Couch 211: The Stoffle couch

I have plans to make art, but somehow I have misplaced an entire pad of tracing paper, which also has my guide for the drawings I like to make.
I have also run out of white card to work on.

I actually got an "I love you, too, Mom" from D this morning! (She's off school for a professional day/Lunar New Year.)

Waiting for publishers to respond is hard. I submitted some work to a publisher in August, and haven't heard anything yet.

They claimed they'd respond by the 1st of January, which didn't happen. Now they have eight responses pending on the submission tracking website I use, but they seem to be in the business of rewarding people who already have a track record.

I called and left a message at my pdocs office a few hours ago, asking if my pdoc wants me to follow up again after Thursdays session or not. I haven't heard back yet. I'm meeting with 1 T this afternoon, but all I can think about is ex T and how I wish I could see him.

So there is a suspected—suspected, not confirmed—case of coronavirus on campus and everyone is in an uproar (as in emails from students asking if class will be held tomorrow).

The sky is falling - students do tend to be henny penny-like

I am fighting with some insane over the top dogooder on another forum over food safety and his perceived responsibility to police the unsafe practices the rest of us engage in (and have not died from yet).

What’s it to him if I want to eat yogurt past the sell-by date?

It is like the people who think everyone should have a flu shot despite the fact that 40% effectiveness is considered high for the flu shot. It is not immunity.

So is there class tomorrow?

Yougurt, cheese and I'd be more careful with. Unopened milk I've drank post two days. My rule is if it smells funny and has visible mould, I wouldn't take the risk. Pasta sauce not more than 4 days if it's already been opened.

My mama made us brown rice last year from a packet that was dated 2002.

It's okay to miss him. I wish he'd ended properly with you.

How did the session with new T go?

How did your session go?

Oh jeez. Well, T and I had an even longer conversation about masturbation today. Lord help me. I did not blush or stutter, though--go me.

I think as long as your going at a pace you're comfortable with it's all good Chihiro.

I'm super careful with food safety, but that's part of my OCD thing about food contamination (and connected to my emetophobia). I've driven H nuts at times, because he's been about to eat leftovers, and I've been like, "Wait, aren't they from 5 days ago???" I've heard 2 days for leftovers. For yogurt, I think you can be slightly lenient because it's already cultured (well, assuming it's from pasteurized milk).


Good website for food safety stuff: StillTasty: Your Ultimate Shelf Life Guide - Save Money, Eat Better, Help The Environment

Dr. T was recently saying something about a turkey he'd had in his freezer for months and was wondering if he just needed to pitch it. (It...somehow tied into the conversation.) I mentioned that site to him and thought he'd picked up his phone just to write down the site. Nope--he was looking it up. And found it was still OK (I think?). So maybe I saved him some money!

So H officially met Dr. T today. D was at a session with P, and H had been sent out of the room. I was about to meet with Dr. T and said H could meet him. They greeted each other and shook hands. H told me later how Dr. T was shorter than he'd expected, even though I'd told him his height. H is 6'3", Dr. T is about 5'7". Both have beards--H's is red, Dr. T's dark brown. And both were wearing glasses today, though it's only a sometimes thing for Dr. T. I felt OK about it, but we didn't really discuss in session at all (maybe Thursday?)

Session went well. I was talking about a conflict with H over the weekend, and Dr. T picked up his notepad (he's taken notes like maybe 3 times since I've been seeing him). I was like, "You're taking notes now? Oh wait, are you just writing your grocery list?" T smiled, then showed me a diagram he'd drawn with how communication ideally works, with "listening, understanding, and [something I'm forgetting]" on the one side, then an arrow pointing to "Solutions" on the other side. Which was to illustrate that H and I were jumping to solutions before doing the other steps (like on both sides). He's better at doing marriage counseling with me than ex-MC was with the two of us... Like if ex-MC had shared some of this with us, might have really helped. If we brought up an argument, he tended to focus on the "but you got through it!" aspect. Not sort of breaking down how it went, how we each could have handled things differently.

In doing that, Dr. T was still validating of my reaction. I said how H said the next day that he felt like he was coming down with something. Dr. T: "Maybe a case of a**hole-itis. Symptoms: slight fever and acting like an a**hole." Which made me laugh.


And I got a very warm "Take care" from Dr. T today when I left. He's said that the last few times (whether when shaking hands or right after), so maybe he's remembering that I like hearing that? (D's T, P, says it every time we leave).

Met with potential T1 today. We met for over an hour. He did say he wasn't good at being punctual, but I wasn't expecting such a long session. I was so used to exT being right on time 99.9% of the time, and rarely going over by even a few minutes. He seemed nice and seemed to understand what's been going on in the brief time I talked to him. I mentioned that exT and I met more than once a week, and he said let him know if we need to meet more and something about making sure my insurance would approve it. That was at the very end so I didn't ask to meet more than once this week. He mentioned working with my inner critic, which no one has ever talked to me about that. I don't know how seriously he was taking the whole thing, but did say he tries to use humor to lighten things to make them easier to talk about but wasn't trying to invalidate anything I was saying. Just completely different style than exT and I feel so weird and uncomfortable about starting with a new T after all this.

I eat anything that isn't slimy green, or smelly.
I just finished up some condiment that had a date on if from 2009.

never thought i would do it but had a consult with a different therapist to help figure out the best plan of action to move me forward in therapy and life after all i have been dealing with