Belated Welcome, Shavtay2007
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Belated Welcome, Shavtay2007
| 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!)

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Well, it is a sinus infection for me, too. The pain in the tooth is still there but it isn't as bad as it was a couple of weeks ago. If a fortnight ago the pain was 11 on a scale of 10, this morning it's a 2. I can understand that you want to yank the tooth out. Same here!
I am going to try out the neti pot and see it that works. I am also going to try out inhaling steam with some essential oils ~ rosemary, thyme and peppermint if I am not mistaken.
Hi Poppy,
Tell me about working from home!
I'm learning how to do that. My work room, the room where the computers are, we call "the office." It really looks like one too, with the two desks at right angles to each other, and the printers and computers and scanners, separate equipment for Shabtai and I, on top of each of the desks, plus the library of books on top of one of the desks, and the two telephones, and shelves with cassettes and a wall-long closet with more shelves parallel as well. We have windows in the room which look out onto a residential area. Quiet most of the time.
It's a mind set really, and not always easy to do in working at home. You have to enter the work mindset. Just as well, you have to know when to step out of your office and back into the rest of the home. I like the physical distinction this office room provides. I hardly ever work from bed. That's my relaxing room, as is the living room.
More and more people are working from home. I personally like the freedom it gives me. Especially now, when it's hitting 36 Celsius (97 Fahrenheit), I don't have to go out!
Things are going well. I remember how much encouragement you gave me when I was struggling. Things are finally starting to fit together. At least it feels like that.
This time I'm in a very good training program with a lot of support and structure. That is making all the difference.
Thanks for the musical tips. Appreciate it.
No pressure to write back. But always enjoy your posts.
Tziporah
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Hi Karen,
I'm so glad to hear your son is feeling happier. I also hope it lasts for awhile. A long while.
I read what you wrote about your anxiety attacks, that they would occur at a certain time and place and how your body and mind responded to that--the bed being the trigger for the response, even when there was nothing to be anxious about. Very interesting. From what you said, I understand that you are suggesting that this might be the case with guilt. There may be something to this, and I'll bring it up in therapy. More digging to do. But my t. is very careful about what he goes into. For example, he rarely analyzes my dreams--he says they are just my anxious thoughts and better to leave them alone. But since he did suggest the guilt topic, I will mention it to him in tonight's session.
I still can't place why I should feel guilt. It is still a mystery to me.
On the other hand, anxiety is much easier to pin-point. I often feel anxious in crowds. Maybe, in some convoluted kind of way, I felt "guilty" for not being anxious at this particular event--not the usual state of affairs, in which I do feel anxious. Could that be it? It sounds crazy, but then the mind can come up with all sorts of crazy things.
I often feel anxious in any number of situations and when I have to do the same thing again, the anxiety comes up. For example, anything involving finances, anything from getting a debit card, to placing an order, to talking to my accountant--all of those things caused anxiety attacks and I had to prepare myself to do them in therapy beforehand. I used the tool of visualizing them, going through the anxiety and only afterwards actually doing it. During the therapy itself I often got super-anxious. I had all the symptoms you described--pounding heart, etc. My t. would help me through that. It was horrible having those attacks.
Of course, doing it in real life was usually much easier than I had anticipated, but that didn't prevent the anxiety attack beforehand.
I know where this comes from--a total ignorance about finances, whereas my parents are both money-savvy. And a lifelong inability with math.
Well, as I get into business there will be a lot more of that. Laugh.
Last night, during a training call with this program, I did bite my right thumb and made it sore. And I did pick at my fingers during the day. It was a tense day. We had to deal with the elevator and it was stressful. Shabtai was feeling extremely discouraged and exasperated, not his usual state, so when he's in that frame of mind it's really intense and the matter is serious. Also, just plain hot--high nineties. Very uncomfortable.
Still, we made headway on all fronts and that's good.
Tziporah
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
I feel for you, I really do.
Hi Tziporah,
My son is still in a good mood and I am enjoying it.
You could feel guilt for not feeling anxious.
Hello, Karen,
I did tell my t. about the guilt thing. He listened, but didn't say too much, besides, "aha, aha." typical therapist response. laugh.
After that, we talked again, for the zillionth time, about my insecure anxious thoughts and how I could turn them around.
This time, after I had talked for awhile, he started that discussion with the question: "and what kind of thoughts are these?" Yesterday, I just said, "negatie, insecure thoughts." and he said, "well, turn them around." I felt nothing. But sometimes, when he starts with this kind of thing, I feel deflated, like once again, I have to go through this exercise, like--it always comes back to that. It's very hard to describe how it feels exactly, but I hate the feeling.
Actually, the procedure does help. I'm sup[posed to be learning how to do this when I'm not in therapy, when I'm by myself.
Today, towards eening, I had a bad dream. It involved something to do with my starting a business account, or with money, and my father started yelling at me that it was improper for me to do that. It felt so real, as dreams often do, but when I woke up, I realized it was just a bad dream. Often these dreams can leae me feeling agitated for quite a long time. my t. said to just tell myself it is only a bad dream and not to listen to it. I could identify that it had to do with the insecure feelings I have surrounding setting up a business, all the anxiety that is involved, especially with the emotional messages I was always given--that, as a blind person, I'd always be dependent on others for financial support. I was able to remind myself of those things, like he taught me, and it disappeared almost instantly.
