I've Been Here Before

Yesterday was a pretty crappy day. Among other things, I ended up having to call the police about Kid-1. It's Spring Break and I made BFF agree that I didn't have to watch Kid-5 until noon this week. Well, she came and got me about 11 - Kid-1 refused to take his morning meds and picked a fight with his brother then threw at fit at BFF for asking him if he had taken the meds. I got up and tried to get him to take his meds calmly but things progressed and he refused and I physically forced him to come into the house. (I was afraid he would take off into the neighborhood because he was so angry.) Even once in the house, I couldn't get him calm again and I couldn't get him to take his meds. It escalated further and I pinned him to the floor in the kitchen and he still wouldn't take his meds. So I had BFF call 911 and send for the cops.

The cops came. They had one heck of a time calming him down. While two of the four cops were trying to talk him down and one of them was wandering aimlessly up and down the hallway looking bored, the other one stood there looking confused.

He looked around several times and then he looked back at me and he says, "I've been here before."

I blushed and shrugged and nodded my head towards Kid-1, still struggling with the officers. "This isn't the first time..."

But the officer shook his head. "No, not for him." He continued to look around him. "It was something worse, much worse. It was something horrible."

"It might have been me. I overdosed a couple of years ago." The desire to hide under the covers and never come out again grew so strong at that point that it must have been written in neon over my head.

"Was that you? On the couch?"

"Yeah, that was me." I shrugged again and tried to smile. "I'm doing much better now."

It clicked in his eyes. "I didn't think you were going to make it."

My attention was redirected back to Kid-1 at that point, for which I was rather grateful. But it has stuck with me since then. I knew that I had come close that day but I guess I didn't realize just how close.

And now I keep thinking, "What if?" What if I had succeeded? I know it would have hurt everyone deeply, horribly, irrevocably. But at least it would be over. At least I wouldn't still be hurting everyone all the time, letting them down all the time, holding them back and setting them off, neglecting them and using them.... Wouldn't they seriously be better off without me?

And yet I'm stuck here. And this bites.

12 Most Annoying Habits of Therapists

Okay, I read this article over at Psych Central about shrinks' bad habits. Bear in mind that I've already been struggling a bit in therapy. The inappropriate comparison between BFF's shrink and mine, the struggle to stay on task so that I have something to take away from each session, the feeling of drifting aimlessly and then the incident last week with the schedule have all been on my mind quite a bit. So here's this article about things that shrinks do that are "bad habits" and why.

1. Showing up late for the appointment: Yes, I know this is supposed to be a big no-no. And The Shrink is exceedingly guilty of this. He is almost always late from 5 minutes an hour. But, quite frankly, this doesn't bother me at all. I have plenty of stuff to do while I wait. I don't feel like he forgot me or doesn't value my time. But people run over or things take longer trying to leave the house than anticipated, or things come up that have to be handled. Perhaps there is something wrong with me, because this just doesn't faze me at all. It bothers The Shrink to no end and we have had many conversations about it, but I just don't care. Verdict: Not Guilty By Reason of Effect

2. Eating in front of the client: I can see where this could be a no-no. It's rude to eat in front of someone when they aren't eating as well. And it shows poor time-management skills, a lack of discipline, or a health issue when either party feels like they need to eat during session. The Shrink does this consistently, eat in front of me. But he almost always offers to share, occasionally even insisting. And he has only started doing it since things have become much more casual between us. Once again, him eating in front of me doesn't bother me at all. I guess could be construed as distracting sometimes but for the most part I take it as a sign that he feels comfortable enough around me to grab a snack if he's hungry. (It's not like he schedules time between patients that he can eat then instead.) Verdict: Guilty, misdemeanor level.

3. Yawning or sleeping during session: This is one that I would take very personally if it happened. There are times when The Shrink is obviously exhausted, although more often than not he will deny it. And there are times, on rare occasions, when he has been known to yawn once or twice during session, usually when he is obviously exhausted. But he has never fallen asleep or come anywhere close to falling asleep. And he has never yawned to the point of being intrusive or offensive. Verdict: Innocent.

