Friday, April 28, 2023

 Friday, April 28, 2023 

   I had another restless night with nightmares. I was sure they were triggered by all the uncertainty in the world. When Elsa and I went on our morning walk, I focused on the beauty surrounding me. I am often awestruck. I can't imagine being happier anywhere else in the world. I can't imagine being this content in an enclosed house in Hawaii. As I write, I sit on a screen on the porch, lanai, which serves as my living room. There are no doors to close out the elements in the common spaces, the kitchen, and other living areas.  

   I did an online yoga class today with Yoga Go. I signed up a while ago but had yet to use it regularly. It would help even if I just watched the video when iI didn't feel I could do it. I modified the postures anyway. I get strength exercise in doing it. I also mountain pose when I walk, working my muscles when Elsa takes a sniffing break. 

  I had my weekly appointment with Shelly. I was in a great mood. Dealing with my mother's attacks, even when I had tried to do my best, was helpful. I still feel the pain of having a good effort greeted with anger and contempt. It's the worst. 

  Everyone has their own style of dealing with interpersonal relationships. My style is through reconciliation; others do it through acceptance. It comes back to the Serenity Prayer. The courage to change what can be changed, the serenity to accept the things I can't change, and the wisdom to know the difference. I figured there had to be a way to resolve the difference between my mother and myself. I was ultimately successful. There were things in our relationship that were never resolved- our ability to converse. However, we had many loving moments, and she didn't berate me constantly. We found a mutually comfortable strategy for dealing with our difficult moments with each other without discussion. Of all my accomplishments in my life and my successes helping students, the two that make me feel the best are my relationships with my mom and Mike. That they went well fills me with endless satisfaction. 

  I don't remember how I got on the topic of reconciliation with Shelly, but I worked on how frustrating it was when people wouldn't try to work things out. Nowadays, the talk is about how people must talk to each other to maintain a good working relationship. Good luck with most people. Some people consider such a proposition a personal threat. Talking about it means being pummeled into doing it the other person's way. I do know people who deal with interpersonal relationships that way. Some people assume their way is always the right way. 

  Mike met me in group therapy. He saw me "take on" the therapists. He saw me at my most combative. He walked away from that, concluding I was bright, and I was as concerned about the other person as I was about myself. God bless him. He didn't change his mind about that during the forty-five years he lived with me. That is not to say there were unresolved issues. They weren't big enough to be deal breakers, at least not for me. Since he consistently professed his love for me, not only to me but to the world at large, I believe I was good enough for him, too.

   Back to strategies for resolving differences: mine is to work for resolution. I push for that. I have the unconditional support of current theories of maintaining good relationships. So much for theories. What to do if you want a relationship with someone who doesn't operate that way? I've had to learn other strategies. Give up or give in. Sometimes, the give-up strategy brings resolution. It did with my mom; we found a way to be with each other. It only works with some people. My mom really loved me and wanted to be in a relationship with me. Others either don't care or would rather have me out of their life. People tell me, "Relationships work, or they don't. they never require effort." Good luck. Those folks have a hell of a time with me. I've had to learn to respect that some people are just not up to working out a resolution. It's this silent push-and-pull strategy. I observed that those people cannot have intimate relationships with other adults. It doesn't work out for them. Of course, it often doesn't work out for me either. There is no single solution. 

    I do know couples that never discuss their differences. When Mike and I announced we were going for family therapy, friends of ours were completely open that if they went, it would be the end of their marriage. It could not survive overt discussion of differences. That couple is functional. The relationship may not suit me, but it suits both of them. That, after all, is what counts.

    Elsa jumped on the bed as I napped. I felt the bed move slightly with her movements. It was comforting. It reminded me of Mike getting up to pee and getting back in bed at night.  

  I met with Adolescent D for an hour to compensate for the class we missed on Wednesday. His mom texted me on Wednesday to say he needed to cancel because he had schoolwork. Yes, he completed it. I discussed the problem of making an effort and failing big time. Yes, he recognized that feeling. It's devastating. Your best effort isn't good enough; worse yet, it is received with intense negativity. It is so painful. I started having him recognize that he had survived the experience, literally. Survival is an issue at a primitive unconscious level for all of us. That's how our brains are wired. 