He keeps hammering that point, changing my insecure thoughts, with no let up.
Many blind people have trouble with math. Researchers aren't sure why that is. It just is. Howeer, having said that, there are a good number of blind mathematicians, scientists, etc., so there are a lot of exceptions to this general rule. Obviously, teaching methods for working with learning disabled individuals and other handicapped students are much more adanced than they were in my time. For a stunning account of a dyxlexic student who is highly intelligent, you might want to read the book, "Brillian Idiot." This is the story of an Amish boy, (I don't think he was Amish, but one of those sects similar to it), who had a great deal of trouble with learning in school. Eventually, as an adult, his wife, who is a nurse, discovered her husband was dyxlexic. He went on to take an in-depth assessment and was found to be in the top 2 percentile. Hence, the title of his autobiography, "Brilliant Idiot", how, in individuals with this disability, a very high intelligence is accompanied inability to learn in the normal way. He describes how he manages in his altered thinking and how others find it hard to follow his thought patterns and presentations. He became a social worker and a professor. The person's name is Schmidt. It might be in the library.
Tziporah
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Hello Tziporah,
I'm glad you talked over the guilt thing with your therapist.
Hi Karen,
A stressful day. A lot of computer tech pressure. Have a headache.
Anyway, I don't know why it is, but the guilt thing did disappear after I did talk to my t. about it. I guess it's the process of the talk therapy itself that allowed that to happen.
Judaism has a very long tradition regarding dream interpretation. In fact, there is a book by a Jewish therapist who used the traditional model in his practice. But I have never been able to get a hold of it, unfortunately.
Anyway, the reasons my therapist doesn't do too much in the way of dreams are two:
first, when I first met him, we sort of interviewed each other. II told him about my situation and he told me about his training and approach. A very good thing to do before engaging any therapist.
He said, during that interview, "I do everything except psychoanalysis."
So, I guess dream interpretation isn't his things, whereas psychoanalysts thrive on it. Of course, he does psychodynamic therapy, so I imagine if it's really necessary, he would go into that dream interpretation thing.
The other reason, as he has told me, is that my dreams are full of negative thoughts and analyzing them would just increase my anxiety. I can understand that. Most of them are indeed violent, usually involving my parents, and some sort of quarrel between me and them. Perhaps I am having more of them now because I am really trying to make fundamental changes and break out of the mold they gave me through their messages about how I'd manage in life.
A very interesting scene which talks about the position of therapists occurs in the movie, Ordinary People, which I told you about some time ago.
The patient, a teenager, often has these disturbing dreams about the boating accident in which his brother was killed, an accident in which the surviving brother, the patient, was saved.
In therapy, he tells the psychiatrist that he's still having these dreams. The therapist asks him to talk about the present, saying something like, "I don't believe in dreams", to which the teenage patient replies, "Hey, what kind of psychiatrist are you anyway? I thought they all believe in dreams." To this, the therapist shrewdly replies, "I was actually lying. I do believe in dreams, but sometimes I want to know what is going on in the present." That scene reminded me of my own therapist's approach.
Judaism has a very long tradition with regards to dreams, starting from the famous Biblical stories of Joseph, Jacob, and Daniel, not to mention the dreams of Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezer, and others. It extends all the way down to the present. Religious people take vivid dreams very seriously because they believe that these dreams convey important messages. For example, a deceased person might come back to communicate something to a relative or important person with whom the deceased interacted. Perhaps that relative has to do something to make amends. I remember having a dream prior to my husband's second transplant. I saw him in bed, with a urine bottle by his side. I even knew the day of the week, Thursday. In fact, his transplant did eventually occur on a Thursday.
It is also believed that if a person interprets even a "bad dream" in a good way, it will turn out okay, but that a bad interpretation, meaning, understanding the dream to mean that something bad could happen, often will cause that bad thing to occur.
I guess I'm different from you. I didn't just ignore the negative messagesmy parents gave me. You were "luckier" than I in that regard. You just didn't absorb them. I did. and that has been the major work of therapy, freeing myself from the influence and impact of all those negative messages.
It would be nice if computer technology could solve all the problems of blind people. It has certainly opened up new doors, but it also has created new challenges. A lot of times blind people can't use websites because of the graphics or the way the webpage is laid out. Also, it is too simplistic to think all the problems of the blind can be solved just through technology. Even with all the technology, if there is prejudice, they will still not get the job. As Charles Dickens says so famously in the opening paragraph to his novel, A Tale Of Two Cities: "It was the best of times and it was the worst of times." This is one of the truest statements ever uttered and applies to every generation. I am glad the drag-and-speak is there for your son. I know of blind people who also use it--especially blind people who have not learned to type.
I'm starting to feel nervous about my parents' upcoming visit. I know it is a few months away again, but I'm already starting to feel the anxiety, especially as it relates to my weight. I haven't lost any this year. I'm going to talk about that in therapy. I have another session tonight.
Meanwhile, I have been making a lot of contacts and explpring ideas in connection with setting up my website. So that is going good. And we're still wending are way through the red tape mire in the elevator saga. The end of the tunnel is in sight. Our next critical meeting with the powers at large is on July 4. Here in Israel July 4 is a regular day.
Tziporah
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
Hi Tziporah,
I didn't mean to sound like I thought that technology will solve all the problems of the blind.
Hey Tziporah,
I hope you are doing okay.
~Karen
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