Just Clearing My Thoughts

Morning, it's just me again! As you might note, our Internet is up and working again!! YAYYY! I talked to the cable company. It turns out I was fine on the bill (though paid another month just to be sure) and the guy gave me a suggestion. I should have thought it out myself. I had to turn off the computer and unplug the cable box for a few moments. I’ve had to do this before. Yup, that got me moving in the right direction. Then V sent me a link to ad-aware that worked well too. It got rid of 468 of the nasty buggers. Seems the computer is working fine now and I’m not getting all the pop-ups when I’m on the Internet. YAYYY!! We will still run my co-workers Ad-ware program tomorrow to doubly make sure she’s all cleaned-up.

 

I would have to go to work to do that though. Sr. And I figured I could work from home again today. About once a month (today) she has the bookkeeper come in and take care of those matters. She will need to use the desk in sister’s office I was borrowing. The next alternative is to take the laptop into the staff dining room, However everything has to be moved at lunch time and the other Q has a staffing in there today. So, wallah! I’m at home!

 

Ok, ok, I admit one of the first things I did early this morning was to go take a nap! Woo-Hoo!! I was up at 2:30 am, but slept again from 5:30-8:00. Nice! Today, I plan on doing pre-work on the next semester. I want to get a little jump on all that. I think its going to be harder, because I don’t know much about cognition and affective behaviors. I don’t think the multi-cultural course will be as tough. I was looking through the first extra reading. It mentioned the word Neuroscience in the title which was a little intimidating. It’s a 40 page paper, so I hope to finish that by the end of the day. I could read 50 pages of a novel in an hour, but this stuff has to be studied. Yeeks! I think I will be ok after I get used to some of the terminology they are using. Keeping my on-line dictionary in business.

 

Hmm, think we’ll listen to a little Ella Fitzgerald this morning. I like to listen to her when I’ve got the time or want to maintain mellow. Hehehe her first song is "In a Mellow Tone!" She says that’s the

way to live. :)

 

Today, we have FINALLY an appointment with dr. M. YAYYY!!! It feels like we haven’t seen him in a year. We have trouble remembering things in-between long stretches. All I remember of the last session was Casey getting mad at him for abandoning her. I don’t know if she’ll be still angry. Often what happens is we get in the office and refuse to talk to him for the first 5-8 minutes and we wear our growly face. Hehehe that’s how we know Casey is mad.

 

Most sessions we are at a lost to know what to talk about. But, after we start, things seem to roll along. We had a dream of Dr. M. While he has been gone this week. The important element of the dream was that we were pretty small and somehow we let him be close enough to us so that he rubbed our cheek with his cheek. This is pretty phenomenal considering there we’ve established a strong guard against even being on the same side of the room as him. He sits opposite of us so we’re on one end of the couch and he’s on the further chair.  Hmm, this is an extra side-note added later.  I was trying to get a gist of where we've been by back-reading entries.  Just recently, we went through the thought of holding the stuffed dog close to our left cheek as a safety measure.  Maybe this had something to do with dreaming of Dr. M. in this position!  Maybe a good thing that wasn't supposed to startle us.  I wonder what he'll think of being matched up to a critter full of soft squishy material :)  Umm, back again ... we read even further down ... it appears that we've just lately brought up my grandfather rubbing cheeks too.  Difference is we hated when he did it and we liked when we dreamed Dr. M. did it (like both dog and the Lassie dog).  So, we're sticking with this as a good thing.  :)

 

This morning when we were reading the other material we came across this section that says that emotions need to be connected to an object. They stated free-flow feelings like our anxiety do not have an object, so to deal with it whatever crosses our path could become an object. This might help to explain our fear of getting and opening mail. The Mail becomes the object of our anxiety. As you might guess, this doesn’t have to be rational. Not a requirement. Most often Dr. M. Becomes the object of our fears leftover from having been abused. So, we become intimidated by the good doc. I’m hoping that one day our cognitive ability of thinking this through will get us to the point of comprehending it with our affect. We also learned this morning though that free-flowing anxiety can be caused by neuro-imbalance. Hence the idea of taking the anxiety medicine we take. Theoretically, the difference affects differences in coping.

