New Apartment

I moved last month. Finally I live in a bigger place, a one bedroom, instead of a dinky studio. Most of my energy went into packing, moving, unpacking, and breathing. It was a quiet weekend here. I have a lovely city view, so happy about that. The pandemic is oppressive, but I am reaching out more. Usually I have absolutely nothing to write about. Miss yous lovelies.

My Favorite Free Social Distancing Perk

There are some good free things out there on the internet since the start of social distancing. They are in no way compensation for living in a pandemic, one million citizens infected, or the loss of life.  A distraction. An entertainment. Yes. A joy even, sometimes.

There are some free show available on hbo. There is  free Battlestar Galactica episodes on Syfy with ads.

Best of all, for me, is free daily opera streams from the Metroplitan Opera. I’ve watched almost twenty operas! My favorite is  Parsifal. My least favorite is Eugene Onegin. I absolutely loved Wagner’s Ring series of four operas.  From everything that I have ever seen or heard about Wagner, I never would have thought I would love his work. Sometimes you just have to try something in order to find out.

Metroplitan Opera

New Therapist: 6 Months On

I still consider her my new therapist. I really like her as a therapist. She has better skills than any other therapist I have seen, which is incredible.

I’m really working hard in and out of the therapy hour. Some huge new revelations have happened recently.

I realized something last week that was huge, but here’s the thing, it was totally obvious, I had just never seen it before. It all started about a month ago from something my sister said. I’ll try to write about that soon.

This week marks the sixth week that I have been doing therapy by phone. That too is going good. I tend to talk almost all the way through the therapy hour, by design, but on the phone I am trying to pause more for comments than I previously would have gotten through her emotional energy, facial expression, and body language. The biggest thing about therapy is that the clinic decided to let the therapists make weekly appointments instead of only bi-weekly. It is much appreciated and much needed during this social distancing and pandemic time. I am frustrated, enraged, triggered, and saddened about all that is going on out there.

I think about posting every day and think of all the blog friends I have come to know over eleven years of blogging. If you are gone, I still think of our connections and send you love and good and healing thoughts. If you are still blogging or a new blogger to me, stop in and I’d love to hear from you. Good and healing thoughts to you all.

New Therapist

I’ve got a new therapist and I really think she is competent to handle me, which is saying a lot. I have seen her three times already.  She has shown me that she is competent to handle me, capable, and willing. She is very good at being a witness to my healing therapy while being present, compassionate, and empathetic.  Those are all huge things.

I will say that I was at the point of being able to articulate in excruciating detail exactly what I did and did not want in a therapist and in therapy and in healing. I had a long talk with the person who was going to re-assign me to another therapist. So that has gone a long way in getting me assigned as her client. She is another therapist in the office where I was going.

I’m glad that I don’t have to go out on my own and try to find another therapist entirely on my own and especially glad that I don’t have that project looming in my life right now, even if it were only to find another therapist in the same clinic. I don’t have a lot of energy for projects right now.

I had some real issues with the other therapist, to the point of avoiding going to therapy for six months. I went in one more time, and seriously I was not capable of making it work, and really why should I have to be the one who had to try to make it work? I think the partnership proved to be a bad fit, untherapeutic. She was very good at helping clients manage the everyday manageability of their lives, but that was not my situation and I was clear about that constantly. She made it hard for me to work on my stated  and agreed upon therapy goals and needs of healing from childhood abuse, especially mother daughter sexual abuse.

The clinic will only allow me to get an appointment every other week, so that is very frustrating. It is a county mental health clinic, so it has a lot of clients and they decide those issues, even though I disagree on that.  But I suppose I would need some time to transition into doing therapy once a week.  The nicest part of that is that I don’t have to pay the co-pay, since the county declines to charge me, about $50 or more a month, so that makes it well worth my wanting to stay there, Also I have not found a better therapist on my own. She promised to help me find a weekly therapist, when and if I want to move on.

I have spent most of the sessions going over my family history and abuse history as background, but I am doing a lot of healing work through talking and feeling about all of that. It is very intense. And very healing. I am doing good work.

Good and healing thoughts to you all.

Healing Quotes 812

“Life is much more interesting when you make a bit of effort.”

~ Ai Weiwei, “Ai Weiwei: Never Forget.”

Healing Quotes 810

“When life gives you lemons; trade them for coffee.”

~ @coffeefolk, coffee folk

Healing Quotes 809

“No matter how dark the day, it always seems so much brighter when there’s a dog around.”

~ @MotherNatureNetwork

Happy New Year

Happy new year my dear blog readers.

I went to bed very early on new year’s eve and found myself awake and refreshed at midnight. So I guess the universe wanted me to be there and aware.

After a few hours I decided to grab a pizza and watched the movie Frozen. There are so many parts of the movie that remind me of my childhood; I teared up a few times. Still had a great time.

I was looking around online for the show The Alienist on tnn. Bizarrely I found it available, with commercials, on their app. I thought for sure I couldn’t find it without extra cost.

I loved the book so much when it first came out. I never met anyone else who had even read it. I was hoping the series would be as good. I didn’t think so. But the series did show a lot of evil; in the killer, the politicians, the dirty cops, the millionaire businessmen, the pimps, and every casual observer in the streets who see and do nothing.

