A Transition Day
Good morning … this is me. We’ve got a normal start, but we’re trying to figure out if we should wake CS and when. I forgot to ask her how much time she needs to get up in the morning. I’m not sure with Rich either, because he was up to about midnight and I don’t know if he wants to sleep in. I don’t want to wreck-up anyone’s bathroom schedule. I took my shower at 5 am when I woke up to give them more room. I’m thinking CS is slow to get going … maybe I’ll wake her at 5:45 – it’s 5:40 now. It’s been a long time since she had to get up for work. I’m hoping to entice her by a stop for donuts and fresh coffee.Yesterday turned out to be pretty good. Well, with the exception that somebody got a ticket for driving 80 mph. Lordy … that was a tough break. I found that it’s probably not a good idea to listen to 60’s pop rock while driving. I had just finished listening to “Wipe-out” and then Rich called and then I looked to my left seeing motion and it was a police pulling out behind me by a couple of cars. Shoot, shoot. I slowed down, but it was too late. A woman police officer pulled me over and she was real nice. Very few words had to be said and she didn’t scold me or anything. Just told my speed when I drove past her. Umm, sorry officer. Needless to say we drove back with speed control on. *sigh*
Hmm, just woke her up. She seemed to be sleeping pretty good. She kind of jumped to fast, but better safe than sorry. I’d like her to get up more casually. I saw that she had made an entry at midnight in facebook so I’m not sure when she went to sleep. I had fallen asleep on the couch in my favorite spot. She was up then, but when Rich got home and woke me up she seemed to be sleeping or at least not in the living room. We have a big enough TV in the living room, but the one in CS room is huge. We’re holding it for Maury. Definitely on this morning.
Should probably complete the morning yesterday though. Well basically, we got up and out in good time and had no other events driving … I was a little tired in the morning and we got the ticket just outside West Bend where CS lives. I think we’d been entertaining ourselves by stealth driving in and out of cars to be in front.
Shouldn’t have been doing that … ok enough of that!
So then when we got to CS place we found she was still packing. She said no she’d packed the night before, but she spent about an hour in her bedroom repacking and repacking. I had told her we didn’t want to bring a lot up those 3 flights and to keep it lite! She said half of everything went back, but we loaded like 4 cases ….
Lordy! To her credit only 2 came up … one left behind turned out to be the gift donations and one was her sewing machine we didn’t need upstairs. I felt bad for her coming up because we got to the top unlocked the door and quickly switched into our pjs before she got to the top store. It was a bit of effort.
Oh, I forgot the trip back.
Basically there she talked for quite a bit, but not more than normal. At some point maybe about an hour into the trip I invited her to look at the iPod. Yup, yup … she’s pretty sure she’s going to need one. She played with that and the two of us played around with the GPS devises we had … I had changed the address mid-trip so that we could drive to lake Michigan and down Lake Shore Drive. It’s a beauty. We pulled into one of the beaches and it turned out to have this excellent Dog park right by the water. It was pretty cool … we also picked up Slurpees before we got there so that was pretty cool thinking too.
The dogs were great to watch. The owners were like stumps … almost all the dogs were free to run and catch things in the sand or water. They looked like they were having the greatest time. There was plenty of room and about 50 dogs of all shapes and nationalities Hehehe. I hope it helped her to get over leaving her dogs behind. She didn’t say anything about missing them, though she was saying things like Curly would do this or that one’s like Macy. Poor critters … they are rarely left alone. CS barely EVER gets out other than Doc appointments.
So then … we had to find a washroom, but headed toward Dr. Marvin’s and then went a little farther south where I remembered there was a Burger King. Good enough there. Then I had to take her to a Dunkin Donut, because that’s where I go if I get to Dr. Marvin’s early. She seemed fine with our crumb cake muffin. Yah sure that’s low calorie. After that we told her we couldn’t eat it yet, and then went to the Chinese Place … our favorite to pick up dinner since there was extra time. THEN we went to my place with the strange over-abundance of parking meters. Man that will never make sense to me. They are as far as the eyes can see. City really got carried away.
We ate the muffins there and talked some more … she had stopped the iPod to see all the city views. I’ll find out as we go along what seemed strange to her. She talked to Mark too. He had gotten a job offer early in the morning when we were up there, so by then had gone to the interview. It was at a college pretty far away, but he thought he’d always wanted to work at a University level – so he seemed ok with the drive. I think it will most likely take up most his extra work time, but maybe he’ll keep a day with the old folks, not sure … that’s all their business.
So, then we made sure CS knew she had two options. She could either wait in the car or she could wait in the Dr’s office. We told her that we’d most likely bring him out afterward to say hello, but that took even negotiation between me and Dr. Marvin, because we have our own toleration points, and we weren’t handling very much. Maybe more of this later. In general though we talked about the situation in and around CS.