 

Being with dr. M. is a form of coping with our strangenesses. Being cautious here not to accept the victim position. I’m thinking that the neurosis’ is also a coping mechanism, although perhaps at this state of the game not as efficient as it once was. Thinking now though that V. Would call it a defense. Have to figure that one out. :) Coping sounds more positive than defense. V??

 

We will have a lot to learn today. Maybe, we’ll read about new cool stuff, then we will be able to talk to Dr. M. About it. That be cool. I think I’m in the same position of a freshman ... I’m still studying psychology primarily to figure myselfout. I sure hope it is also going to help other people one day, cuz this is a pretty expensive way to do it! Hehehe.

 

Thinking now though of the last thinking group on Friday. I told the group that I was going to take all their anger and hold it inside me. In this way instead of being mad at each other for whatever reason, like "she called me stupid," it was going to be me who called the other stupid. I became the universal bad guy. Then as a group I gave them a chance to handle me as the bad guy. It worked out pretty good. They had me pinned as being the one to hurt feelings, but they refused to stop loving me. Whata group! The other part of the lesson was that I showed them the affect of carrying all that anger and how It gets messed with. I think of it as the Zapping experience. I was pretty animated in not only swallowing all their anger, I later went back as a spreader of the "bad stuff." I

 

demonstrated by pointing at people and Zapping them! Then I would move to their position and zap the next guy. I played out arguments such as two of the women nitpicking each other by zapping each other and expressing, "Zap! Each time the position switched. "Zap There take that!" "No, Zap! Take that" did that for 4-5 rounds, there were smiles starting to gather because they were able to see the sense of it through the humor being used. But like me it will take longer to be worked through affect. In this morning’s new thoughts, I had become there object of attention. Pretty cool, pretty cool. I’ve used this method before. Don’t think I really had its terminology.

 

My favorite trouble-maker comes to mind. He says "He did this to me!" Somehow I convey that other guy is no longer here ... deal with me in regard to your anger. Let’s see if we can’t handle it a little more functionally. I want them, and they are doing it, to "TALK" about their anger (functionality) instead of causing a "Zapping" war. A lot of theory with this group is in conveying the message of "Letting it go." This has to be done after we de-personalize the situation. I say ... that other person has a problem. You don’t have to make it your problem. Hehehe psychology seems simplified after it goes through our minds. ;) Mostly, because it has to be understood not only by the clients we are working with, but as well our younger parts.

 

The only thing I am missing today is being there for my guy on garbage day. He is obsessed with talking to the garbage men. We had worked itout that someone would walk him out so that it was safe. I’m trying to convey to him that any staff could walk out with him. I sure hope he has a successful experience with this today. I know he and a few other of my clients can hardly wait until I get my office back. They haven’t enjoyed me taking so many days at home, or in sister’s office. Pretty soon. Sister spent some good time yesterday trying to contact the people for the floors. About once a year, she gets them deep cleaned and waxed. With all the furniture displaced, it is the perfect time to get to the back rooms.

 

The other thing sister was working through yesterday beside tootsie-Roll Fundraiser was the staff appreciation luncheon. It will be the first Friday of October. I guess the place we were going is now under new management and has lost its good reputation. So, now it seems we are going to a rib place. She says they offer a full menu, but I might have to change my priority to rib tips instead of steak and shrimp. I learned long time ago, always go with the house specialty :) The rest of the day sister will give a presentation (usually, toward a religious expression), and then we’ll stop at the teacher’s store as a group. She gives everyone a small allowance to spend on whatever we would like. I’ll be looking for a Spanish Cultural Book for one of my guys to read. He’s pretty slow ... like three minutes a paragraph, but as long as he has the interest, I’d like to play it out.

