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: 11-16-2001
Wed, 06-16-2010 - 12:09am

I am going to the ENT tomorrow or Friday depending on the schedules. I might also ask the dentist to make me a mouth night guard. I realized two night ago that I was grinding my teeth and that hurt everything.

The good news is that listening to guided imageries helped me sleep through the night. Next step is to drink chamomile tea and maybe do a gentle stretch at night to help me switch off and release stress.













iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Wed, 06-16-2010 - 3:35am

Hi Karen,
Thanks for your message. It was just what I needed to hear.
I'm assuming, when you say you "like my idea", you mean helping women overcome adversity. Right?
Please answer this question!

As far as making that anniversary call with my sisters to my parents, you're right. It is a major victory. And you're right, a therapist would analyze it to death!
Except---I haven't told my therapist about it yet, and it was over a week ago. I don't know why not, but every time I thought about telling him, either I was too tensed up with the business thing or thought, I'll do that some other time.

Probably, a good shrink would get more out of analyzing why I didn't tell him about this right away, vs. the actual thing itself.

As a matter of fact, I don't need my t. for this one. I can do it myself, because he's already told me the pattern so many times. Simply, it's that I amplify and highlight the failures and the negaties, and decrease, minimize and make inconsequential the successes, as if they were just a freak, a fluke, or not that important compared to the overwhelming negatives. My t. once challenged me to talk for an entire hour just about my positive successes! Oy Vei. (Yiddish expression usually said in times of grief, but also said in gest to imply something that seems like grief, but isn't-0-something like, "good grief." He has been trying for a very long time to get me to highlight my successes.

Actually, there have been some. I am becoming more open about talking about my blindness openly. Today, (4am local time), we had another of the training calls for this business program and the trainer was talking about setting up videos on one's website. I said that, as a blind person, that would be hard for me to do. He said he hadn't realized that, but, when it comes down to doing that, he'd help me out. Now you have to understand--this guy is a top coach. I'm sure he doesn't just say that to everybody. I wrote him a thank-you note afterwards expressing my appreciation and that I'd take him up on it.

I've also been taking this program seriously. I have made every training call--and most of them are at 4am local time. And I'm really doing the work.

Karen, here's another question I want you to answer. How do you do that? Use your past experiences to help people move forward? I want to know that, because that is what I will be doing.

You are right. I am not childless by choice. A combination of factors resulted in my husband and I being unable to conceive. We went through 9 rounds of IVF. He lost his first kidney trying an infertility treatment. Subsequently, he got a second transplant--by the Grace of G-d, a cadavour donor, and the transplant was done in Pittsburgh in July, 1988. On his birthday, in fact. In a few weeks, we'll be celebrating that anniversary. 22 years. There have been some close calls, so every day of health is a blessing. Anyway, back to the IVF thing. Wow--did that knock me out. I was an emotional wreckby the end of it. That was probably one of the main triggers of my major depression in 2000, along with the despair I was feeling at the time because of the security situation here in Israel, plus a very bad visit I had to the U.S. Haven't been back to the States since.
It was while I was going through the treatments that I started adult therapy with my first therapist. He's really more of a life coach than a therapist per se. I spent two years with him. My current therapist says of that period, this first therapist was really preparing me for therapy. Probably correct. I cried my eyes out almost every session, vented the resentments I felt during that time towards my parents, husband, and the situation, etc., etc., etc.

After that, this therapist/;coach, decided to work with men only and he transferred me to a woman therapist. That was very hard. I loved this first therapist--worshipped him. Anyway, the second one, because she was a woman, brought up all the transference issues. She acted, talked, like my mother, etc., etc., etc. A good therapy issue--except that it was too difficult and got in the way. The best thing she ever did, though, was to recommend that I seriously consider going for a psychiatric evaluation, because the depression justwas't lifting. I did that and started on the Paxxil.