Afterward CS stood up to meet him, but she had a lot of stuff to get through. She didn’t say much and there wasn’t much time offered to talk to her. Dr. Marvin simply said hello … I don’t remember if they shook hands I’m thinking not. Then he and I left him back to his office and me to get the car. It’s like a two block walk and I didn’t think she’d be up to it. His time is like ticking, but basically we had agreed in the office that I didn’t want to leave him there talking to her. I think mostly because it would be uncomfortable for me.
I’m thinking now most of our conversation was about CS most likely being Borderline Personality Disorder. I had asked her while she was waiting about her formal diagnoses, but all she would admit to was being depressed. Maybe that’s it, but I’m thinking not and so is Dr. Marvin. He talked about though that sometimes that kind of stuff isn’t discussed til later, but CS had been seeing someone since like 6th grade. I think at one point or another she stopped Dr. Wanassee, but I don’t remember when she stopped. I don know when we were in college like freshman year … she was in the hospital because of acting out being suicidal. I’m thinking too that happened after she got married and was living in West Bend. I remember visiting her in the hospital.
I don’t think that has happened recently and I don’t think she’s seeing anyone now – though it seems that most of her problems are medical and that she’d gotten up to like 450 she said in weight … Don’t hold me to that number, but I know she was really heavy and pretty much bed bound.
I’m trying to think now what the conversation was about … I think we talked a lot about what it meant having BPD and most likely how it was affecting her … He understood through about a year of appointments talking to her what was going on with her and us through that time. It should be prefaced too that it was all me talking so whatever position that could be as to being jaded, but for the most part I think we’re really honest in therapy about what we are thinking and how we describe our experience. The conjecture part is always subjective, but I think after 10 years Dr. Marvin knows how to read us pretty good. Shoot, he’s a psychiatrist you know?
I think that one of the things we talked about was her intuition being off … he talked about a loss of integration and that she pretty much lived in the here and now so her life experience was orientated to how she was at any given minute or by any given encounter with people or her environment. There’s a lot of “good/bad” thinking. I think on days she stays in bed she’s a different way than the days she gets up to clean or move around in the sewing room. And, I think it’s a lot based on her, so for example when Mark called to talk about his job … she wasn’t thinking as much what he wanted as much as how it affected her. Not a lot of how was the experience for you? Or congratulations! But more like how much money is it and what are the benefits. Dr. Marvin said that Mark probably held his own there in that those were second meeting type questions.
There was a strange thing too going on in that Mark wanted to send his resume and CS kept insisting that she do it for him because he couldn’t do it right. I’m thinking he’s going to be a college chemistry teacher … what couldn’t he figure out. I think in his UP periods Mark knows the same though he’s more dependent at other times … most likely do to a lot of manipulations. I talked to both of them about using big peoples voices. Like when Mark called the interviewer he was saying that he’d taken his “doggie for a walk.” He did that too on another call and I was like … Wow Mark those dogs are really getting a good walk this morning. He said something like yah … they’d had a good time. Though we both knew the dogs had NEVER gone for a walk.
The critical thing is saying words or thought LIKE doggie instead of dog … and why would you tell a college professor about walking your dog. Most often those things don’t apply.
I feel a lot like I’m being over critical and we talked about that too. I said there seems to be things we are just not tolerating and when he asked what the first was that she nervously picks at her chest … the one that got so infected she needed surgery in December. There was another point as to the negative way she treated Mark sometimes. Like with the resume situation above she really hit him hard with it. Like well fine if you want to screw things up.” It really wasn’t complimentary.
Dr. Marvin says that it’s a way of managing the upper-hand and was very controlling and it showed her insecurity. She wanted to maintain her position as he was depended on her and that this job wasn’t more important than her views.
There was something else we’re trying to remember, but I don’t know what it was now … I don’t want to stay in this throughout because I’m running out of time. I’ve only got about 15 minutes left and wanted to finish this other part of the story.
Anyway we got home and given a choice she preferred to eat in the living room. So after I showed her the place VERY QUICK tour … we ate dinner and I’d turned to the channel I know that she likes to watch. We saw about 3 shows and talked through them, but then I fell asleep. So that was pretty much our night.
We were just moving around and got the sewing stuff together and I’d forgotten to do my medicine. Yeeks! I’ve got about 5 minutes before I wake up Rich. She seemed surprised I was still dressed, but I don’t usually get dressed until the very end.
I gotta remember to get money so I can get donuts and we’re going to need stop for gas. Probably should get going then. Today is the day she checks out work and then Italian dinner and Bob/Marcia. Ok, I can do this, right?
posted by Ann Marie @ 3/19/2010 06:42:00 AM
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