“It worked for me.”

I got a comment last night regarding my posts about seeking therapy. This comment said that therapy worked for them, and just because I had bad experiences doesn’t mean that all therapy is bad. Oh absolutely!  I just want to make it clear that when I am talking about my own experiences in my own space, I’m talking about my life only. I learned a long time ago that different things are good for different people. It would be a pretty boring place if we were all the same. My only intent by sharing my experience is to simply share my experience. I am not lobbying to outlaw therapy by any means. If something helps you personally, and that thing isn’t illegal, then keep doing it!  

I thought that was assumed!  

This person also said that the therapists probably told me “an inconvenient truth” and I didn’t like it. If that is true, then I would like to know what inconvenient truth?  Perhaps they meant that I should not have flirted with my supervisor in 2023 and subsequently married him. Yes I know, in general, that’s looked down on. But it’s not like this was some corporate job, and it’s not like he was some politician. It was an inventory service for Christ sake!  The latest person they hired had face tattoos!  There are several other people in that company that got their significant others jobs there.  And even if it was still wrong to do what I did three years ago?  What am I going to do about it now?  Leave my husband?  Try and make me?  You can’t, because the latest narrative that therapists are trying to push is that they don’t make people do things they don’t want to do. This latest narrative is in response to what some are calling “the trend” for adult children to go no contact with parents. Estranged parents are blaming therapists, and therapists all of a sudden are all about not telling people what they should do. 

What they actually do instead, is they ask you repeated questions about your bad choice and if you still won’t comply, they “hold you accountable”. Basically, it’s telling you what to do with extra steps. One person called it “motivational interviewing.”  The estranged parents who go online and start smear campaigns against their own sons and daughters are telling on themselves and only make people side with their kids more. But do I think they’re right about the therapists telling their kids what to do?  Absolutely. Therefore, it wouldn’t make sense to try and tell me my marriage is wrong. If you don’t  tell people to cut off their parents then you can’t tell anyone to leave their spouse.

I’m not actually sure that’s what she meant though. It’s possible that she was just someone who felt undermined because someone said what worked for her didn’t work for me. That can be sort of threatening when you haven’t fully accepted the fact that people are very diverse. We should all be leaning into the things that work for us and make us healthier and happier. Sometimes, if I hate apples and you say, “I love apples!” I might feel like that is a dig against me. But it isn’t. It’s about apples, not the person. Hope this helps. 

After reading this comment, I went to the fitness center and did ten minutes on the elliptical machine. This time, my back didn’t go out!  Also it felt great!  The elliptical is definitely one way to get the anxiety out. 

Old Friend

 Well Mary, your post about homeless people asking you for change reminded me of an old memory that was too long for a comment. So here’s a post about it. 

This happened more than 20 years ago, because I know it was before my daughter was born. I was about to walk into Einstein bagels on Montrose Blvd in Houston. I had a $10gift card. A homeless woman asked me if I had any change. I said no and then literally said, “I have no money” which for me at the time, meant, I’m not carrying cash and I was also using a gift card. Back then, stuff was a lot cheaper and I didn’t know that you didn’t have to spend the whole gift card in one trip to get the full value. So I got two bagels and a bunch of snacks. This is also how you know this was an extremely long time ago. All that for $10!  

As I was walking out with my bag, this same woman started accosting me  “yeah right! You have no money but you got all of that!”  I kind of felt bad for her so I just gave her one of the two toasted bagels.  Then I remembered I had some loose change in my cup holder  I offered it to her, and she said no, and she was very happy with the bagel  

Several months later I saw her again at the nearby Walgreens.  She approached me and asked if I had any change.  I said no, but asked her what she needed. I can’t remember what else she said but she wanted rubbing alcohol to clean her skin.   We chatted a while and she was cool.  

The third time I saw her was even more months later.  This time, it was pouring rain and it was outside of Walgreens again.  I said, “oh hey!  I have not seen you for a while!”  I could tell she didn’t recognize me, but still wanted to use the fact that I remembered her to ask for something.  She told me, “Well I got my own place now”.  I congratulated her and asked where.  She told me.  It was about 3-4 miles away and due to the rain that was just starting, she asked if she could have a ride back  

In the car, she explained that she was able to get the apartment due to an organization in Houston that helped people with HIV/AIDS.  When I dropped her off, I didn’t go in, but I did wait in my car until she walked in.  She had three or four plants on her balcony.