Then, after about eight months, I found my current therapist, and the real work began. Oy Vei--I had no idea what real work in therapy was till I met this guy!

Anyway, this is quite a roundabout answer to your question, after 9 rounds of the IVF, thousands of dollars pooer, wrung out, stressed out, etc., etc., etc., the rabbis we consulted said it was time to quit. We didn't want to leave any embryos in deep freeze, so we got the doctor we were using to agree to let us try the ninth and last time using them. Then we promised him we would desist. And we've kept our word.

Closure was slow in coming. Acceptance would be a better word. We were getting to the age limit anyway--late forties, and I definitely wasn't going to be one of those fifty-plus mothers sitting in the park!

It hurts, but I have been busy, so I don't feel the pain that mucy. And when it does come up, it passes. It still hurts, though, because Shabtai loves children so much and I so dearly wanted to give him a child.

Well, that's it for now.
Tziporah

web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Avatar for cl_nawleansdarlin
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Wed, 06-16-2010 - 2:17pm

I can so sympathize with your pain.

 

Avatar for cl_nawleansdarlin
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Wed, 06-16-2010 - 2:56pm

Hi Tziporah,


Yes, helping others get over adversity is what I was talking about.


How do I use my past abuse to help people move forward?

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Wed, 06-16-2010 - 11:19pm

Hello, Karen,
Warning--this is a very, very, very long post. read when you have a lot of time or in parts.

Thanks Karen. The story about your pregnancy and birth of your baby is oe of the most moving I've ever read. I'm not saying that just to flatter you. I really mean it. Your son is certainly a "miracle baby".
I also understand your feeling that one was enough. somehow, I always felt resentment towards women who were in infertility treatment who had already succeeded once and were trying for their second or third or fourth--if the result had been multiple birth, which it often is in such treatments, while we--the rest of us--were going through round after round still struggling to get our first pregnancy underway or succeed in carrying it through to the end. they say that is a very common reaction among women who are in infertility treatments. We figured, with both of us being blind and Shabtai's medical situation, our chances of being accepted for adoption were probably very slim, so we didn't pursue that route.
I could also understand what you meant by pregnancy bringing up all the feelings that had been hidden inside. Basically, the same thing happened with me. I started treatments in 1997. A full decade before, in 1987-88, I can't remember exactly when, I was in the U.S. with Shabtai waiting for his transplant. My mother and I had had a stupid fight over who should wear the pager. This was in the pre-cell phone era. All people waiting for transplants would get pagers, so that if a match was being considered for them, the hospital could page them and they would be able to know immediately. My mom said that since it was Shabtai's kidney he should carry it. I said that since his English was not as good as mine, I should crry it. And there were other hurtful remarks--not necessary to relate the whole story. After that incident, I went to talk to oe of the social workers at the dialysis unit where Shabtai was treated. She was a very kind, empathic and smart woman. She told me I was right and not to let my mother's remarks hurt me. We got to talking about other times my mother had said hurtful things. In general,until the transplant came through, they were very critical of our decission to leave Israel and return to the U.S. for a transplant. Why didn't we just wait it out in Israel? That's another story. Anyway, after about an hour of talking--and please realize, I had never talked to this woman before--she said, "You need therapy to work through the coflict with your mother."
