cancelled therapy last minute
 

Hi guys.

Well. I was getting nauseous with anxiety thinking about going to therapy today. So just now i called and cancelled. to think i was worried about cancelling "late" :rolleyes:. this is as late as it gets! except for perhaps missing the bus.

I didn't actually talk to my pdoc. it is 1.30pm here - lunchtime. i left voice mail. i know i sounded guilty as sin which is how i feel too. I said i was sorry for the late notice but i just couldn't make it to therapy today, and repeated, "i just can't make it." no specifics. i did not want to make up some excuse. and i doubt he will think i am physically ill because if i were, i would typically state my ailment. so i believe he will figure it is emotional in some way.

i left off saying forgive me, and i am really sorry, then used a generic term for being in touch soon that doesn't imply who should initiate. so, he may decide to call me to see what is up, but i think he will probably leave it up to me.

now on top of nauseous i feel like a dirty rat. i am glad i am not going though. i think i will eat something. it might quell the stomach.

~ waves ~ the wimp

my dad asked me to go to the park for some sun.
 

i shook my head. he said you sure? i shook my head again.

i have been watching/listening to youtube vids. the last one was a tribute for Syd Barrett. :( actually the very last one was the G-o-d / D-o-g song posted on the music thread.

i am crying now so i will do something else.

like eat more or something. :crazy: i feel so awkward.

~ waves ~

:hug: Waves, try not to feel too guilty. I believe we all need some time to ourselves at moments. I'm not sure of the reason you didn't want to go but the way I think it is I've been there. Tell yourself over and over and prepare mentally to make it a next appointment. If you didn't go because there might be issues between you and therapist then that is a different story.

:hug: Waves :hug:

befuddled2

Dear Barbara
 

thank you for the comforting words and the hugs :) :hug::hug:. yes the fact is there are issues in the relationship right now. or actually on how therapy is being done and negative impact on me. there was some discussion of it in the job-ad thread, because it kind of spun off from my talking with him about my application. but it brought up some general anger about his way of "applying" CBT.

anyway, i have been very emotional and i got really emotional last time. angry with him.

~ waves ~

update
 

i got called away for dinner so never got to post this or my answer to Barbara (written around 5pm my time)

i just got a call from my pdoc wondering where i was. my appointment was at 4.30. turns out, MY VOICEMAIL DIDN'T GET THERE! AACKKK!!! :(:(:o:o:eek: i was shaking like a leaf talking to him. i told him i didn't have the flu or a migraine or anything, that i just couldn't handle doing therapy today. and i said even if he had got my voicemail, i only left it at lunchtime and was sorry about cancelling so late but i had not foreseen feeling this bad about going.

i was stammering on the phone. he said not to worry. we left it at getting in touch soon, nothing specific, no appointment at this time.

i feel a bit better after having talked to him in person. perhaps it was a boon that the voicemail didn't get there, or he probably would not have called.

i do not know when i will be ready to see him. i need a break even though i do feel less angry.

~ waves ~

Dear Waves,

Yes, I'm glad you stayed home.
The nausea was a clue that your body had something to say.
When I have an appt change like that I stay upset for a while.

I hope that you will be ok.
Don't worry about the pdoc. He doesn't have bipolar. He'll manage.

Mari

Waves, I'm sorry I missed the discussion about your therapist in the job thread. I have trouble with being able to read to keep up with everything. I am worried that I may be in the early stages of alheimzers as hard as it is for me to focus and remember.

I wish I knew what to tell you about the issues you have with the therapist. I am not good with handling issues with people so I haven't a clue what to say.

I wish you well. I do want to say that communicating your concerns with the therapist might be good but I don't know. I know that lack of communication is worse than good communication from personal experience.

befuddled2

Dear Barbara
 

I hope you don't have Alzheimers! :hug::hug: trouble concentrating / focusing can come from many things. including such simple things as STRESS, ANXIETY, and DEPRESSION. and when we aren't well focused/concentrated on something, we aren't able to remember it, so we "seem" to have memory deficits, but the origin is actually the concentration problem. if you are seriously concerned about the Alzheimers please speak to your mdoc about it. there are meds to slow its progression.

-------

i agree with what you said about communication. what i said to my pdoc today on the phone is the most i can deal with right now. the issues are too fresh/upsetting for me right now, so a confrontation will not yet be helpful, because it will be too painful / upsetting to me... which would just aggravate the situation.

i need time to settle down and also to determine what i actually need to address. when i am this emotional where small things upset me and the upsetness lingers... the issues are clouded. with time i will gain perspective to on what needs to be sorted out, what is simply the lay of the land, and what were transient things of no real consequence.

right now i do not know if i have come to the end of the line with my pdoc or if things can be sorted, and to what extent i have overreacted to what.

when i am clearer i will make an appointment and go from there.

even if i should decide to terminate, rest assured i will see him and discuss it with him... my reasons/feelings etc. he may have things to say which will cause me to change my mind, or not. either way there will be no mysteries. if i leave it will be on good terms and clear ones. i already had one disastrous parting with a therapist and i don't care to repeat that mistake ever. that wasn't all my fault, but i did have my share of responsibility in it.