That was the last time I saw her.  When I told my mother about it, my mother went and got her Clorox wipes and made me wipe down the passenger seat of my car.  She still had the 1980’s misconceptions about HIV-AIDS 

Chartreuse Notebooks 📒 📒 📒

 I just got to work for my Sunday night 8pm until Monday morning 8 am shift, and I brought my three chartreuse notebooks to write in. I have over a dozen more. Mostly chartreuse, but some pink and some orange. 

This is my method for books/writing projects that are entirely in your head, but you are overwhelmed with the idea of getting them onto paper. 

One notebook like this per project. 

One sentence at a time. 

Skip five or six lines between sentences. 

Later on, when you think of something that goes somewhere you’ve already written about, jot it in the 5-6 lines between the sentences it goes between. 

If there still isn’t room, add a sticky note. 

Once full or almost full, start a new notebook with 5-6 more lines between all sentences (even the ones you jotted down later). 

Rinse and repeat until project is finished. 

First, a picture of my two babies here in Austin. 

Secondly, I found an app called rebound for trauma therapy. I very begrudgingly agreed to a “free 15 minute session” (which is basically interviewing you so they can decide if they want to help you).  The lady on the other line was helpful and kind- I do not think she was a therapist though. I think she was a sales rep or maybe some kind of medical assistant therapy version. She explained that they do a method called “Pervasive Exposure” therapy. She explained it. I explained my ACES situation briefly and she gave the disclaimer that I think they all have to make, but don’t actually implement- that it doesn’t matter what you’ve been through or haven’t been through etc. I then asked about some elements of my story potentially not being believable to a therapist. She explained that the therapy method doesn’t depend on anyone believing you, it just goes through your reactions while recounting the memories and easing those up. 

Hmm I see. Then I did what they all say not to do and went to ChatGPT and told it to guide me through PE therapy. I’m going to have to think extremely hard about actually going to someone. They say not to use ChatGPT as a therapist, because they’ll lose income if everyone did so. But the fact that it’s not actually human means it literally can’t believe or disbelieve me. It has to automatically think that I can have this type of therapy if I ask for it. It’s not thinking that my trauma isn’t valid. A human therapist might. Just saying. 

 

I got off at work at 8:00 am and walked with Kevin a little in the park this morning. I lowered my step goal to 5500 and hope to achieve that each day this week. 

Coworkers With Audacity

 The home I work in has three other coworkers besides me. One is the supervisor, and the other two are older and have been here many years. The supervisor is older too, but hasn’t been here long. I just want to get this off my chest- I was always raised to not ever sleep on the job. That should be common sense, right?  Not only that, but I was raised that if I’m on the clock I should “always be doing something”, even if it’s dusting the dust. These coworkers are in their late 60’s and early 70’s and were not raised the same way. That’s weird to me, because I thought older people had more of a work ethic than younger people. 

They were getting a lot of overtime before I started, and so far, neither of the non-supervisor ladies have held it against me personally. I’m cognizant that that can change at any time. The supervisor works Monday through Friday 8-4 and the other two ladies alternate the 4- midnight shift and the weekends and my overnights off. I have three overnights off and work two 12 hour shifts and two 8 hour shifts per week. 

Between 9:00 pm and 6:00 am, we are required to log hourly bed checks on the desktop computer in the house. The computer records your time stamp, so you can’t cheat. You just click on each resident’s name and specify if they’re awake, asleep, on leave, or hospitalized. Bed checks for people who sleep well and know how to go to the bathroom take no more than a minute or two. You just look in on them lol. It’s not that serious. You have to be awake though!  That’s what the two coworkers hate. They literally want to sleep on the clock, even on the overtime clock. No, ma'am. I cannot believe their audacity honestly. I want to say something out loud but don’t, because I feel like the minute I do, they’ll start blaming me personally for cutting their hours. One of them, who the supervisor called “the whiniest person she’s ever met” complains because she has a mortgage to pay. I would say I’m sorry about that, but I’m not. People her age have hammered it into me that if I’m not making enough money, I need to figure it tf out with a second job or move onto something else. Younger me would have felt responsible for her mortgage, even though I may not ever be a homeowner. She also said that looking in on the resident ladies hourly every night “is abuse” and I didn’t appreciate that. It’s not abuse. It may be neglect if you’re sleeping by on the job and god forbid something happens. 

