Saturday, July 17, 2021

 Saturday, July 17, 2021

 

            I called Jean on my morning walk. Give me a break. She wants to move into their retirement apartment in five and a half weeks. John has lived in the house for 55 years; she has lived there for more than 35. They have saved every book and every piece of paper. They are getting rid of what they can as fast as they can. I told her I wouldn’t send her the boxes of her father’s books that Mike took from her library to her current address. I would wait until she and John have been at their new address for a few months. That way, they should be settled and not overwhelmed.  

      Because adolescent D was going on vacation for 10 to 12 days, I met with him on Friday and today with plans to meet with him tomorrow. I continued working on the BrainManagementSkills. He still held the visual image of a word toward the back of the left side of his brain. In my experience, the best place for the visual working memory is behind the forehead. However, he says the image holds steady in this spot. The letters do not move around, either on the page or in his mind. The other day, he revealed his auditory images shift in unpredictable ways. His auditory perception center was also not where it should be in my experience. I asked him if he could hold the image of a flickering candle in that space I associate with auditory working memory. He could do that with ease. When he held sound there, it was comforting. I sounded out phonemes slowly, and he found that pleasant. That was a good sign. It was hard to know if I could have done this exercise with him before or not. I had done some work with him identifying images in his mind. I never felt it was time to do more. I would rather move slowly than too quickly. If I go slowly, there is only no change. If I move quickly, I might cause change, but it may be too much for him and cause a setback. The work today seemed simple small, and appropriate.   I sounded out the phonemes of words as he listened. He said it felt good. He also said it was easier to hear what I had to say.  

       I spent a lot of the day sleeping. I have been devasted by a friend who has questioned my mental capacity because we remembered something differently. It has retraumatized me. My mother did this to me nonstop. If I didn’t remember what she did, if I remembered something she didn’t, if I liked something she didn’t like, if I didn’t like something she liked, you name it, if it wasn’t her way, there was something wrong with me. Only now did I realize how lonely I was as a child living with her incessant attacks. 

       I once told her that her attacks hurt me. She was outraged. She said I only said that to hurt her. I am sure she never meant to hurt me. I am sure this ‘friend’ doesn’t intend to hurt me. They were both only protecting themselves from what they accused me of, the fear that someone would ‘know’ there was something wrong with them. When Mike met me,  he said it was as if I had been tortured. He said one day, I would start crying and not be able to stop. I am overwhelmed by sadness now. This is the first time I grasp how lonely I felt as a child.  

            Judy passed me on her way to church as I took my walk. I shared I was having a bad day. She said she was sure the person only meant well. I called her when she got home and asked her not to say that to me   My mother insisted she meant me well by tearing me down. That meant I had to suffer her abuse and be grateful for it. That’s a total mind f—k- crazymaking. 

Yes, I have good days when I am perfectly content to be alone speaking to whomever, neighborhood friends I meet as I walk, friends I talk to on the phone, whoever shows up for the yoga classes, and my students. Besides that, I have a house and garden to maintain and my videos and article to work on, not to mention the updates.

            When I’m up for it, I look for more books to get rid of in the library. I found two more today for Note Dame. I also loaded the car with the butcher paper Judy gave me after her bird died to wrap the boxes of books for mailing. I wind up liking the Amazon boxes best. I don’t have to wrap them; they are not covered with product information and don’t have to be covered with paper. I also grabbed a string of Christmas lights sitting on the grill since last Christmas for donation. I checked if they worked. I took a picture to show the person who accepted the donation. 

            B called and chatted. I like talking to him. We just talked story, but he is someone I can speak with honestly. I feel I can be myself. Unfortunately, that’s not true with everyone.