Couch 221: Definitely Spam!

Welcome to the couch, old and new! A place to hang out - sometimes you get immediate feedback, sometimes you don't.

Shouting, "Cool Whip" tends to bring others out from between the cushions if you're feeling lonely.

This is a chatty thread. All are welcome. We're kind of psychologically oriented, sometimes. We try to be supportive. At times we discuss what that means.

It’s a place to plop down on the couch when you come home from work or wherever, or wake up in the middle of the night, or check in at lunch, rant a bit or not, and be among friends.

We advise you not to drink or drug and text your therapist ("T") - we speak from experience.

Sometimes the thread moves fast and you might get overlooked; sometimes it moves slowly and all you hear are crickets. Sometimes you get hugged or thanked pages later. So if it's a bigger question, you might want to start a new thread.

Grab a cushion, a spot on the floor, or an armchair in the corner and make yourselves comfy.

221 - if you get a call from this area code, its definitely spam!

Thanks for the new couch!!

<---- breaking in the cushions

...and while I am jumping on the couch, I am trying to talk myself out of playing hooky (hookie?) from class tonight.

You've made it this far, might as well clear the board....

Hey new couch! It's going to get cold tonight, I'm much more excited about it than the people I live with. If we could harness the power of my hot flashes, I'd never have to turn on the heat! Hope everyone is well, stay safe.

It feels like xmas eve. And youre just waiting to get a ton of coal dropped down your chute!

Fall back is just making the night go by slower.

I never understood that. Coal makes fires, especially back in the day.

You can write with it too, can't you?

I think I would trust this instructor a lot more if she could pronounce "rubric" correctly. She has said it like 4 times this evening and mispronounced it each time. Research your pronunciation, woman. haha

How does she say it?

I am considering picking a bone with the NYT Sunday crossword people. They put in a clue that should have distinguished between Zeno of Elea and Zeno of Citium, but failed.

First world ivory tower problems.

roo-bick

ok now we're starting for reals later cats!

Oh, that’s that thing—rhoticity?—where some speakers drop an r if there’s another r in the word, especially if the dropped r isn’t in a stressed syllable.

I searched my old emails to find my family’s email thread on election 2016. I’d forgotten—it happened just a few days after Smaug dumped me for no good reason. I was not a happy person that November.

Anybody got the "@@ teaches us a new word" square?

When something from your therapist's personal life comes into the room, how do you respond? Like you would to any other person? Or do you just ignore it?

It's become apparent that he and his partner have broken up. It came up because a few weeks ago he decided to take an extra long trip to his new school which interfered with our sessions. He basically said "I think I'm going through a break up and need to take a few days as a sort of personal retreat". Lately a few other things have slipped out. Nothing huge, just a little bit leaking out, and all of it is in context of what we're discussing. Like when we were discussing setting up a home office for me, he referred to the desk he has at home as just that, where previously he had called it his partner's desk. Then, while discussing ambient noise sleep apps, he mentioned that about a month ago he started letting his dog sleep in the bed with him and how he enjoyed hearing her snore. Today when discussing our remaining sessions, he mentioned he was going to visit family at Christmas because he's doing the pandemic alone.

If this were not a therapy relationship, I'd tell him I'm sorry that his relationship ended and I hope he's doing ok. And I really want to express that to him, but I don't know if I should. I'm not sure if he even knows he's dropping hints like this. It feels weird not feeling ok saying what I would normally say to someone in this instance. What would you guys do?

I would ignore it. Because he’s not any other person, and because he’s leaving.

NP, you could say something vague like, "I get the sense you're dealing with something right now, and I hope you're doing OK." I said something like that via email to ex-MC once when he had to cancel at the last minute and got the sense it was something going on with his wife (I believe this was after I knew she was sick). It sounds like he's saying an awful lot to imply something is going on. You shouldn't have to take care of him. At the same time, I know how that instinct can come out. And in this case, with his making comments like that, it seems almost like a gorilla in the room.

Ah... it's kinda funny that earlier in the semester she was pronouncing the 2nd R. Suddenly tonight she's not. I wonder if that rhoticity thing happens when a person is tired, she sounded really tired tonight. Even let us out early.

I would not ignore it, because he is bringing it into the room, and the room is the place to PRACTICE HAVING DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS. IGNORING ISNT HAVING.

Sorry for yelling but i feel very strongly about this. Dont make me mark my territory!

Be brave!

As part of our discussion posts tonight, we did this Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale
and our discussion posts we had to answer a couple of questions about it (like, how researchers could use it and if our result was what we expected etc.) I really enjoy doing the discussion posts.