I knew immediately she was right. At the time, I didn't do it because money was tight, I wasn't sure how long we would be in the U.s., and I didn't want to enter into a therapy relationship that could be long-term and then hae to stop in the middle,and because my mind was just too preoccupied with the stress around the transplant issue.
When we finally got back to Israel, in the fall of 1988, I was exhausted. It took me several months to readjust and to reorganize the house. While we were away, the apartment had been repainted and everything was just dumped every which way. Then, I just pushed it off.
Until---
I had started the infertility treatments and my mother started up with her disapproval again. She had her own fears about it--how would I manage as a blind parent? I also had my own conflicted feelings and all of it came to the surface. I went to talk to my rabbi. He was very busy, and he told me to meet him at a certain address . He was taking a taxi to another location and he said we could talk in the car on the way. Maybe that whole ride took no more than seven or eight minutes in total. I told him I "felt torn inside." right away, he said, "you have to go for therapy." and he insisted on knowing who I took as a therapist, to be sure I really followed through.
of course, I recalled what the social worker had said ten years earlier. NowI was ready to seriously enter treatment and did so. The first two issues, that required a lot of work, were the relationship with my parents and the feelings I had about having children. Those were dealt with by the first two therapists. I don't think we talked much about anything else. That took about three years.
After that, jwhen I was in my final stages of infertility treatment, I started with the third therapist, the one I'm still with. I had just gone through another round that had failed, my parents were coming, and I was very tense about that. He got me to do a visualization in which I was in a hospital room and I was being shown my baby. I cried. Just as I was beginnin g to enjoy the scene in the visualization, he cut the visualization and brought me back to the present. I felt really hurt about being brought back to reality just as I was beginning to enjoy it and told him so.
He said, and I can remember this just as if it happened yesterday, "we'll talk about that in therapy."
I thought I was in therapy. I told him that.
He said that what he had done, and what I had done with my first therapist wasn't real therapy, but pre-therapy, and did say it was healing, but still it wasn't really therapy. I didn't know what he really meant but accepted it. Then he said, and this I'll never forget either, "The real work will start after your parents' visit." and I thought: If this isn't real work, what is?
Well, he kept his word! laugh.
Non of the other therapists ever made me work as hard or struggle as this one did/does.
So, if you're still reading this long reply, I can totally relate to how something like pregnancy would bring up those deep feelings for you, because the very same thing happened for me. Maybe because pregnancy is such a woman thing--touching at the very deepest core of our being. I don't know.
I also could relate to what you said abouttaking those psych courses in college as a way to better understand the therapy process. I agree it is important to have some understanding of what is going on--just like a person going through any other medical treatment will read up on the subject. If you read the early posts in my thread, and the posts I was responding to when I first came here on this board, a lot of them have explanations about what I lerned about the therapy process. for me, reading books by people like Jack Goreman, M. Scott Peck, and others has helped tremendously. Sometimes I would read them when the therapy was extra painful and iI would look for examples of incidents that were similar to what I was going through. that helped a lot.