 

I should be getting to the reading, but I have such a strong interest in free-thinking ... having trouble switching gears. I’m to the point of really having to think to find something of interest to me. I am wide-awake and ready to rumba! Hmm, Let’s give me about ½ hour, then we’ll go to the hard stuff of reading.

 

I’m still getting along super with my friend. We haven’t seen him since last Friday. What a night! Ok, ok ... don’t be snoopy that’s all I am going to say about that! ;)

 

Let’s see any other small subjects not covered? Let’s go back to Jane. We still don’t know if she’ll get the job. We talked back and forth a little yesterday morning. I’m trying to make it easier for both parties to work well together. I’ll have to be careful I don’t step into meddling. There were some good signs, in that although, Sr. Didn’t have the time yesterday to thoroughly think it through, she was giving it pre-conscious thought. She’d be doing something else, and then she would make comments, such as, I suppose she could work three days a week. Then she’d go back to something else, then she’s say something like, Maybe we could put her in Group 4. Those are good signs that are encouraged by me. I say simple things like Ahh, that’s a good idea. But, I have to be careful to wait for her lead and not to push. It has to be her decision. Hehe she wouldn’t have it any other way. Maybe today, while I’m out she will get back to it. I know the slow down point now is that the interview would have to wait until next week. Tomorrow she has a doctor appointment, the next day is the miniature golf outing, and the next day she has to make a trip north trying to get home placement for one of the clients whose parents are becoming very old. Hopefully, she will look at the paperwork sent in and call Jane back today to make an appointment for next week. The good thought is thatshe likes to start new people on the first of the month. So maybe that’ll push her forward. She isn’t apt to keep things on back burner for long. She sometimes cuts out people after talking to them on the phone, or if things go well, she’ll invite them in. It will be up to Jane to respond well to the situation. Go Jane! You have to be ready to respond to the negatives Sister we’ll put out as feelers. It really is a situation where the job seeker needs to sell herself. She has to help Sr. Build bridges that cover gaps such as lack of experience, or whatever. Hehehe Sr. Has never been easy! But, after she’s accepted you, she is willing to work with her staff. That’s the good part.

 

Ok, next? Still haven’t checked my books. Better take a moment for that, hold on. Ok, first step taken. The books I am looking for has a picture of top of someone’s head and the other has shadow hands touching each other. We’llnever remember the titles. Now, we have to gather new books left between work, home and car. I don’t know if I’ve seen these two or not, but can at least key into it. Task completed.

 

In the process we checked the courseroom. Neither final assignment has been graded yet, so no final course grades as of yet. Be patient, we knew this would be early for that expectation.

 

Ohh, and one more thought. We dared checked our weight, which hasn’t been done recently, and we found we were at 298.8. As extremely heavy as this might seem to others out there, it means we are at least back to under 300. No complaints there. We’ve passed up a mess of candy bars, shakes, and donuts to get this far. We should make another goal. Let’s say 292 by Monday morning. Hmm, should be easy ... just we haven’t done it yet. That’s like a pound a day. We will have to focus. Diet buddy will like to hear that!

 

We’re ok on household tasks, but should get back to the laundry by Sunday. Hmm, maybe drop off on way to Macadam's and pick-up on the way back. Sounds like a plan. Need structures!

 

We’ve been doing pretty good at picking up. By the end of the day, we should start the dishwasher again. Maybe we could make that a goal before leaving to Dr. M’s. let’s see ... appt at 5, leave by 3:45. Bring book.  Let’s say dishes at 3:30 after shower. Ok, that’s doable.  We filled up with gas last night. Good us. It’s like down to 2.67. YAYYYY. BUT, it still cost $33. Ugh! What else, what else. This is like clearing the floor.

 

Yeeks, it IS 10:30 ... that’s a ½ hour. I guess, I should be moving on to the reading. That’ll be fun after we get into it. Just a little rusty in the transition. Ok, ok ... we can do this! Later!!