4. Inappropriate disclosures: This is quicksand territory for me. I am an emotional voyeur. I want to know everything about everyone and eat up as much personal information as I can get about everyone. Even though it's not appropriate, I have no limit as to the amount of personal information that I wish I knew about The Shrink. So, from my boundaries, he has never made an inappropriate disclosure. Now, from more traditional boundaries, this becomes more debatable. A lot of his disclosures are made deliberately to illustrate a point. All of the big ones have been extremely intentional. There are 2-3 things he has told me that are quite personal and quite intense but that he told me because they related directly to an issue I was having at that moment. They were all things from his past that have been resolved as well so it's not like he was role-reversing the therapy process. On the other hand, there are a million little things that he has disclosed that have nothing, or very little, to do with the problems at hand. And we will often get off onto tangents about these things and end up having conversations instead of therapy. And, truth be told, there has been at least one issue that we have had to come back to almost every session that is completely his issue and not mine - that is his habitual lateness. Again, like the other things, his disclosures don't bother me. In fact, I love them and encourage them. Occasionally, I have solicited them although I try not to do this often because I respect his need for personal boundaries. Verdict: Not Guilty by Reason of Entrapment.

5. Being impossible to reach by phone or email: The Shrink always returns emergency phone calls. He has made a point of making sure I know that if I am in crisis and don't know what else to do, he is available by phone for short "coaching" sessions. I am to call and leave a message and he will return it. And he has always returned my call before bed the same day in those cases. If I call for any other reason, I typically hear back from his admin assistant within a few days. Other than those coaching sessions, The Shrink is not available for anything else between sessions. BFF's shrink checks her blog before their sessions because that's where she does her Homework. I can email the Med-Shrink links to articles on relevant topics between appointments and he will return my email with instructions or to tell me we will talk about it at my next appointment. I know many people whose shrinks read their blogs anywhere from regularly to occasionally. The Shrink does not do that period the end. So, bottom line, The Shrink isn't as available to me as I wish he was, but he is not impossible to reach in an emergency. Verdict: Not Guilty (which is not exactly the same as Innocent).

6. Distracted by a phone, cell phone, computer or pet: Never. If his cell phone happens to go off in session and he has forgotten to set it to vibrate mode, he will pull it out of his pocket and silence it then put it back. He has never, in 3 years, taken a call during an appointment. One time we both got distracted looking something up on the computer but a) I started it, b) it was directly related to me, and c) it was both mutual and consensual. Verdict: Innocent.

7. Expressing racial, sexual, musical, lifestyle and religious preferences: Even the article makes a point of saying this in an extension of the disclosure rule. And, for the most part, the same thing applies to this as to that: for myself, I soak it up enthusiastically. He never brings these things up on his own, rather they get expressed as part of the conversation/discussion. When his views on things do come up they are never presented as judgments and he has never even implied that he expects others to share those preferences. I not only don't want to know about his preferences, I am interested in what he thinks and believes and enjoys. As for being distracting or detrimental to the therapy process, maybe. There have been things I have not really wanted to bring up because I know his views on them are not positive. But for the most part, that is a matter of trusting him as a therapist to keep his preferences for himself separate from his role as a therapist. And he does this very well. Verdict: Not Guilty by Reason of Entrapment

8. Bringing your pet to the psychotherapy session: He has never done this. Given the setting, this is not likely something he's even considered doing. Verdict: Innocent

9. Hugging and physical contact: The Shrink does not do this, period. He has extremely well-defined physical boundaries. I think he might have shaken my hand the first time we met but I'm not positive about that. He sits across the room from me, regardless of which chair I choose to sit in. When he hands me something, he stretches his arm as far out away from him as possible so as to maintain maximum physical distance between us. He doesn't do this in an "avoid-me-like-I-am-the-plague" kind of distance but rather in an "I'm-not-going-to-hurt-you-or-spook-you-by-getting-too-close" kind of way. And, based on the kind of guy he seems to be, I can't imagine him ever interacting sexually with a patient. It would go against so much of who he is - totally not his style. Verdict: Innocent.

