Giving Therapy More Chances

 I continue down a vicious cycle in which I talk with others online about mental health and anxiety, which in turn causes my algorithms to be inundated with mental health advocates and therapists. In these online circles, not going to therapy is NOT an option. If you have negative experiences, it’s either because you should “switch therapists” or because you’re a bad person who deserves to have those bad experiences. It’s literally never a valid option to say hey, this isn’t working for me AT ALL , so I’m just going to walk away and not pursue it anymore. You must always “find another one.”  And, they always tell you the unbearably high number of therapists they went through “before they found the right one.”  

In other words, there’s no therapy version of “I just want to be single right now.”  You must always “find someone.” 

One person suggested to me to try group therapy- in their mind, it would take away my fear of the therapist not believing me like the one I saw this spring, and also the possibility of them snapping on me and telling me to get over it like the one I saw in May. This would be because other clients would be present, so if the therapist was going to pull any of that crap, there would be people around to witness it. I thought they were right. Since they very suspiciously won’t allow me to record sessions to protect myself from this, the group option seemed viable. 

So I spent this weekend submitting inquiries to 12 practices that claim to offer group therapy. Yesterday, which was a Monday, I heard back from 7 out of the 12 saying that they don’t actually offer group therapy. Each incoming call or email was way more devastating than it needed to be. If I simply reminded them that their profile or their website said they did, they would just matter of fact say “well actually we don’t.” 

I never gave any history in any of these inquiries. So they had no concrete reasons to reject me at all. I can’t tell you how utterly devastating it is when I try and just get more and more turned away. I almost felt like something was wrong with me, like I was “seeing things” when I saw that they had group listed on their profiles or sites. Their condescending attitude and pervasive belief that they’re the expert on everyone else’s life makes one feel like they’re crazy in this regard. I have also noticed they do this with “specialties”. They’ll list all kinds of specialties that they have and then when you actually talk to them they’ll do a complete 180 and say they don’t specialize in it. 

The tricky thing with algorithms is that they feed you whatever they think you want to see.  So if you click on one topic, like it, comment on it, etc, it just causes the algorithm to give you more and more of that.  What happened here was just that I was getting too much information from content creators who are either therapists themselves (who often go on and make fun of their clients) or people who “strongly believe” in mental health and that since it’s the right choice for them it must be for everyone.  

I deleted my TikTok account because of this, and uninstalled the app.  It would be nice if someday in the future I could go back on and see short clips having to do with my actual interests, but my algorithm is so inundated with therapy crap that my whole account needed to go. 

It would also greatly help if therapists learned to not misadvertise.  Trying to seek help as someone who they do not believe is as deserving of that help as other women has been a nightmare for me.  The fact that they constantly turn it around on you and say “you just must not want the help” is so extremely cruel.  I do not know what kind of person you have to be to say that to someone who is paying out ten times what they make per hour to try and get said help.  (And yes a lot of their fees, I personally would have to work ten hours to pay for one hour). They are just vile.  

In some ways, I am jealous of women who can get the help, but at the same time I really am not, because those people essentially don’t have any autonomy.  I say that, because of how a lot of them had such a huge problem with the fact that I married someone I met at work, who was my supervisor.  If I was to end up seeing a therapist who didn’t believe in that, then I would have to leave my husband.  That would make things exponentially worse for me at this point. 

Cleaned Out the Fridge

 Last night was a good night to clean out the fridge at the group home. 

Holy Yogurt from 2024, Batman! I threw out an entire 13 gallon bag about 3/4 full of long expired stuff. I took shelves out and wiped it all down. It was so gross!  

Not even my parents’ fridge has ever been this bad. 

On a good note, I slept long hours at home yesterday. 

Tidbits

 Anna sent me this perfect picture of Tommy. What a good, photogenic boy!!  This picture is now my phone background. 

My life has become a big cycle of 12 hours on, 12 hours off. This group home is getting cleaner now that I’m cleaning it. The house supervisor refuses to do household chores (and also seems unable to) and the residents of the group home aren’t able to do much either. My Clorox wipes are finally not coming up so “muddy”. This place was gross when I started. Now we can walk in and not immediately smell funk. 

Every few mornings, I make the guys a big pan of scrambled eggs. They know how to do everything else breakfast related.  Except clean up after themselves. One of the guys helped me in the kitchen. I gave him one simple task at a time. Like, “find me a frying pan.”  “Get out the milk”. Etc. Then I told him to put a little butter in the frying pan, and he scooped half the entire tub into the pan. When I saw it, I was like ohhhh. No, just a teeny amount of butter. I showed him how much and dumped the rest back into the tub. A couple days later, the same thing happened. I asked him to put a little bit in, and he didn’t remember my little lesson about how much butter to put in a pan. Once again, he dumped half the tub out. 

That was eye opening. While this job may be easy, it’s still necessary. These people truly can’t live on their own. When I was a CASA volunteer, I worked with some teens that had “preparation for adult living classes” that taught them this stuff. They all caught on, as did my daughter whenever I taught her basic skills like this at home. 

I still have a lot of down time at night. I often doze off, and set my alarm for the top of every hour. This dozing causes me to not sleep much at home so I need to stop doing it if I want healthy sleep. So I brought my laptop, and I try to work on my writing. It’s hard, though, knowing that I was not believed in therapy about some key elements of my story. I just wish people knew that I am absolutely understanding of the fact that other women had different pressures put on them than me. When I told my cousin that my first boyfriend and I wanted 7 kids, she grabbed my hair and slammed my head against the wall. I got away from her and kicked her in the crotch and she grabbed my hair again. Then she forgot about the 7 kids and told me to cut my fucking hair or she would. At the time, my hair went all the way down my back. There was another time that she assaulted me that she spit in my face. That’s actually more disgusting than you think. 

