Good Morning Start
Good morning. This is me. I’ve been up for a few moments and its about quarter to 2 am. We were having bad nightmares and needed to use the washroom anyway, but we got up twice and am now staying up for a bit. The only thing I remember about the nightmares now is that the kids were in them. Most often when we dream about the kids they are still young. I think I worried quite a bit when they were young.Never felt I was doing enough for them. Never do now.
The most obvious thing for me to talk about is the car decision … I don’t want to do that much now … it’s more a Saturday morning thing, but even at that it feels all too sensitive now. The bottom line is that I made a financially impossible situation and as of trying to talk last night to the sales manager at the dealership, it doesn’t seem like we’re going to be able to take it back. I passed on what happened to our friend and Dr. well see what is going to happen next. Most of the session with Dr. Marvin was about the car … and some of it was about the intern leaving. There was a mention about watering Dr. Marvin’s plant, but not much. We didn’t cry this time, but there was some frustration switching of parts.
We weren’t aware of it until Kate waved him off and left. Dr. Marvin asked if he could draw a picture on the board. We always love when he draws us pictures. He drew like 4 or 5 boxes that sort of looked like squared in 6’s. Then he said the higher functioning parts were on the right and the lower or younger parts were on the left. Then he said something about the parts on the right having information how to do the hard stuff like school and money and that the parts that were younger didn’t have all the same information. And so the bottom line is that they don’t make as good of decisions because they don’t have all the details. Like someone without all the information heard there was going to be an extra $300 and they ran … and the car people pushed it up to almost $400 and that took away any safety. So they assured they had all our money, and they made it almost impossible to keep the car because it was unaffordable. The company had switched ownership that should have been some clue that something was wrong. There were no computers and they were painting and hammering and the vending machines were gone (right across from where they had us sitting).
We told Dr. M. all the stuff that happened … there was too much thought to go into detail this morning. Both our friend and Dr. M. started from the top in telling us that we couldn’t do it … though Dr. Marvin was a lot nicer. Our friend was yelling at us, but I remember telling him that and him saying he wasn’t yelling. We were just crying and crying and crying. I remember at one point him saying that the least we could do is try to defend ourselves. But, there was a sinking feeling that there was nothing to defend. It had been a negative thing all along. With Dr. Marvin, he asked questions so that gave us a chance to start processing what had happened. We knew after talking to him that we couldn’t possibly do it. We had sent him the night before our finances before the question of a car even came up.
He had skimmed it then, but last night while we were there, he pulled it up and he gave us both copies. I remember somebody asking him if he could fix it and he said no that this was something some of our parts could do. He said there were some that could look for the keywords in right to cancel and he gave us something from the IL Attorney General. We asked if he could email us. But we weren’t sure if that was asking too much … but I think someone was teasing him by then. Not the first one out, but someone peaking out. I think that part who understands more needed to hear Dr. Marvin in a sense say that he believed she could do it. Now looking at things after the fact … it didn’t work in that it looks like we’re going to be stuck with what happened, but that’s not going to look good for us. It’s like the last time when we went bankrupt 10 years ago. We got overextended. I think as far as multiplicity goes, we’re sometimes good people who make bad decisions. We talked to Dr. M. about how fast things we’re happening like being in the car, and being pressured, and not being able to say no. And, there was this one bad part where we knew we were someone’s victim, because we’d told him 3-4 times that it was too much money, and he kept coming back and saying like well we’ll give you like $10 a month less, it was going badly for us and we kept looking at the paper trying to ground ourselves in the reality that we don’t make that much money, and I can remember saying to him that our friend was going to be mad, but the thing about it was that right after that final point or break, he had pushed the signature page so we couldn’t think twice … and then someone swooped in from behind us. We hadn’t known that anyone was listening, but I think whoever the salesman – Mike was talking to was just in back of us pressuring the deal, because he rushed past me and took the paper that we’d just signed without wanting to talk to us. That part was one of the scariest feelings. There’s other stuff worrying our brain, but it is too hard right now. We need to change subjects, cuz we don’t want to be taken over by it.