Shockingly I still had great fun bingeing the show and alternated with watching the parts of the Rose Parade that I wanted to with the sound on. I hate parade commentary. I love bands and thought the bands were great.  🙂

I was falling asleep trying to finish the last episode. But did it. I was so tired out from the huge focused session and because I had been awake 14 hours. So I went to bed and sleeping time. All in all, a good day and a great start to a new year.

Good and healing thoughts to you all.

 

 

 

Healing Quotes Littles 1001-1053

“Never underestimate me.

Unless, of course, you like having your expectations shattered, then by all means go for it.”

~ Just a James, @perfect_messs

“If they go away… let them…”

~ L.I.N.A., @funnyaires0418

“You get to decide who’s worthy and qualified to be a part of your life.”

~ Soyourelikethat, @soyourelikethat

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“Those who do not move do not notice their chains.”

~ Rosa Luxemburg

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.”

~ Joan Didion

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“If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage.”

~ Cynthia Ozick

“I didn’t set out to be a troublesome writer, but if that’s what I’ve been, I’m totally unrepentant.”

~ O Paz

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“Truth is an inseparable companion of justice and mercy.”

~ Pope Francis, @Pontifex

“What are you going to do? Everything, is my guess. It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complication.”

~ Nora Ephron

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“One day I was counting the cats and I absent-mindedly counted myself.”

~ Bobbie Ann Mason

“The helpful thought for which you look is written somewhere in a book.”

~ Edward Gorey

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“Let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.”

~ Dr. Martin Luther King

“There’s something magical about Joshua trees. They always look like they are frozen mid-dance. Maybe when we aren’t looking they start dancing again.”

~ R. Christensen

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“I had already found that it was not good to be alone, and so made companionship with what there was around me, sometimes with the universe and sometimes with my own insignificant self; but my books were always my friends.”

~ Joshua Slocum

“Trust your gut.”

~ @deray, Deray McKesson

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“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

~ Aldous Huxley

“Necessary reminder that it’s fine to stay the same! You aren’t a project to be constantly bettered. It’s fine to just *be* in this world- not improving, not refining, not getting stronger or healthier, but inhabiting your weird, magical, flawed self fully, just as you are.”

~ Ruby Tandoh, @rubytandoh

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Jesus was from a ‘shithole’ place. Nazareth, in the first century, was a minuscule town of only 200 to 400 people, where people lived in small stone houses, and say archeologists, garbage was dumped in the alleyways.

‘Can anything good come from Nazareth?’ says Nathanael when he first hears where the Messiah is from. That comment is understood by all New Testament scholars to be an insult directed at Jesus’ hometown.

God, in other words, came from a ‘shithole’ place. And during his time on earth, he pointedly asked us to welcome him whenever he appeared as a ‘stranger,’ or as one of our ‘least’ brothers and sisters.”

~ James Martin, SJ, @JamesMartinSJ

“Why aren’t disabled people allowed to speak for ourselves, write for ourselves, and tell our own stories?!”

~ Dominick Evans, @dominickevans

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“The next time someone says you’re ‘too political,’ tell them silence is a political stance. It’s a full throated endorsement of the status quo.”

~ Lee Camp [Redacted], @LeeCamp

“It’s 2018, but I keep writing ‘Fuck Trump’ on my checks.”

~ Victor Laszlo, @Impolitics

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“Be like the single blade of grass. For she too, has been trampled on, mowed down, and hit with such bitterly cold stretches that she had to shut down to survive. Yet still she stands upright with dignity, knowing that she endures, and still she dances with the wind.”

~ Sandra Kring

“We’re all in a complicated relationship with simplicity.”

~ Skinnie Talls, @SkinnieTalls

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“You can’t always be the smartest person in the room. But you can be kind.”

~ It’s Abby. Yep., @abbycohenwl

“We have been brainwashed into feeling shame about wanting goodness and happiness.”

~ emma magenta

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“We can build together or I can keep building alone. I’m good either way.”

~ FLACO, @NY_Pillow

“It’s kind of weird that we get such a kick out of seeing kindness when really it should be so normal that it doesn’t even register.”

~ trajectory unknown, @trajectoryuk

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“I like to think that there’s a place somewhere inside me that has yet to be discovered, a lost city untouched by the modern world.”

~ trajectory unknown, @trajectoryuk

“I hope the universe intrigues you today.”

~ probably awake, @JustTashie

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“I like to think that being genuine and kind releases invisible magic that can never be defeated.”

~ trajectory unknown, @trajectoryuk

“Art is our weapon. Culture is a form of resistance.”

~ Shirin Neshat

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“Writing is making sense of life.”

~ Nadine Gordimer

“Writing is… that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.”

~ Pico Iyer

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“Things don’t have to change the world to be important.”

~ Steve Jobs

“The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.”
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~ Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
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“Perfection is shallow, unreal, and fatally uninteresting.”

― Anne Lamott

“Ram Dass, who described himself as a Hin-Jew, said that ultimately we’re all just walking each other home. I love that. I try to live by it.”

