08-30-17
Found this again … it is Moline’s book, mentioning us in a chapter. He is bothersome to us.
My reaction is similar to that to which I alluded in the previous chapter, in quoting Dr. Richard Baer’s fondness for “little Claire.” The alternative presentations of self would wish to be seen as separate personalities, fully capable of engaging in interpersonal relationships, like anyone else. It is clear that many therapists, or some therapists in some cases, fall into such an understanding of the nature of their therapeutic relationship. It is not my understanding, and, further, raises for me the question of whether such an alternative understanding does not help fix into place a way for the patient to be in the world that is fundamentally inauthentic.
It strikes me as quite possible that, behind many of the memoirs describing relatively adaptive lives of multiplicity, behind the “We’re multiple and we’re proud,” blogs and declarations, lies just this particular kind of therapeutic relationship. Dissociation is fundamentally not conducive to living a regulated, productive life, fully engaged in human relationships; to live a life that give such an appearance may require a therapist who provides the “glue” that holds the dissociative lives together, smooths the rough edges of transition, and helps the patient avoid the abyss of traumatic memories.1 I will readily admit that this may be all a given patient will allow the therapist to do. I think this may well be true in the case of Ann, as Dr. Marvin seemed fully devoted in his therapy with Ann to working through the patient’s childhood traumatic experiences. And, there can be no question that it is fruitless for a therapist to attempt to define for a patient what her goals for therapy should be. I worry, however, that such therapy is doing a disservice to the weakened, beleaguered self who is “hearing voices,” and who once was whole before experiencing cataclysmic events.
Reference
Moline, R. A. (2013). The diagnosis and treatment of dissociative identity disorder: A case study and contemporary perspective. Lanham, MD: Jason Aronson. (p. 86).
We’re beleaguered???!!
09-11-17
Monday, September 11, 2017 @ 9:26AM
Good morning. This is just us … We’ve been thinking about 911 this morning, and we ARE late to post – to be posting period. God Bless those with Direct loss on this day in our history. We posted in Facebook, Home Free’s Capella, “God Bless the USA”. After that including now, we’ve been playing Home Free on Alexa. We also just connected to CNN on the computer through Dish TV. Pswhoo! That was a pain in the neck. It took a bit to get through all the names and numbers through DISH. Wouldn’t you know it, we didn’t have them saved. It took a while. We got to the point of calling DISH, but then suddenly, we figured it out. YAY!
Not so yay about it being 911. I think it’s always going to stand for an American day of unity – to give pause for all those killed, and those killed protecting the rights of Americans after and through our military power. I suppose there are a lot of people today remembering the day. We do know where we stood when we first saw what was happening. We were working at the center, and had just gone into group III to check on Kenny. The TV was on, I don’t think Marie was in yet. I saw the film of the first plane, and then the second plane, and then both towers going down. I remember telling sister, and she turned on the big TV in the lunchroom.
After that, we had to take a couple of days off. We feared people bombing important areas. I was scared because both of my sons were working at the Chicago Board of Trade, and I thought that was something they would hit – to collapse part of our financial system. Gladly, that didn’t happen, but we were going through a sense of shock as were so many. I couldn’t stop watching TV News. I suppose that’s part of my personality, as the last 2-3 weeks watching all the news with the Hurricanes. We were adjusting our new computer to CNN’s computer coverage – had to connect through DISH. This is so, we can progress somewhat … Not watching the TV directly, but just over to the right of my screens, with the music on and the sound turned down. This is our version of breaking away from things.
The President had spoken, and now we see VP Pence speaking about 9/11. But, we don’t want to go through the direct listening. It’s too much. I’m still here. The world’s still here. I should be moving on. I know that we have “Ann Work” to do. This is part of our Ann work. That is writing in the blog. The other part will be catching up the blog entries that were hand written, or typed before this entry. I’m thinking here about Melanie hehe, she may be one of my only readers. I think she keeps me in check as much as anyone.
The other part of my work is to be looking at the self-regulation material and remembering what was happening there. We’ve just been lost in space. Things been happening, don’t think we’ll remember much … might be moving on. I’m not sure. The keyboard fills good under my fingers. It is Monday morning, and we did laundry and bedding over the weekend. AND, Maury is coming later – after he gets off work, which is late – maybe 9PM, or so, but he is bringing Lady and Max. It is finally time that we’ll be watching his dogs while he goes to Vegas with friends. It was something arranged probably back in spring. It’s been a while.
In general, though, we’ve been progressing our domestic skills. We’ve been pretty used to doing laundry and dishes, and picking-up the house … I know when is she finally going to stop talking about this? But, anyway, here we are still talking. If you were us, you would know, we’re just here. But, the big news is that I’ve could take care of floors all by myself, for the last two weeks. This is major. I think it’s in our notes, somewhere not posted yet, but Dr. Marvin triggered a cue with saying that we could be using the long thin nozzle that usually comes with the vacuum.