I know that our friend will talk to us today. For the record, I don’t know if he yelled at us. I believe him when he says he didn’t, but when it was going in our head we were pretty sure he was mad. Both he and Dr. Marvin say they get frustrated with us and not mad so that kind of confuses the picture. I know by listening to them though when we’ve done something wrong. I felt worse about ourselves in talking to our friend, with Dr. Marvin though I knew that we’d probably been in a bad situation. I think the pictures on the wall were to help us understand what goes wrong with our decision-makers. He said something about talking to the parts, but I think that means getting them to think like a few moments ago of what happened and that sometimes is pretty scary, because they get re-traumatized. We told Dr. Marvin that guy was like a vulture, but it happened so fast that we didn’t see who it was … just remember thinking that he was probably about 50’s. Couldn’t say anything more about him. I remember trying to ask him something and he was moving and then we thought he’s not going to talk to us he just wants that paper. He said something to let us know we were going to be brushed off. That’s when we knew for sure we were in big trouble. But, you know to get out safely you have to follow their procedures. Stooppppppp TOO MUCH! I know right now there was a lot of pressure and some was from the salesman and then there was pressure inside us. We put ourselves in a vulnerable situation and then couldn’t get ourselves out. We remember him repeating that we were going to take home a car. Ok, ok … stop stop too much too much.
We need to think of something else … feel like we’re sinking. It’s about 2:25 now.
Just waiting for the second kitty to finish up in the washroom … have a feeling of things being unsettled. Ok … breathe. We got the hot coffee.
I think it’s too early to take the medicine … maybe one though for anxiety? I think that is why we’re having trouble sleeping right now. NO no more car thoughts!
Ok something else now. Like we had mentioned earlier, something else had happened yesterday in that we got our official note from the new Q that she was leaving on the 19th. That seemed like a hopeless situation too, but something over the bridge or damn whatever. She left a note on our little computer saying in about 6 lines Dr. Ms. ………… then whatever. Now I know how it is to get a dear John letter. I think that she used the term thank you and then just said she was moving on. She didn’t want to confront us directly. Her mother came in instead later in the morning. We teased her about not coming in to talk to us … we made small talk and she said something about wanting to leave too because there wasn’t enough money. We told her that it happens like this everytime someone leaves that all the others ask themselves why am I staying. She said she needed more money, and we said you are all of a sudden now really needing more money after 10 years? Then she said no, but then we got into a conversation on cars or something I don’t know. After the staff training meeting, I confronted the new Q. I started by saying something about the note and asking her if there was anything she wasn’t anything else she wanted to add. There was trouble hearing each other and I realized that she wasn’t going to stick her head around as normal, so I got up and sat in our friend’s chair so that we could speak.
I was thinking from the frame of mind as a trainer. I told her how much I had appreciated her work and not to think that she was just leaving us with all the work, because during her time with us she’d helped quite a bit. I think we talked for about 6-7 minutes, but then realized how uncomfortable we were probably making her. Before we stopped talking we had tried to advise her on what would happen next. I told her to get as much work done, but not to overstrain herself and that part of what would happen over the next 10 days was people saying goodbye to each other. I told her that it would probably be a good idea for her to talk to Sr. about when to tell the staff or clients, but after a minute or so of me obviously bumbling and then asking a more direct question, she said that most the staff, but one already knew. I think I had told her before that when this stuff went around that it had the affect of more people wanting to leave. Apparently, she wasn’t overly concerned, or perhaps naïve in her thinking. I don’t know really where she is at anymore. She has an alias with lower staff and her mother that is thicker obviously than the relationship I thought we’d developed. I don’t mean to take down the other relationship, and we certainly did not earn any trust points. I’ve taken some serious lessons this round on trust. I’m pretty sure it was this one that had talked more frequently to sister about being uncomfortable about personal conversations. I thought on cue from her that we’d cut that way back. I would like to continue the path we’ve taken lately for good in not carrying any personal conversations with the staff. I think in particular with the new staff – the last two that they’ve set up a lot of angst with all. The Q’s mother yesterday wanted to make a big deal out of not even being able to speak Spanish. I asked her … all of that is coming from one statement Sr. made. It was a small thought toward something of obvious importance. But, from the way this staff had talked she was ready to throw in her 10 years seniority because she felt threatened about talking in Spanish. I’m very sure that between themselves they’ve made it into a very big issue in defensiveness by being Spanish speaking. I had emphasized before we were just talking about courtesy and that if three people were at a table and two were speaking in Spanish that the other might be interested to talk too.