~ Anne Lamott, Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair
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“My friend Terry says that when you need to make a decision, in your work or otherwise, and you don’t know what to do, just do one thing or the other, because the worst that can happen is that you will have made a terrible mistake.”

~ Anne Lamott

“Help” is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn’t matter how you pray–with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors.”
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~ Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
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“Even the silence has a story to tell you. Just listen. Listen.”

~ Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“We aren’t a drop in the ocean, but are the ocean, in drops.”

~ Anne Lamott, Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son

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“You don’t have to defend or explain your decisions to anyone. It’s your life.”

~ Mandy Hale

“You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.”

~ Ray Bradbury

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“I’m here to be me, which is taking a great deal longer than I had hoped.”

~ Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

“I was usually filled with a sense of something like shame until I’d remember that wonderful line of Blake’s- that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love- and I would take a long deep breath and force these words out of my strangulated throat: “Thank you.”

~ Anne Lamott

“Doctor Strange is the most relatable superhero because he uses his vast powers to steal books from the library.

~ the library haunter, @SketchebyBoze

“Enjoy whatever books you want and don’t let anyone tell you you’re dumb or childish or immature for reading what you love.”

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~ the library haunter, @SketchesbyBoze

“And you ache for books you’ve not yet met.”

~ probably awake, @JustTashie

“My book doesn’t want me to get out of bed.”

~ Dull & Wicked, @dullandwicked

“He said, ‘Books or me.” I sometimes remember him when I’m buying new books.”

~ Unknown

“Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.”

~ Joyce Carol Oates

“There were so many books on so many shelves, I knew I could live to be old without coming to the end of them. The sound of pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.”

~ Emma Donoghue

“When I was a little girl who didn’t fit in, I read ‘Julie of the Wolves’ and decided that running away to live with a wolfpack was a really great life plan, and to be honest I’m starting to wish I hadn’t grown out of the idea.”

~ Myrrh, @ixis82

 

Here I Am

Hello beloveds,

I’ve missed you all. Waves, jumps up and down, and smiles a lot to you all.

There have been a lot of reasons that I haven’t been around here and on my netbook. It sucks and won’t update and I’ve tried lots of stuff and really really don’t want to pay money to have it working properly. It is so exasperating. Finally I have gotten it to update some of my updates, though it just won’t do things right. My windows 10 updates are the worst. This all started in April, when windows was supposedly not going to support use online without updates, and have continued to frustrate and enrage me. I keep trying and some things are working, though the worst is when it won’t update because it says that there isn’t room on my device, which outrages me cause I don’t have anything else on this crappy machine but what it came with, so there definitely should be room for windows 10 updates on it. From what I have read online, this is a glitch issue, and I do workaround that by updates from the settings page instead of the windows 10 update assistant, which is  the worst.

Aside from all of that I find that I don’t have a lot of patience for anything anymore, what with tRump in office. My PTSD has been very challenging these last two years and I am very triggery thanks to that big ass, big racist, and big misogynist in office. I suppose that I am doing better since the day after the election this week, but he always finds an evil way to show hate zillions of times a day.

My nurse prescriber retired and moved out of town so the clinic I go to referred me to someone in the clinic. I saw him recently and like him a lot. I was asked if I would prefer to see someone who was a nurse or a psychiatrist and I said loudly, I would like to see a psychiatrist. I feel really comfortable with a male psychiatrist and I think that was a good move on my part. I had a male nurse at the previous clinic and long ago saw a male psychiatrist and liked him a lot.

It was kind of odd because he said that the nurse had questioned my PTSD diagnosis and he wanted to know what I believed. I said, “Oh yes I have always believed that I have PTSD.” Hey it’s not like I don’t have plenty of very valid other diagnoses. It was kind of hilarious and at the same exact time, not at all hilarious and very disturbing. I guess I didn’t talk to her much about those specific symptoms each time that I saw her and especially since I do not have any medications that specifically are not related to my other issues of depression and anxiety. Though to be honest I don’t see how you can present with issues and diagnoses of depression and anxiety and being a childhood sexual abuse survivor and not get a quick and easy diagnosis of PTSD. Also I don’t think that they use Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder enough. Aside from that puzzling issue, I liked him a lot. He also gave me his office hours for Wednesdays and said that if I needed to or wanted to I could do drop-in hours every week. That made me feel so good and like I had someone on my side. A good feeling.

I’ve been going semi-regularly to the same therapist. Only semi cause of my health issues. I had a bad summer, getting three sinus infections while living in the air conditioning. That has improved and I am very happy about that. I got lots of self-care done, and that was great.

I’ve been taking the higher dose of levothyroxine, the synthetic hormone, for my thyroid disease for six months and things continue to improve all around, except for weight issues. Still being sick so much means that I don’t get out and exercise much, so I tend to gain and not lose during those time periods in my life. I am doing more and getting out more and walking more, so that is all good. And sleeping more and deeper and better. I’ll write more about all of that in the near future.

I’ve been hanging around blogs more and reading more and starting to leave small comments. I plan on being much more involved and I am hoping that my health improvements will contribute to my abilities to do so.

See you all soon, beloveds. We love yous.