~ waves ~

Waves,

It sounds like you already know a good way to handle it. I am glad.

I think I will say something to my mdoc about my fear of alheimzers. I didn't know that there are meds to slow it down. I've started to call Bobby every name like Billy, Gilly, Tommy, but Bobby for the past few weeks. It could very well be due to stress, depression, or anxiety though. I'm trying to exercise my mind with doing some work out of my HTML book. I've been trying to figure out why a graphic is not uploading to the browser. All day of on and off again working on it and it was not in the <img> tag but because I typed in the wrong thing for <title>

befuddled2

Dear Barbara
 

It sound to me like distraction (lack of focus) more than memory. but yes, do talk to your mdoc anyway. it is a sign you are not completely up to par. she can evaluate you further. maybe do some testing. perhaps you could use a tweak in your meds, or she may want to suggest supplements (can be helpful for stress), or further testing... you should bring it up. it does sound pretty wacky.

HTML can be so frustrating. you know, if you forget the end tag </table> in a table... the whole table just doesn't show up. it is really freaky when you are editing a table that was already working, and you delete the end tag accidentally... :rolleyes: suddenly the whole page is blank. the first few times this happened to me i was ripe to take a hammer to the computer. of course, in trying to figure out the problem, i would focus on the stuff i "edited" - never occurred to me i'd wiped a line accidentally.... or that the effect would be so DRASTIC. argghhh!

on the other hand, you can completely avoid using </tr> end tags on rows in a table - it doesn't give a rat's behind... it "assumes" row end as soon as it sees the next <tr> or the end of the table. ahh, the delights of HTML programming. so consistent it is. and of course it behaves differently on the different browsers, and different OS's so to be sure your page is good you have to test PC with explorer (a few back versions - they all act different) and Firefox. Safari on the Mac, and i think it's called Thunderbird (it's Mozilla) on Linux. UGGHHH. But wait till you get to do some CSS - then the real fun starts! :p:eek:

i really appreciate your being here for me today. it seems like not many folks were around, and this thing really stressed me out.

thank you so much. :hug::hug::hug: :)

~ waves ~

Waves,
 

Dear Waves,
I had a bad day.

The alarm didn't go off -- using a cheap alarm clock instead of good clock still in a box somewhere. So I rushed.

I got thrown for a loop about the speech therapy -- had the print outs from the office but no address -- just something like "Gateway Plaza" (where is that???), the business card from the therapist had the name a of an exact small street I was not familiar with, . . . . .then I tried to call the place and the no one was picking up the phone (machine said it was not during business hours) . .

Worse, I've been there once before. Hello. And it is only 6 minutes from here. But I needed to know which street. Driving around up and down intersections woudn't work.

I google mapped it and found it.

Then I got there and and I was 2.5 hours early.
I told the person at the desk I was not going back.
The print out had a time for Tuesday and a time for Thursday.
Can't the print outs say the day of the week? . . . .although I'm not sure that the day of the week would have helped a lot.
I can see that going twice a week is going to be confusing to me.

Then mdoc's office called about an appointment I made and that was a hassle and I got frustrated. I might switch mdocs because I hate her office staff.

I've been in a mess all day.

And I am worried about work.
I have a deadline tongiht and have done nothing.

I stayed away becuase I saw that you were havign your own difficulty with the appointment and I felt silly adding my story.



M.

Dear Waves,
I don't know why my cr*ppy day scared me so much and I don't know why it kept me from writing today but it did.

M>

aww geez Mari
 

Don't feel bad. :o I'm really sorry you had such a rotten day. :( More frustrating stuff it sounded like.

:hug::hug::hug::hug::hug:

And hey, you have to deal with your mdoc's staff as much as her... and she sounds thorough but kinda pushy too... so... i can understand wanting to change. you need a place that feels safe and supportive to deal with, not hostile.

Tomorrow will be a new day for both of us. Hang in there. :circlelove:

My wish for you tonight is to be able to wind down and get some good rest.

I will be going to bed soon here it is already 2.30 am.

~ waves ~

no worries
 

Hey there... It's OK. It happens to me sometimes too. I thought you were just away. You weren't up to posting. That's OK. Please try not to beat yourself up about it. You are extremely supportive - even these days when things are so hard for you. And i really appreciate that.

Today, you couldn't make it like i couldn't make it. It's ok.

And plus... Barbara wrote back and forth with me... i was not all alone... all is well. Take a deep breath. Relax.