I think it will be better when the new Q goes … most likely she has fed those negative thoughts too … of being more defensive and listening to loose conjoining talk more than not. I think now in retrospect she has had a hard time separating herself on a professional level from being one of the girls. Her work has been excellent, but I don’t think she is emotionally very mature. And, then again, we will always need to wonder how much a negative impact we had because of our loyalty to the Sister over the staff. It feels very frustrating in that I know if they had a problem they would and have gone to sister, but on some of these other issues that are most important … their values they feel are being challenged … they don’t go to Sister. They would rather stand together and separate themselves as if we were now into a union/management phase. I know though that when I think too much of their concerns they distract me from doing the job, which is taking care of our accreditation and training and clients period. I just don’t need that.
There are other aspects of that as well … in that I have school work to be doing. That’s the same bottom line at work … there is work to be doing. If I’m not doing both of those things in the right place and time, I’m dishonoring my responsibilities. Yesterday, we were more focused on school thoughts then work. I have to keep impressing on ourselves to do this differently. For every time I goof up I got to focus on it even harder than before. Just like right now … we’re up against it here … It’s now 3 am in the morning and the perfect time to be starting up school, because we’re behind and yet we want to continue the writing. Maybe if we go through the checklist and make sure everything is covered than we can slide into our appointed tasks, which is home at home and work at work.
So, let’s try that.
We finished our Dr. M. talk, we’re on hold with our friend – though we would like to say that whole situation has made us pretty gunshy. We’ll have to do more working through that one. Maybe just a few moments here now … nothing big though, ok? I remember before our friend had got here that day we brought the car home, we were scared of him, but it was in more a lightened mode. For example, when he came in later that night, we were hiding under the covers. He had made it very clear though that we weren’t going in the bedroom. We joined him in the kitchen where he had found the paperwork. For a while we were just staring blankly. When we’re like that I don’t know if we’re having too many thoughts. It seems like more a dissociative part. I know he kept talking and then there were moments of silence and we kept going down deeper and deeper in a very, very hard achy place where we couldn’t stop crying. I think he was trying to help us understand the gravity of what we’d done. I don’t know how many of those thoughts we could process, because the feelings and emotions were so heavy, I don’t think there was much thought processing. Ok, too much now again … Forgot we weren’t going to talk about the car. I know that its different talking about our friend. I know that he still loves us, just that this has been a very hard thing. We know we’ve messed up, but it is more a feeling. Until we were with Dr. M. we were having a hard time processing thoughts, because we were feeling lost … I’d like to say that we disappointed him, maybe we’ve gleaned some of that from the experience, but even there those kind of thoughts have not yet been processed. The most immediate version is for us to be able to say that he was very frustrated, because those are the words we remember him framing in for us. Most of it though? Was on some deep deep level too hard for me. Soo, I’m going to stop here again. I know that my position is to convey that of all, but I know when I’m getting into trouble with my own depression. I got to do just a little bit at a time.
I do want to say thank you to Deb for helping us … I think our relationship with Deb allows that this sort of thing comes up but that it comes up as just a small part of other stuff that comes up between us. And that sense of balance feels helpful. Soooo my luv! Thank you entirely!
Ok, what next. We’ll save school for just another moment. Anything else? Hmm, little work things … I think the last meeting with the Circles program and Group I went well. It is the easiest group to pace and I feel they are interested in the material. We talked most of the summary for this meeting out in our work notes, so we’re not going on here, but I’m grateful for the program and what it teaches us. Yesterday before the staff training meeting we read through the materials for the second week. I think I should try to put something of that together today. If memory serves correctly the early 10:30 group happens with Group 3 on Tuesdays after being gone on Monday. That reminds me too … we have a dentist appointment today and I think we are going to need asking our friend if we shouldn’t cancel it. The staff training meeting I though went well. Especially knowing now that the Q had been busy between meetings. Somehow we had prefaced that people understand as to further training that they appreciate the knowledge and skill they pick up while working at the center. Something very concrete had happened in that they each went around and traced who had come first and next, and next between all the staff. Basically, who had stayed the longest and to a lesser extent, what was happening as they each came in and as a lighter side who was getting how much vacation. I think it was impressionable to some that the staff who had been there 10 years could take 4 months of continuous time off and that she’d actually taken off 5 weeks. I think in looking around and out loud in the group that people had really shown a commitment to the organization and that showed its affect out in the world as far as our reputation went as an agency. I don’t recall now the field or organization the new Q is going, but that it is somewhere in the suburbs in another field other than mental retardation. It’s probably entails a caseload. I remember trying to collect an impression and I hadn’t thought it was part of an essential service. But, honestly I can’t remember. There is a lot that is learned by becoming part of a company that needs to be done over the long haul. But, when your young, there are many things you need to consider, especially because you are learning to work more independently, or in a relationship to another, sometimes other than just parent. I had asked the mother of the Q. about her going to miss her daughter working there and she said no, because she will see her on weekends. We’ll have more to add on relationships when we get back to our school work. There is definitely a balance between dependency, interdependency, and independence. I will be glad to step outside the complications of this last effort to be more professional in the general relationships. So many conversations to boyfriend and mother … I say finish off the next ten days, and then let’s get on with it. This should and hopefully will be the period of letting go and moving on for all of us.