What would eventually happen was that, of course, I would end up working at the child abuse shelter in Arizona. I would contract lice from the kids and it would be too difficult to comb them out of waist-length hair. So I cut it. It was also too infested to donate to a wig maker. With short “boy hair”, I was able to comb the lice out successfully. My major haircut was only a few days after the 9/11 attacks. I was watching rescue attempts at ground zero when my long ponytail was cut off. It was probably 9/14 or 15 😢. 

I wish I could be the type of woman who is believed and who “deserves” to be heard, etc. Then maybe I could go get help for some of my trauma responses. Writing my book, The Child Advocate has made me realize the astronomical amount of things I’ve been through working with children, elderly, and disabled people in precarious circumstances. I’ve absorbed a lot of *their* trauma as well. Normal people can go to therapy and unload this and be validated. I can’t. That makes writing hard. 

So I don’t know what else to do with my down time at work if I want to not doze and get healthy sleep at home. I do not want to bring any sewing projects whatsoever, because I’m afraid the nastiness of the house will embed into my sewing projects. 

The good news is I got an amazing paycheck and bought a couch for our living room with a hide a bed!!  I have a hide a bed couch at my mom’s house in Houston, but it was lest cost and hassle to just get a new one. Previously, there was no couch in our living room, just a table and chairs. Now when Anna comes, she can spend the night!  

Kevin reiterated several times that I never got a paycheck that big when I worked at his workplace. He does, because he makes a salary. (He’s a supervisor).  But I was hourly, and I reminded him that I did get paychecks like this when we had a lot of hours. I knew it was not what he meant. He meant that this is more steady. I know, and I’m honestly still jealous as fuck of him being on the Austin crew. The Austin crew seems so much more chill than the Houston crew. But not only are they fully staffed with my husband on board, but my husband is actually so extremely proud of me for other jobs I’ve had that aren’t working with him. He doesn’t really understand the astronomical amount of trauma and burden I uncovered by writing about it. 

So since I’m trauma blocked from writing on my down time, and the dozing interferes with my  regular sleep at home, the only other option is to doom scroll. I try to “positive scroll” but it inevitably turns to doom scrolling. 

I can’t wait for my next big paycheck. They’re a plus!!

Blue Texas 🧞‍♂️🌊🫐

Well, I didn’t think a Democrat sweep of Texas was possible!  I always thought Texas was rigged Republican. I also didn’t think it was possible since, for the past two years, they’ve been saying “we are in a dictatorship now”. 

What never fails is the opposite side acting like the whole country is over.  One of my friends posted this:

I wanted to say, “Quit being dramatic.”  

But I stayed out of it. 

A lot of sad and pissed off texans are blaming “Californians moving to Texas”. However, I don’t know anyone from California here. All the Californians I know never ventured past Arizona, and they all strongly dislike Texas. 

We’ll see how this plays out. I’m not into politics. Not at all. But I do lean left. I am so not into politics that I couldn’t remember Abbott’s name, and I’m still not sure what office Talarico won. 

I did get a very big paycheck today!  

I also bought a couch!  It’s coming on Friday the 13 th 

 

Can’t Find This in Houston

 Somehow I ended up on “new in Austin” TikTok, and I especially like this one guy who goes to people’s homes and buys food they make at home. There are so many people here who do this- they make a specialty at home, then sell it and you can pick it up at their home. The comments are full of people worrying about the health department, but this seems so prevalent here that it must be ok with the health department. Here is his latest video, and I really want to buy that plate from that lady!  Everyone he buys from is linked in the description. 

35 Years Ago Today

 Art is by Mary from WorshipInk in Huntsville, Alabama. 

On October 30th, 1991, I was in 8th grade at a Baptist Christian school, even though I was growing up in a Greek Orthodox family. It was my first year outside of public schools, and I was getting used to the culture shock of church services with angry preachers speaking English instead of chanting and rituals mostly in Greek. On that day, I did the thing that evangelicals like my school believed to be the most important decision of one’s life, but that my family’s denomination didn’t believe in or ever talk about- I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior. 

Even though my parents saw my decision as unnecessary because I’d been baptized as an infant, they still saw it as me leaving their church. It would cause animosity between my mother and I for decades, even though she was the adult who enrolled me in that school. 

Over the next two years, I accepted Christ 85 more times, because our preachers at school had a propensity to convince you that you “weren’t really saved”. So I would go on a roller coaster of getting saved again and again. I know I did it 86 times, because I kept a diary. However, 10/30/1991 was the first time, so it’s the only anniversary I keep. 

Do I still believe in the same thing I did at age 13? No. I’m no atheist though. I’ll get into the evolution of my beliefs later. (Maybe). Some think I shouldn’t commemorate this “anniversary” because what they did at that school was essentially abuse. However, I still do, because it’s a huge part of my story. Our hardships and trauma shape us. 

Mom Daughter Lunch Date

I drove to San Marcos yesterday to take Anna to lunch. The hair is green now!  It’s a part of her Halloween costume. She told me she’s going brown again after Halloween. 

After lunch, I went back to her place and got to visit the black cat formerly known as Jordan. A while back, Anna asked me if she could have him. She was going to take Alex, but changed her mind and wanted Jordan because he is young, only about 18 months old. She then renamed him Tommy, because her roommate’s cat is Jerry. She kind of needed a pet for her mental health, and her dad and stepmom wouldn’t let her have one of theirs. I paid her pet deposit and bought her all the supplies. 

Here’s Tom duking it out with Jerry. 

Here’s a flashback picture of Anna at age 5. Facebook said this picture was posted 14 years ago today. It must have been the first day cold enough for a jacket and gloves.