I wanted to let you know what is going on. i had a good day yesterday. especially the eeing. there was a big celebration in the neighborhood. a new Torah scroll was being unveiled and placed in a local synagogue. Now this is no small achievement. a Torah scroll is written on parchment, hand-written by a specially-trained scribe using an inkwell. the laws on how to write the scroll are very specific and a mistake can result in the invalidation of the entire scroll. the entire process of writing, and then placing the scroll in an ornamented casing costs a great deal of money--thousands of dollars--and can take a great deal of time to implement--often a year or more.
individuals who do this, who decide to have a Torah scroll written, do this as a result of some personal reason. for example, my husband's family had such a scroll written after the death of one of my husband's sister's daughters from a sudden illness when she was eleven. on her twelfth birthday, the Torah scroll was completed and placed in a local synagogue.
anyway, back to last night. this was a very joyous event, as are all such events, because of the great investment in such an undertaking. everybody turned out for the great event. it felt ery much like a block party. ther was a car blaring music, the Torah scroll set on it under a colorful canopy, and people walked behind, clapping and dancing. then, at various stages, the men would take the Torah scroll, which is clad in velvet and adorned with ornamental pomegranates (not real ones), and bells, and dance holding it. It is heavy to lift such a thing, like lifting a heavy box, and it considered a greathonor to be given this privilege.
anyway, the atmsphere was quite festive. after more than an hour of procession, (and the procession was no more than one long city block), they finally reached the synagogue. the Torah scroll was carried inside, where more dancing ensued. meanwhile, outside there was general gaiety, with people standing around and talking, rafel drawings, refreshments and the like. I guess you could compare it to a Matti Gras kind of thing.
anyway, there was a festive meal. this part of the event is reserved for invited guests only. my husband and i, and a good friend of mine, were invited. well, usually they serve the standard menu of chicken, rice and potatoes. this was very different. the family who had undertaken this thing were from Georgia, formerly part of Russia, and they had a lot of ethnic food I had never seen before. they also had an ethnic folk band playing Georgian-Bukharian music. the table that was laid out was extravagant and the meal took several hours.
I don't know why I'm writing all this. maybe to recall the extreme pleasure and enjoyment. i don't think i had attended a celebration i have enjoyed so much for several years. first, because it was local--two minutes away from my house, so I didn't have to go anywhere. second, because I just showed up in a nice outfit--not formal, although some people did dress up, of course, in honor of the occasion. third, because there were friends there. and fourth, not least, because it wasn't the standard event.I loved the ethnic food and music and left feeling satiated, but not stuffed, a very good physical sensation.
so, I ask you, Karen, why the hell did I sit there and bite my cuticles? can you explain that to me?
my therapist would say, will say, it's because while I was enjoying the event on one leel, and I truly was enjoying it, on another level something else was going on. something that perhaps I can't even figure out yet, although, considering what I did yesterday, I have some possibilities. I was actually happy I had gone to this eent. there have been other events like this around here. usually once or twice a year this happens here. i often don't go to them. i was really tempted not to go last night either, but decided, that since myhusband was invited to themeal, i would go. i didn't know the family personally, but the rabbi of the synagogue involved had invited Shabtai and he felt obligated to go. my husband also had encouraged me to go. i decided i was working hard and needed a break, not to become a workaholic. that was my reason for going, to break that cycle.
i don't usually like crowded events and feel quite closed-in after awhile. perhaps because this was outside, in a familiar place, and the meal itself was so different, the usual closed-in feelings didn't surface. at least not consciously.
or, perhaps, it was because i had listened to a recording earlier in the day about being passionate about your business and i'm not sure i am passionate about the niche i have chosen. this is probably it. so although i wasn't thinking about it on a conscious level, it was there.
of course, this morning, looking at my bloody and ripped up fingers, i'm not very happy with myself.
but i am happy i did go to this event, which i thoroughly enjoyed.
perhaps, as my t. would say, it is just the whole thing of getting used to success, enjoying success, that gets me anxious, and there has been a lot more of that lately--success from a therapy point of view, doing things he's been encouraging me to do for years--such as being more open bout my blindness, going out more, learning new things, breaking lose from the negative messages my parents have told me--that i would never be financially independent.
wow--this letter has been extraordinarily long. thanks for reading it.
Tziporah