Ok, now … moving on for us. What’s next? Dr. M., friend, work … ok one more small work detail. Sr. has been helpful in trying to gather some of the supplies we requested a week or so ago. Yesterday she brought in the 16 or so folders that we’d requested. That was the last thing we were doing before we left for our taxes to be signed … oh more of that too. We fixed the couple that were ready and we made room on the shelves for them. I would really like to start that project today … in getting out just the framework for that material. Basically, the inserts for each of the different sections are in too and need to be put in place. I think that we need to be moving forward on that, or we are going to be running out of time.
Sister has reminded us again that we could take a look at some of the comments everyone turned in, but that we’d do it after CARF. We keep telling her CARF won’t be over until after May 23rd. But, she doesn’t want to hear that. So, we just shake our head and move on.
Ok, now as to taxes. We ran into a problem with them in that we went back to the regular H & R Block, but got stuck with one not as smart and had inefficient boundaries. That was a little touch and go, but the bottom line is that she was going to give us only $500 and we pushed in saying no we were not satisified, because the difference was so much from the year previously. Fortunately the manager came in at the right time and helped to straighten all that out. It was a problem with the intelligence of her staff. We finally said enough … we looked at the manager and seemed to understand each other that she’d take care of the internal problem, because the staff was saying she wouldn’t sign her name to the papers as if something illegal was happening. The taxes did get adjusted so that we were getting instead $1500, which isn’t $2000, but is better. The second day going back in to sign the lady was still trying to save face, but of course by then we didn’t trust her, but kept our mouth quiet as to her stating next year she’d do our taxes for free. Yeah right. Just get me in and out of here and don’t mess with me. Because she sent in the wrong way first … we are afraid that it is going to affect our money balance in that an addendum was sent for the remaining $900 … because its not on the E-form I think this is really going to toy with ability to put down payment on the account for the car. We’ll talk to our friend and Dr. M. as that progresses. But, will do with what we have to. Most likely the check we were going to give our friend this next week and the first $500 auto will need to go for the car downpayment … I don’t know how to do the rest. The remaining $500 and as Dr. M. says the other things we’d planned on paying off with the $2000 are not going to get paid. Think we should pretty clearly just decide that the teeth cleaning should be canceled tonight, but we’re gunshy and not wanting to make any financial decisions right now without our friend. So, we better do that this morning.
Ok, AGAIN … are we cleared yet? Could there be anything else BUT school? It is now 3:45 am. Hmm, just a little aside. I don’t remember if we said it, but the other day we spent some time with Dr. appointments. We’re still waiting for someone to call back with the C-Pap machine, but we are closer toward working through all that. It again involves money, so we’ll talk to our friend about it. I’m not sure if we’re at a financial point we can take on the deposit price of like $45. I don’t think the rest of the payments will be too bad … like $12-14, because the insurance is going to pay 90% and then in 13 months we’ll be done making payments and will own a $1300 machine. That’s probably a good thing. One more other side note. When looking over through papers, we found the other day our old diabetes tester, drivers licence, credit card, etc. we’d lost back in December 05. That was nice because we then also found with it $38 .. woohooo … makes us feel very rich. But, for the moment we’re still considering our big overtime expense to be the $1 for sweet rolls on the way to work. I feel that we need some luxury. We made a stab at the exercise routine in that we got dressed and showered early the other day and then ended up for 3 minutes on the exercise treadmill. That is just a tiny start. We know we’ve regressed here quite a bit. And, we also need to get back to eating fruit and vegetables. But, not today. We’re feeling for the record though a tightening of our thighs so thinking that we’re probably way out in left field.