  I asked him if he thought he did anything well. He said no. It's one thing to have a realistic appraisal of your abilities; it's another to hold such a high standard that everything you do is inadequate. Some people fit that bill. I told him what I did when I sank into a slump in graduate school. I started noting everything I did. "I got up. I brushed my teeth. I washed my face. I combed my hair." He said he did something well in school today. He communicated an idea effectively. I told him he did two things well. He chose to participate, and he successfully communicated his thoughts. He wanted to conflate the two into one thing. I have read that the brain doesn't know the difference between saving the world and washing a dish. There must be one part of the brain that registers our activities that way and judges everything harshly. Unfortunately for modern man, our brains prefer to dwell in the land of negative, stinking thinking. This is to our benefit when survival is an issue. If things went well, great; there is no reason to give it another moment's thought. If something went poorly and we survived, we had to learn from the experience to use that knowledge next time. Our brains were designed for survival. 

  I asked him if he wanted to continue working on this defeatist mental state or the reading. He chose the former. We didn't get very far, other than to recommend he notice everything he did in detail, break down every action into the smallest parts he could, and make  note of his success in completing tasks. I went through an example with him. He may have a problem remembering to do it. He has trouble remembering to brush his teeth. 

  I switched to reading. I asked him what he wanted to work on. He said, 'The book," referring to Investing for Young Adults. I asked him if he wanted to work on Phase I or II. He didn't remember what they were. I told him to remember anything. I was trying to teach him to use a miscellaneous related memory to trigger more. He remembered reading the word investing in the book. He read it in the text; then, I wrote the word, and we worked on the decoding steps. 

  What did he remember? He remembered something about the syllable types (VC), and they told you if the vowel was long or short. Great! He had chosen to work on Phase II when we start with seeing the word and figuring out what it is. What were the steps? Did he remember any of them? He knew it began with the vowels, but not what he had to identify. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've been over it. I reviewed the first six steps in decoding words. 1. VL -identify the vowel letters; 2. VS – Identify the vowel sounds, 3. Sy – divide the word into syllables, 4. SyP- identify the syllable pattern and the vowel sound, 5. Identify the sounds of each letter in a single syllable; 6. Blend those sounds, 7. Repeat 1-6 for each syllable. 8. blend the syllables. I had him repeat the sequence 1-4 several times. I'd take a break, changing the topic for a distractor, and then test him again on items 1-4 to practice retrieval.  

  I noticed we were fifteen minutes over. I commented about it and asked D when he wanted to meet on the weekend to make up for our missed class on Wednesday. He said, "I told you we would do it today." Oh, I hadn't understood. He meant to make it up today; we did an hour instead of half an hour.

  Around 4 p.m., it started to rain, and it rained harder and harder. We get some impressive rainstorms. Yvette texted me to say this would go on until 8 p.m. The forecasts are rarely correct. The worst they forecasted for today was a light drizzle. This was as far as you could get from a light drizzle. It was just short of a hurricane. It cleared up by six. So much for that forecast. Elsa and I did our walk.

  J. asked to meet with me today. She had a decision to make. Should she spend two hundred dollars to accept admittance to a college so she could get her degree? She got married before she completed her undergraduate degree. She had only one semester left and dropped out. She was pregnant and figured she would spend the rest of her life as a mother and wouldn't need the degree. Her ten-year grace period had expired long ago. The credits she accrued may count toward her current degree. The school won't evaluate her credits before she has committed. The question was, should she spend the two hundred dollars of her hard-earned money when she wasn't sure what she was going to do? She would have to pay $16,000 a year of money she didn't have on courses. Given she wants to tutor, it's easier to do something in this field with a degree. In the meantime, she may be doing better than I am. I recommended she put out the $200, see how many credits were accepted, and then decide.  

  It was raining while I was on Zoom with J. I had to show her what this rain looked like. She couldn't hear it. Earlier in the meeting, her printer was running. I couldn't hear it. I've experienced this before when I can't hear a noise on the other end, or they can't hear one on mine. Mechanical noises are filtered out. It would make it hard to hear the other person if it was over the drone of an air conditioner.