10. Inappropriate displays of wealth or dress: This one is actually funny. He doesn't have means to display inappropriate amounts of wealth. And even if he was sitting very comfortably financially, he's not a flashy kind of person so I still doubt he would even be tempted to do this. As for jeans and such, yes he does wear jeans quite a bit but generally with a nice shirt and tie. Given the environment where he works, he dresses very appropriately. And I am far more comfortable when he is dressed down than when he is dressed up. (I can always tell the rare days when he has to make a court appearance because he is dressed to the nines and looks distinctly uncomfortable.) Distracting clothing/accessories is not a habit/problem of his. Verdict: Innocent.

11. Clock-watching: Quite the opposite. He never looks at the clock, never keeps track of time. I, however, am a clock-watcher. I am practically paranoid about boundaries and not breeching them (mostly because I want to so badly). So I watch the time to make sure I don't run over our time. A couple of times I have deliberately made it seem as if I wasn't paying attention to the time to see how he would respond and he didn't do anything until we had gone over by 10 minutes. Even then he didn't look at the clock until I did, after he mentioned that we needed to wrap up. Verdict: Innocent.

12. Excessive note taking: The Shrink takes notes, yes. The Shrink has a memory for details that has more holes than Swiss cheese so if he doesn't take notes, he has no chance of remembering in session what happened last session. But he isn't distracting about it. He doesn't look like he's paying more attention to his notes than to me. About a third of the things he writes down, he speaks aloud what he is writing down by way of emphasizing that I've said something important. Could he be more transparent in his note-taking? Quite possibly, yes. Is his way of incorporating his note-taking into the process effective and appropriate? Yes, most certainly. Verdict: Innocent.

Here's the tally:
Innocent: 7/12 (58%)
Not Guilty: 4/12 (33%)
Guilty: 1/12 (8%)

So obviously, he's no heinous, repeat offender with a warning flag of bad behaviors. Still, I was struck by how many of these behaviors he does albeit not to a pathological level. He's late all the time. He eats during session. He discloses a lot. He discloses personal opinions. And he's not incredibly accessible between appointments. BUT... he would never even consider being unethical about his boundaries, he dresses appropriately, he pays attention to me (not other distractions or the clock or even his own notes) and he never falls asleep to any degree.

I guess, more than anything, the list of habits made me stop and take stock of the quiet rumblings of discontent I have been experiencing. It gave me a jumping off point for determining what my problem is. It let me confront my heretofore abruptly silenced thoughts of "Is he the right shrink for me?" in a way that my mind and conscience would allow. Here is what I actually found out...

The Shrink is a good psychologist and a good therapist. He is human and he has his quirks and, in my book, this is important to me. It's not just acceptable or tolerable, it's a requirement. I cannot and will not open up to someone who is fake with me. And the more "real" The Shrink becomes to me, the more I trust both him as a person and his advice as a professional. I know that this is not the "norm" for people in therapy, but it is very much me.

What is actually getting to me is the style of therapy itself. I see BFF with her structured, preplanned sessions and I compare it to the relaxed, go-with-the-flow style of my therapy. I envy the amount of work her therapist does for her. She keeps her on track, assigns homework and follows up on it, pushes her into looking at things she might not want to look at in the moment. She even keeps up with BFF's blog outside of session time. And her sessions are typically an hour and a half long. (This last one is because she is going through a woman's trauma clinic whereas I am stuck in the insurance loop.)

But then, I realized that the statement I made above is more true than the casual interpretation of it:

I envy the amount of work her therapist does for her.

The key point, and I didn't even realize it, is for her. Her shrink keeps the agenda. Her shrink keeps her on task. Her shrink is the accountable party for the homework. Her shrink tracks her progress during the week. Her shrink does that work - not BFF.