Hmm, we promised ourselves we’d get on the scale better do that now. Ok … 309.2 … so we know where that is. That’s not good, but we were afraid it be worse. Ok you … no minimalizing!! Its not good!
We did check the package on the sweet rolls. We are eating two and that totals out at 800 calories. If its our only breakfast then it’s not killing us .. just not great … there’s nothing specially healthy in the choice. Our friend was saying something the other day when not yelling at us about at least getting back into the gym. That of course is a balancing trick with our writing and school. I think something that needs to go back on the agenda with Dr. M. Ok, enuf there for now too. We progressed it just a little bit.
NOW ANYTHING?? 4 am HMMM??
Ok, let’s take the move … let’s go to school thoughts. We did hand in one paper yesterday. We had seen a note from the teacher as an announcement handed to the class. She talked about how to make an improvement to the B, C papers. That kind of made us feel better because it told us that not everyone was just getting handed A’s or 100’s. Sometimes I think and know our papers are above many, but we’re never quite sure. It made us feel stronger in wanting to do good work. I was a little unhappy about parts of our last paper, because there was a lot of just summarizing through listing variables of what the author was saying. I like it when we get to more analyzing. We did however do some of that too, and we finalized the last paragraph in summary of reflecting it personally. We recognize that is a familiar formula the school uses in getting people to apply their knowledge to their lives and especially at work. I hope we are going to be able to find where we left off at the library. We had like 5 resources we wanted to use. I think we left ourselves a cheat sheet of where we left off and that is what we should pull up now.
Ok, that is pretty much the notes we took from two resources. I think officially we were supposed to pull in the if at all the resource that we already used from the last paper. That will help … maybe we should look at that for a second … maybe then we almost have enough resources. I think though we were interested in at least peeking at the other three. Now, can we remember what we used as keywords? We should be writing that down. I think we’d gone to something from the room. Let’s slide over to school. I know that we were getting a lot out of writing done by Ainsworth and Bowby. Damm maintenance being done to the site. I probably knew that? Shoot. Ok, we’ve got some information … let’s make due then with what we got. There is references from the book .. hmm, don’t think we highlighted those yet … might want to do that next. We do have a print out of the five sets of notes we used from the previous paper … that will be helpful. Ok, let’s get started.
Ok, let’s take a few moments for cold feet … that was a little too abrupt. SHEESH. Sorry! I think the first step is that someone has to go get the book, K??? Yes dear.
Ok, that’s done … next … which papers do we want up on the desk? We’ve got our “Start here document.” That has the notes from the first two resources. Next to us in hard copy we have the seven resources from before. Ok, now the only resource we’ll need is the one from this section of the book on attachment theory. Let’s look at the specific questions we need to answer …
1. Incorporate the article you located in study activity u04s2 into your response to this discussion or Discussion u04s1, and list the full citation for the article.
2. As described in your text, Hazan and Shaver (1987) were the first to conceptualize romantic love as an attachment process. Analyze attachment theory as it applies to understanding the process of romantic love.
3. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of attachment theory as a theoretical framework for understanding human relationships.
4. How could you apply this information to a personal or a professional setting?
Seems like the information that we are lacking the most of is in applying attachment theory to romantic love. Both the latest two resources will help better answer attachment theory as a framework. Ok, need to read the text and take notes. Do we need to skim our previous notes first? There seems to be a couple of things we wanted to emphasize? Ok, let’s do that real quick. Ok, ok got that done … next we need to find the right pages of the book to skim through. We’ve read though and highlighted everything in the chapter, but it seems the part on secure and insecure attachment styles is on one and a half pages. Good. Better focus on Hazan and Shaver. 1987 YEEKS! Ok, we want to analyze attachment theory at it applies to romantic love …. Ok, let’s start the notes. We’re going to use the other sheet though. Let’s just do that, k?
We can do this, remember?
posted by Ann Marie @ 2/09/2007 04:48:00 AM
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