This particular coworker wrote a long and scathing email to the boss of the boss of the boss. Like three or four people up. She thought they’d be on her side, but my supervisor said, they aren’t. In fact, it caused her a lot more problems. The higher ups don’t like her now. Oops. I told my supervisor that she said the nightly bed checks were abuse. Supervisor gave me a look and said “Well it’s going to be ‘abuse’ when she loses her job.”  

The other coworker refuses to take the resident ladies out in outings in the van. We are supposed to. Like I mentioned, there is a whole federal law now that says institutionalized disabled people need to be integrated into the community. This coworker said, “Once I start doing that, they’re going to expect me to do it all the time.”  Really, she’s been expected to do it since 2014. I told drunk text boss. If there’s a free concert they want to go to then just schedule me on the 4-12 shift and I’ll take them. Most of their outings would happen in the morning, but the occasional “free concert” is what DTBoss was worried about them missing. It takes getting used to driving a big ass van, but I did it a couple of times when I stayed after 8:00 am and took some of them on doctor appointments. 

I have been through a ton on jobs over the years, and I can’t get over the things they complain about. The one DTboss called whiny complains about the hourly bed checks every time I see her. She says she refuses to do them and goes to bed in the staff room. She said, “What are they going to do, write me up? Fire me?”  I didn’t say this out loud but… yeah. They probably will. She then said the only reason all of this was happening was because mercury was in retrograde.  🥴

I think back to this work readiness class I took in high school, taught by my sophomore English teacher.  He would have keeled over from a heart attack if he heard their lack of work ethic.  

I’m writing this out now, because I’m going in tonight at 8:00 pm and the whiner/ mercury retrograde/ bed checks are abuse lady will be there and I’m scared today will be the day she starts blaming me for all this.  I’m REALLY grateful she hasnt!  I should just hang on to that 

Painted Rock Snake

The park two blocks away has a “snake” of painted rocks. Anna made me this one when she was about 8. This morning, I took it there and left it at the end of the snake. The step goal set on my phone is at 7,500 steps. I have not come close to meeting that goal the entire month I’ve lived in Austin. It’s because of the night shift and my efforts to get a changed sleep schedule. So I’ve been laying around a lot. But I think I have that figured out by now, so it’s time to start exercising again. 

 

Photo Dump and Austin Reflections

I was just thinking today, I’m so glad I work at this group home. I deserve to have an easy job with people that are easy to care for and easy to work with. I am grateful that my husband told me that he’d rent me an apartment and pay for me to go to Austin alone for now if I got a job. If he hadn’t said that, I would have hung up on these people when they said what the pay was. But with 5-7 hours of overtime per week, the paychecks are ok. Plus I have the time, energy, mental health and opportunity to do a lot of side jobs. 

Here are some recent photos from my phone:

I asked ChatGPT to make my facebook profile have red hair and it thought that would violate nudity. Lol. Ai ain’t that smart. Also, how many of you have written kinky stories on ChatGPT only to have it scold you?  

It does!

Facebook thought I knew this person. I don’t. You must be a bad mother if you make your statement on your profile picture “Save Motherhood, Abolish Family Court.”  Lol what IS her story?  What on earth did she do to her kids?

This is my mom as a baby with her 14 year old sister Diane. Aunt Diane and I were very close. She passed away in 2012. 

I took this selfie with Jordan, and Ai cleaned it up to look like I was in bed with perfect eyebrows and makeup. 

My sewing machine is doing this. I can’t get the tension right to save my life. 

Mitchell will only play bite the back of my wrist. And only every other time I show it to him. If he bit me the last time I showed him the back of my wrist he won’t do it this time. Every other time!