web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Wed, 06-16-2010 - 11:30pm
Hi Karen,
a short note this time. laugh. after the long last post.
rthanks for clarifying what you meant when writing about adversity.
i guess you think i have that potential. i just don't feel it yet.
also, I'm anxious that dealing with people who are going through adversity is going to open me up to hearing a lot of depressing stories--the very kind of thig i want to get away from. on the other hand, of course, it could ope me up to hearing a lot of inspiring stuff as well. i guess it all depends on how you look at it and who you connect to. that is my greatest anxiety, when i think about this niche, and why i don't feel passionate about it yet. the fear i'll be thrown back into depressing stuff. that was the reason i quit what i had bee previously involved in. burned-out from all that. my therapist keeps telling me not to predict the results before i've even started. needless anticipatory anxiety--which is usually what happens. i anticipate the worst and it never materializes. and then i'm surprised when the results turn out much better than i eer expected. and he says, "you see?"
Tziporah
web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Avatar for cl_nawleansdarlin
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Thu, 06-17-2010 - 8:03pm

Hello Tziporah,


I don’t know what is about pregnancy either that brings things up.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Sat, 06-19-2010 - 10:47pm

Hi Karen,
Now this is very interesting! The guilt part in your last post. The interpretation you gave-that I was biting my fingers because deep down inside I was feeling guilty for allowing myself tohae a good time.
The reason I am saying this is because, in therapy, on Thursday, when I told my therapist about it, he asked the very same question. "Are you feeling guilt?" and I said, "no."
I mean, as I explained to him, I know what guilt feelings are, like, for example, when I would be enjoying myself while Shabtai was sick in the hospital. Or, how could I go to an event knowing Shabtai was sick? and often times I wouldn't. Or, the guilt over my very strong ambilanece about having children. Part of me very much wanted to have children, and another part did not want children at all.
So, I know what it FEELS like to feel guilt.
So, when he asked me that question, my first thought to myself was, am I feeling these kinds of guilt feelings now? I don't think I did, so, after a moment of reflection, I responded to my t. by telling him that I knew what guilt feelings were from the times when Shabtai was sick, and I don't think that was i t.
So, it really is a surprise to me that you picked up on this line of thought.
There are critical issues which bring up guilt. Things like my parents wanting me to go to the U.S. to visit them, vs. their coming here. That is a big issue for psychotherapy work.
Things like staying at home instead of going to symagogue, or watching a movie.
The only thing I can think of, in connection to this guilt, would be: I should be at home working some more, vs. going out and having a good time at this celebration. fortunately, I chose the latter.
I stand by what I originally said--I don't think I felt guilt about this event, although I could see why you and my t. would think that. Still, I can't discountit entirely, especially after hearing this proposition from two very different and reliable sources. I'll have to think about it.

in therapy we did talk about the possible sources of anxiety. basically, it came down to the fact that while, on the surface, I am concentrating on what is going on, underneath there is a whole other current of stream of thought, the internal dialogue, and the anxiety triggers are probably coming from there.
I think I know what it was, actually. I had heard a teleseminar about needing to hae passion in one's work. Probably that stirred up something and my unconscious mind was trying to grapple with it.
I just deleted the recordings of that from my computer.
y t. says I need to concentrate a lot more on action and a lot less on thinking.

Right now my fingers are almost all healed, so this is a critical stage again. My t. says that when I'm busy I bite my fingers less. If I can just resist the temptation that will trigger another backslide I'll do okay.

Plus, I did tell my t. about the call with my sisters to my parents. He had me focus on all the recent successes. Thankfully, he didn't go into analyzing while it took me a week to tell him about that anniversary call.Instead, he wanted to know how it had gone with my sisters. The usual, would have been my response, the usual dynamics between us, which wasn't bad, but had subtlties in it, which I didn't want to go into. It wasn't really relevant.

I once read, or heard, this statement:
"a person should tell his/her therapist EVERYTHINHG, but one never does."
That should explain a lot of things.

I'm glad you understand better the way the Torah celebration works. Depending on the teacher, some Catholic schools have very open-minded teachers, others do not. So, I'm not surprised at your Baptist teacher talking about Jewish things at a Catholic high school.

In ninth grade, in our synagogue's Hebrew school, we had a course on comparative religion and the teacher told us the differing positions on hell and purgatory. How about that for a class subject?
laugh.

Tziporah

web: www.life-ladders-coaching.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Avatar for cl_nawleansdarlin
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Sun, 06-20-2010 - 3:24pm

Hey Tziporah!


I have also the differences in how various faiths view Hell.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-16-2001
Sun, 06-20-2010 - 10:03pm

Hi Tziporah,

We are starting a home tech support business, mostly geared towards the expat market. I am hoping that what I learn from this experience will also ease the way to other businesses.

With the flute the position of the arms are such that it made the pain in my shoulder worse.

I am sorry I can't stay long! I've got four message boards that I still CL and it's nearly time for me to go to work, too. I work from home, but I still have to do it.

Take care, my friend. I hope that you are having a very good week.













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