(((((((((((( Mari )))))))))))))

~ waves ~

Dear Mari
 

just wanted to add... i kinda wish you had reached out... for your own sake. it would not have affected me. but it sounds like you weren't up to that either. which is ok. i mean you can only do what you can do.

as for the speech therapist... maybe hold off on writing that one off. you won't have today's problem every time. i can understand being upset right now. but now that you found it again on google, you will be ok to get there. i mean if you don't like the people... then that's a different story. try not to dwell on it for now.

:hug::hug::hug:

~ waves ~

p.s. good luck with your deadline... or getting it extended if that is what is needed. maybe you could call in sick tomorrow and cover yourself that way, i don't know.

Waves, your welcome. I was glad to be here today. I thought with XHTML that all tags should be closed. Or is that with CSS? i once took a computer programming online short course and remember something about all tags should be closed. I believe though as far as just HTML they do not. I believe my HTML has all tags being closed. Even those that once did not, like the <img> tag. Example: <img src="mygraphic/picture.jpg" /> A space after the jpg before adding the closing tag.

befuddled2

Mari, I hope you have a better night to make up for the bad day. Like Waves said you are very supportive even when you have a crappy day. Hugs to you.

befuddled2

Html
 

Dear Barbara,

My frustrations with the table occurred when i was learning HTML ... in 1998. that was a while ago. yes there are evolutions now... have been many since that time. my last bout of HTML development was a few years back... i develop my own website on and off. off now for a few years. my HTML, and what little CSS i know is self-taught but i am degreed in C.S. so i do things on the fly - when i need to do something new i usually consult one or more online references that are up to date in order to be W3C compliant for current specifications and backward compatibility.

as for the closing </tr> tag... technically, that was always required and i was not suggesting it was ok to omit it, from a programming standpoint. i was more whining about the fact that the browser interpreter does not fuss when it is omitted. while that may seem convenient, this sort of thing can get a person into trouble because technically it should be there, and the browser should be written to expect it. So if you develop on a browser that does not require </tr> and just "assumes" one in given contexts, you could accidentally omit one and never know it. then, someone loads your page on a different browser written to require "up to spec syntax" ... and it chokes on the page. NOT NICE.

i was being very sarcastic when i said ahh the delights of HTML programming. this is easy to lose in a written post.

ah, wrt CSS.... again here same problem. there are to my knowledge still horrid inconsistencies in the INTERPRETATION of CSS across the different browsers. some browsers are not fully spec-compliant, despite claims. that is the crux of the problem.

i was not aware of the change in the image tag syntax - thank you. :) i will have to see if i need to update anything.

~ waves ~

Thanks Waves. I love discussing this stuff like computer programming. I'm not sure what the fascination is with it when it come to me. I think I like to see the result of my work like one does in a browser. And maybe because I can sit down and do it all is nice also. When I have such low energy physically sitting at the computer is so much easier.

befuddled2

my therapist called me
 

my therapist/pdoc left me voicemail to offer me an appointment tomorrow pm, asking that i confirm by tomorrow am. i left a message about my migraine saying i thought i could make it but would only be sure by morning.

i thought it was kind of him to think of me and see if i wanted to go in... the saga continues.

~ waves ~

Waves

I agree it was a good message from him. Also a good answer from you.

I'm hoping you feel better so you can make the visit, if that is what you want.
I have a feeling he knows exactly why you cancelled last week.

Donna

this was good that he called. Do what ever makes you feel best. maybe your migraine will be better in the morning.
hope you are sleeping
bizi

Dear Waves,
That is nice that he called you -- esp with the last few days you had re abandonment.

I hope the migraine abates.


M.

Dear Waves,
I hope that you are ok.
M.

cleared the air
 

cleared the air with my therapist regarding my emotional issues. felt much lighter walking out. he was very understanding, and expressed appreciation for my telling him what happened. he called me because he didn't want me to think he didn't care, considering my unexplained cancellation. i told him i very much appreciated him calling. it was all very conciliatory.

i still need a break. he gets that. but he wants it to be flexible, and said i should feel free to call for an appointment any time i want. meanwhile we will be in touch. he is looking into 2 places that might do DBT as he agrees it would be helpful for me.

the migraine preempted temptation to stop for anything remotely alcoholic before or after. anyway i was wiped out and it was cold and i and wanted to get home asap.

right now i feel cruddy. all the wounds from my past are reopening and thoughts flooding my mind.

so yeah, i am ok. but i am not well. i swear if my head still hurts tomorrow after i wake up i am going to just chop it off. :mad::crazy::(

~ waves ~

Waves

I hope you find something to help your headache soon. I'm so sorry you
are having such a problem with it.

But I'm so glad you had such a good therapy session.

Donna

I am sorry that you are feeling cruddy.
(((((HUGS)))))
bizi

Dear Waves, :hug:
That is very good news. :)
And he is leaving up to you when you come back.


This is great. He responded to your need.
And now you have the info re DBT availability.

Take it easy. :Heart: :Heart: :Heart:
Stay in one piece. Peace is good too.
M.