The Shrink tried to explain to me one time why he doesn't hold me accountable for homework stuffs. Part of it is that it needs to be my work and not his. The other part is that he assumed if I wanted to go over it, I would say something. Part of it also, though he didn't say as much, is that he had a tendency to forget about it from one week to the next. Now, he takes the time to look at last week before we start and will generally mention what we did last week.

Recently, I have been trying to prepare on Tuesday for Wednesday's session. I make a list of things that have happened or that are bothering me and think them through enough to explain them. I am trying to maximize the benefits I get from therapy. Since he won't assign homework, I try to do a little on my own. I have been trying, too, to stay on task a little closer. The goal is to take something home with me every time. Sometimes that is new insights to something; other times it is something to think about over the week or something to try and do. I don't like walking out of there feeling like it was fun but I learned nothing and planned nothing.

All of this came about when I started comparing BFF's experience to mine, her sense of purpose and focus to my wandering. Before, I just took it at face value. Now I feel frustrated and disenchanted. Is this a sign that I need to just relax and go with the flow? Or that I need to change what I'm doing for/with/about/in therapy? Or that something is wrong in the way my therapy is going?

Don't Take It Personally

unfinished post

So The Shrink is fond of telling me that emotions are not good or bad; they just are. It's what you do about those emotions that matters. Whenever I experience an emotion that I don't like (such as anger, jealousy, hurt feelings, etc) the first thing I typically do is look at what triggered them and try to decide if my emotional reaction is or is not justified (another shrink term). If it's not justified, I can normally talk myself out of it. If it feels justified, sometimes I will bounce it off other people for suggestions on how to feel better.

But sometimes I find out that it's not justified after all.

Last week, therapy felt like pretty much a wash. I knew it would be - I wasn't prepared for it. I tried to convey how this heavy, wet blanket of apathy that has settled over my mood isn't what I want to be feeling. I didn't succeed in making myself understood. The Shrink declared it a good thing since I am not hyper-irritated like I was several weeks ago. I ended up not getting anything useful out of the session. Of course, thanks to that same apathy, at least I wasn't frustrated or disappointed. With this apathy, only the strongest of feelings even register a change.

After therapy, The Shrink's office assistant told me we have a schedule conflict for this coming week. No big deal - Wednesdays are my "day off" and I am extremely flexible. Then she told me why. It seems she hadn't filled in my time slot for the month before he got a hold of the calendar. And he scheduled over my time slot. Now, I've been seeing him for three years. I have had the exact same time slot the entire time. Every Wednesday, at the same time, for three years... his assistant didn't write me in... and he forgot me.

I already have problems with feeling worthless and unimportant. I know that he is much more important to me than I would ever want to be to any of my doctors. And I struggle with feeling like I am nothing but a chart, a number, to them all. I accept that: I exist when I am in front of them and don't when I'm not. For the doctors I see frequently (like my GP) I hold onto the hope that he knows who I am when he sees me on the schedule, not just when he is reading my chart.

But I thought, after three years, that The Shrink would at least associate me with that Wednesday time slot. But apparently it didn't even occur to him. I wasn't on the schedule so I didn't exist. And my reaction to that information was to feel hurt, unimportant, worthless, and embarrassed. I looked at the trigger - he forgot me - and it still felt justified. When BFF asked me later that day how therapy went, I told her about the schedule change and the reason behind it. And I told her how it made me feel.

She told me not to take it personally. She forgets me all the time - that's the example she used. I tried to explain to her how much it bothers me when she does that as well. (It feels like I'm not worth taking into consideration when she is setting appointments, like I am furniture that should make myself available to her whenever she needs, that my time and schedule aren't worth remembering.) She told me I'm too sensitive. That it isn't personal. He probably forgot. I shouldn't let it bother me.

