not totally a mess. Some fingers better than others. Still, not cutting my hair too much. Am really trying to let it grow out somewhat until my parents show up. I really wish they were not coming. This is not the right time, but then, there is never really a right time for them to come. It sounds terrible to say it, but that is how I feel about it.
With so much going on, the thing about my former therapist coming tomorrow doesn't even cause me anxiety. Compared to the other things that are going on right now, it is lower on the scale. And to think that last week I really was tensed up about it. Laugh. If she does say something, which she might, I'll just be honest with her and may discontinue the relationship. In any event, she does not come by so often that it really matters--just a few times a year to swap books. So maybe it is not worth making such a fuss over it.
I am still keeping up with the cognitive thought exercise. It seems to help. EFT is getting harder--more penetrating. I told him I want a break while my parents are here and during the upcoming holidays. He agreed.
As far as your pdoc is concerned, we went through this about a year ago, so no need to rehash it. Still, if you want a double session, you certainly have the right to ask for it and it might help to become a little more assertive.
Tziporah
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2005
Sun, 08-17-2008 - 3:19pm

Hi Tziporah,


I hear you on the weight front, about appearing pregnant and all. That is why I would never comment on another who might look pregnant unless I know they are because I hate that myself.


I don't think it's a bad thing that you say that it never is a good time for your parents to come. It's the truth and doesn't mean you or they are bad people, just acknowledges that it is a terribly difficult situation for you.


I hope we can talk soon and that I get over this horrible illness that keeps me from being able to do most of my regular activities.


Amanda


cl of the Self-Injury

Amanda

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Mon, 08-18-2008 - 12:35pm
Hi Amanda,
I am really sorry to hear about "this horrible illness" that you mentioned in yyour last message to me. It is the first time I have heard you mention it, although you may have mentioned it elsewhere on the board. I'm very concerned and upset to hear about this development. What is it exactly are you referring to and talking about? I hope you are getting proper medical care for it.
As for myself, the friend/therapist I was talking about showed up today. If she noticed anything, either about me or the house, she wisely kept her mouth shut. So, as the visit progressed, I relaxed more and we had another book swap.
One more lesson in anticipatory anxiety about something that failed to materialize. A common occurrence with me.
For example, yesterday I was really not too excited about going to the Western Wall with Shabtai, a holy site in Jerusalem, but I agreed to go to make him happy. Once there, however, I found myself spiritually stimulated and started to realize how much I need to pray. I even agreed to go with him on another trip in two weeks to another holy site much further away in the north of the country. Amazing. Laugh. Amazing how things can change. But this happens to me a lot. The thing I fear never occurs. Don't worry-just another one of the zillion things my t. has pointed out.
Also had a very good day in coaching school.
Tziporah
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com

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