We had gotten a new vacuum – two years ago, come November. So, then there was a process of discovering all the things about the vacuum, and accessories, that we’re completely amazed with. What has happened over the last two years, that we knew so little about our vacuum? Surely, someone knew about these things when we bought it? The canister, comes off the vacuuming part (wheels on ground), and then you carry it around and there are three hand attachments, and they are Cool. We knew we had one and “more,” just didn’t think it was very efficient trying to use them pulling the big vac. So, know we know the canister comes off for easier usage, and then it also fits on another base, for doing hard wood floors, like WHO saw that coming? It was all in a bag, we hadn’t touched since the day we got the vacuum.
Pretty much, right after we got it … Rich was doing the vacuuming. I guess we never put two and two together – that there was a bag marked vacuum stuff right behind the vacuum. Good grief. That’s just the most ridiculous thing.
We’re back. I’m not quite sure how we got from 9/11 to vacuuming, but don’t really want to look up right now that we’ve gotten all the way to the bottom of whopping Page TWO! There was a break because Rich wanted me to print out something from his officiating site. Ok, that wasn’t too much a problem. Just lost our focus again. Still seeing a lot of flooding by the hurricane. I think it’s more toward Georgia now, but for some reason … seeing video of Daytona Beach. Maybe if we can train ourselves not to look over there, we’d be better. We’re not willing to turn it off yet. But, it’s easier when we have a commercial break.
One of the other things we’ve been doing is we contacted Cari, our DIL. We’ve set a date to visit her and Joe, maybe go out for dinner. We want to pick-up 2-3 outfits through her Lularoe business. She is now just working on her own, but with Joe’s help. I don’t know what happened to her partner, or how they handled the division of the business. I’m thinking they had to buy the partner out, because there is big inventory involved. We’ll find out later, maybe. Feel proud of Cari and Joe, for being able to handle the business on their own. It seems like it’s a LOT to be handling. But, they are good at that sort of thing.
Cari’s still a nurse, and Joe still has the Karate, and I think they are still doing Herbalife, but this program has taken on its own wings. Good for them AND, they have given me another Grandchild! Alex seems to be growing-up with the selling and doing well with it. I asked, if there was anything I could help them with. I’m thinking they are self-contained, but if they had any computer business I would be willing to help some. I know – plus help Rich, AND ourselves hehe – there’s a lot going on in life. I do have one suggestion … they should have charts or something with everyone’s size, so when they sign-in, they would be better prepared to be selling to that size. Seems like just a slight adjustment on their forms – I think they have a sign-on already for people making purchases. I don’t know if I know anything, they don’t already know. Just interested in them being successful! Great luck to them!
I still should make a date with Laura to talk about Austin’s school. Hmm, just left a message … so far, so good. I would like to talk to Thom too, but I would like more information from Laura and Austin, before we do that. I gave Laura some numbers, but secondarily, I would like to help. Can’t do much, but that’s sort of a Grandma desire 😊 I would also like to talk to Maury when he gets here, about when I could see his kids, my OTHER Grandchildren. That would a full swing! Maury just contacted us – he’s going to need 30-60 minutes more before getting here. Just always happy when someone can stop over. 😊 OK, all the happy faces. Hehe must be talking about family.
September 17, 2017 @ 8:54AM
Good morning – though a bit late. We’ve been up for about 3-4 hours, but have just been rambling around catching up with things. One of the last things we were doing was checking out Obama.org. Yesterday, we’d been reading more about Hilary’s programs. I’m not going into that much now – just into our first paragraph, and don’t want to be upsetting our Republican friends first thing. That’s only fair, right? But, for the record … we’re going to be following both those now that they are into their next phases. 😊
We met Rich on his way out the door this morning. He is fishing with a friend from Sandwich – locally, at his club. So, there is some relief there from the other side hehe. This friend, should be moving to Arizona soon, so I’m glad they have gotten the chance to be together.
We did give Rich a hard time last night. He’d gone to the fishy-group on Thursday night, been out with his football crew on Friday night, and he was going fishing this morning, and then during “our” time last night – he got on the phone with another friend. Pretty cranky. We were … well, it might have sounded like wining, but it was like – when is OUR time? He’s going to OH this week without us, and that might have something to do with it also. Ok, and then it WAS a long weekend with the dogs.
Maury was in Los Vegas with friends, and we had Lady and Max … HEY! Check out some GREAT pictures and even a video on FB! Ok, we were enamored with the three cousins … but, it IS a fair bit of work! My sister had three dogs, and we’re not sure how ANYONE does larger animal broods. I love though that our three dogs get along so well. One of the best things we did was to order extra antlers. The bag came with four nice size pieces, so there was a good amount of that between things. There was tug-o-war and chasing games, and wrestling matches, and all-in-all a lot of fun for them – though, we did gain some tiredness amongst all. Hehe. We’ll post a few of the pictures. The heading is our favorite shot taken after hundreds of pictures, getting just the right shot with the three MOVING pooches!
09-26-17
@ 9:38AM gotta go take a shower, but this all IS going to be published in our blog today – dagnabit!
10-05-17
@ 12:07PM AND, STILL trying to publish to Blog!