Okay. I didn't know quite what to make of it except that she has absolutely no respect for anyone's schedule ever. I know that and accept that as part of who she is. The same isn't true for The Shrink who just a few weeks ago was lamenting how he is always running late for my appointment because others run over and he worried that I would interpret that as him not caring enough to respect my time. (Which is so far from the way I feel that I literally laughed at him.) So I didn't put a lot of weight on her assessment.

A few days later, I related the same tale to Hubby. He also told me I was making too much of a big deal about it. He told me not to take it personally. He just forgot about me. He used the example of the kids' activities and how they have been in the same activities since September and he still has trouble remembering who is where when.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

We teach a prayer like this to our kids and wonder why they are afraid to go to sleep... We used the following modification when we were teaching bedtime prayers:

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
Angels watch me through the night
And wake me with the morning light.

But what happens when you don't WANT to wake up in the morning? When you would be just as content (or more) if you DIDN'T have to wake up at all? On some level, isn't that the desire of most sane people - that if they have to go, that they can go easily in their sleep (preferably at a very old age)? So is it that far of stretch to reach those of us who don't want to wait until we are old? How I would love to go to sleep one night and just not wake up the next day. Die in my sleep and not get blamed for it? SIGN ME UP!!

Now I lay me down to sleep
May death upon my body creep
Let God protect my loved ones' hearts
Though all eternity may us part.

Neighbor-Guy Makes Me Happy

The Neighbor-Guy that lives to the left of us is a retired schoolteacher. He lives alone in his neat little ranch house. His lawn is always well kept and his driveway always shoveled. He is a very nice man, pleasant to talk to and always ready with a smile and a kind word. He's a good neighbor, keeping an eye out for people and property without going too far over the line into busy-body.

But the thing that makes Neighbor-Guy stand out, the thing about him that makes me happy, is how wonderful he is with the neighbor kids, mine included. His yard is large and unfenced and, combined with our front yard, makes a great football field or baseball diamond. His driveway is smoother than ours which makes it better for roller-blading and skateboarding. And he welcomes them playing there. He is also well-known for coming out and playing ball with the kids, especially baseball. He's truly great with them: patient, encouraging, enthusiastic, good listener, good mediator, great referee. He sticks to the rules and expects the kids to behave appropriately but is rarely ever cross with them and never yells or loses his temper. If he sees something upsetting, he is not above letting the parents in on it, but he's not a tattletale.

To be honest, those qualities I just described exhibited in a neighbor with no kids of his own and no relation to the kids he is around....? Well, they make you think twice. While it is true that many adults truly enjoy kids and like to be around them to a point, there is also the neon sign flashing its warning about sexual predators, especially regarding single guys, living alone, with a strong interest in the neighborhood kids. In fact, the one time I mentioned Neighbor-Guy to The Shrink, he got really edgy. Now, I have to factor in that The Shrink has a predisposition towards suspicions of that nature. I know and understand where he comes by that and I'm not saying he's right or wrong, just that I prefer to analyze the situation and draw my own conclusions from it. Which I did with Neighbor-Guy.

Here are my reasons for NOT worrying about Neighbor-Guy:

1) Supervision - This is the biggest and most heavily weighted factor on my list. Neighbor-Guy has a very strict policy on being alone with the kids, any of them. His policy is that it doesn't happen, period. The kids are not permitted inside his house without an accompanying parent. (And I've only seen this happen once.) He doesn't take them places. He doesn't come over and babysit. When he plays with the kids, it is outside, in full view of the entire neighborhood. He makes a clear point of never setting up a situation where any suspicion could be cast. There is, literally, no opportunity for anything inappropriate to happen. Even without any of the rest of this list, this factor instills trust in me for him regarding treatment of my kids.

2) Past history - Neighbor-Guy is a retired schoolteacher. He taught basically forever and retired on great terms. My SIL is familiar with him from his teaching days and while she didn't know him personally, she reports nothing negative or suspicious has ever been mentioned or implied from when he was teaching. His having been a teacher shows a clear pattern of being interested in kids - he likes them. So it makes sense that he still enjoys being around them. Retiring from a job doesn't mean losing interest in what was appealing about it.

3) Balance - Neighbor-Guy doesn't revolve himself or his life or activities around the kids in the neighborhood. If they are out playing and he has time, he might join in. This is usually when he gets home from somewhere and before he goes inside. He doesn't spend excessive amounts of time with them - an hour, sometimes more, frequently less. He doesn't seek them out - it's not like he comes over and asks if they want to play. In 9 years, he has come over twice to inquire about a kid doing something. (Once was to get Kid-1 to rake leaves with him - our leaves blow into his yard all the time, so he proposed that he and Kid-1 together rake both yards. They were outside the entire time. The other time was have anyone who was interested help him reseed the front yard - because the kids had torn it up during a rough game of football in squishy weather. Again, they were outside the entire time.)

4) Physical boundaries - Neighbor-Guy isn't a touchy-feely kind of guy. He doesn't hug the kids or make much physical contact at all while they play. He doesn't necessarily avoid touching - he once showed one of the kids how to follow through throwing a baseball by moving his arm through the arc and he will help the littlest ones bat by batting "with" them. But he doesn't go in for hugs or chest bumps or pick them up or anything. He maintains his personal physical space and expects them to do the same. He sets very appropriate personal boundaries.

5) Instinct - I allow this one to be overridden when evidence suggests I am overly trusting. In general, though, I have pretty good instincts about whether someone can be trusted with my kids. My gut will send me warning signals. I never ignore them. But my instincts on Neighbor-Guy lean towards trust. I feel happy about his involvement with the neighborhood kids. I feel good that they have him as a role model for involvement while demonstrating good boundaries.

So... Neighbor-Guy makes me happy. I like the way he plays with the kids. I like how he teaches them and encourages them and enjoys them and is interested in their well-being while still maintaining an appropriate distance. He's a genuinely good guy - he helps restore my faith in humanity.

For Better or Worse

I have a feeling this post is going to be rambling. I haven't updated in a while and have some scattered thoughts to get down.

For Better: I have noticed a substantial difference since starting the Concerta. I feel much better able to problem solve and think logically. I don't feel as confused and overwhelmed by multiple details co-existing. Large tasks aren't as likely to send me into a crying jag or panic attack. BFF has commented several times on my apparent increase in follow-through and motivation. This is because I did up our budget and reworked the chore chart. I also pulled back out the Medicaid paperwork and double-checked the requirements. I'm not sure my doing these things can be attributed to increased performance from the medication as there were natural catalysts to propel me to do these things and think I would have done them regardless. But I do think it was easier to do them because I could better pay attention to the details and think more clearly.

For Worse: I seem to be stuck in this cycle of alternating between irritable and apathetic. Most things don't phase me (up or down), even things that previously elicited an emotional response from me. At the same time, I find myself easily irritated by little things. I have little patience with Kid-5 these days; instead of laughing at her quirks, they annoy me. I am having to bite my tongue all the time with BFF and she isn't even doing anything really. For no apparent reason, I just feel constantly put upon by everyone and everything. It's not like the demands on my time and energy have changed at all so I'm sure how to explain the shift in attitude and I certainly don't know what to do about it.

Valentine's Day: I hate surprises, as I say a lot. I crave predictability to the point of precognition. Since precognition is a bit beyond my grasp, I go into this pattern of mentally evaluating every possible outcome, situation and/or choice that may occur in order to have a response prepared. When I know something is coming that I can't predict, such as the impending V-Day gift from Hubby, I get nervous. The number of possibilities to sift through in my mind becomes exponential and I get bogged down in generating responses for them. I know this isn't logical and certainly isn't efficient but I don't know how else to alleviate the fear generated by the situation.

I discussed this with The Shrink last Wednesday, specifically in regards to Valentine's Day. Once again, The Shrink showed his disapproval of Hubby. I told him that Hubby doesn't do romance and I don't do surprises and described how I stopped expecting romance in any form from him because he simply isn't capable of it and also how it is nearly impossible to surprise me. The Shrink claimed that he would be able to surprise me, which I denied. He persisted, going so far as to claim that he would be able to surprise me 12 times in the next 3 months - which is basically every session. I told him there's no way he could pull it off even once. I confess to making it sound like a challenge, mostly because he got my curiosity piqued by that point. I have been with The Shrink for 3 years and he is not the "blank slate" kind of therapist - his reactions are honest and genuine. I'm pretty sure I know where he stands on everything pertaining to me. I can't imagine anything he could do or say and still stay true to himself and he is not the kind of person that would deliberately be untrue to himself. So I'm nervous and curious to see what happens Wednesday. I've been running scenarios in my mind ever since, everything I can think of whether it makes sense or not, and have not come up with anything that he could do to surprise me. I will be glad come Wednesday when he has forgotten about it and the session comes and goes without incident. (This, btw, is by far the mostly likely outcome.) Then I can relax and not worry about him continuing to try in future sessions.

But - once the playful challenging was over, he did help me find a mindset that allowed me to relax (mostly) regarding Hubby's V-Day gift. He had me examine the intention behind the gift. What does Hubby mean by giving me this present? Why is he doing it? Well, the answer is to show his love for me and to make me feel good. So The Shrink told me to approach the gift - regardless of what it tangibly is - as a token of that intent. No matter if it is the best gift in the universe or something horrible and downright offensive, the gift that Hubby is giving me is a token of how much he loves me and a tangible representation of his desire to make me happy.

I can't believe how much that helped! The two things that bother me about gifts, most especially surprise gifts, is not knowing the intention behind the gift (and, directly related to that, what is expected of me in return) and the fear of reacting the "wrong" way to the gift. In this case, I know the intention and the resulting expectation so I am already prepped for that. And viewing the gift itself as merely a symbol allows me to react to the intention rather than the tangible aspect of it.

I can apply that to any gift! It is a much shorter list to evaluate the possible motives for a gift than all the things that gift could tangibly be. And the leap from motive to consequences is relatively short. This will also help with coaching myself on reactions to known gifts of less than optimum desirability. VERY helpful...

The Gift Itself: Not only did I get to sleep in until *I* wanted to get up, I woke up to a dozen, long-stemmed, red roses on the pillow next to me. Awwwww! That evening we went out to dinner (Logan's - yum!) and a movie (Confessions of a Shopoholic - meh). But the actual gift was.... (drumroll) A DIAMOND RING! While we were waiting for dinner seating, I sent him back into the restaurant to get a pager. (They were out of them when we put our names down.) When he reached into his pocket to give me the pager, he brought out a ring box and handed them both to me. Inside the box was my wedding ring. I haven't been able to wear it months and months because it needed repaired. He had taken it and gotten it repaired for me. YAY!! (I love my ring and missed it terribly!)

Missing Muse: I still am not writing. Occasionally I will mess about with my novel or scribble part of a short story but for the most part, the desire to write simply is not here. It's not like I don't have the time. I do. I just don't WANT to write.

Unspeakable Fear

I don't mean the kind of fear that leaves you powerless to speak, move, breathe, think, EXIST... I mean the kind you literally can't speak of. Even if everyone is thinking it, no one would dare actually say it. Like when you go to the doctor with a lump and can't bear to ask the obvious question of whether or not it's cancer.

Low rolling nausea - 5 days so far, no other symptoms, not a med side-effect, unprotected sex a week and a half ago... please God, no. Please...?

My head knows I'm not. A million things could be causing this. But Fear keeps whispering in my ear. If it continues, I will test. I know it will be negative. But I can't deny the very slim possibility. God wouldn't be that cruel - right? RIGHT???

(Update 2/10/09 10 AM: All is fine according to the pee stick. No clue why the nausea. Going to ignore it.)