Marsia's Diary

Sorry to hear about the continued stress about the visitation :(

Marsia said:
but here you would not sit on the lawn. The swarms of little red fire ants and huge bite-y ants that take chunks out of you would find you in a few minutes. Here the trees grow in super fast, so I think lawns are an attempt to keep some sunlight and clear space around people's houses. Also clear space helps for not stepping on poisonous snakes, which are in abundance here, too.
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oh my! yes I can see how a person wouldn't want to laze about on a lawn like that! yikes!
 
Oof, C is getting on my nerves something terrible and I've never even met her! It's nice that K is motivated to get done with school and find a job though.
 
Marsia said:
Well, yesterday, instead of answering my questions about therapeutic visitation, C sent me, J, and all the therapists an email about how the therapeutic visitation will take place, including her telling everyone that I will wait in the parking lot, and she will walk K in and out of therapy with J in person. I wrote her back in a separate email and told her that will not be happening. I also agreed to all the therapy dates in the general email so that J thinks things are going well. I want mediation to go smoothly. After mediation I'll schedule a phone call with C. I don't want the stress of messing with her until after I get through mediation.
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Go, M!!! You'll sort her out!
 
Sorry to hear the latest update with the therapist kind of making strange stipulations? Anyway, you're dealing with it well. Enjoy the weekend, Marsia. I'm intrigued about the weather in New Orleans at the moment. I'd love to go there at some point - is this a good time of year in terms of temperature?
 
liza3 said:
Sorry to hear about the continued stress about the visitation :(


oh my! yes I can see how a person wouldn't want to laze about on a lawn like that! yikes!
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Thanks Liza, we had a take care of ourselves day yesterday instead of school because I couldn't cope with the stress and kept crying. I feel a lot better now. I think I hit some sort of rock bottom as far as how much stress I can take, and it really helped actually because I really see how stressed I am and that I have to put some routines in place which will help with relaxation and with not taking all this weirdness personally. I am going to be sure to meditate each morning, to work on enjoying the mundane things more (like getting the house ready for sale and seeing it as empowering - as me being one step closer to freedom), and I need to keep doing what I am doing with diet and eat just veggies and meat for my last meal of the day (my weight is coming down a little just from that). I think I need to make these things be givens and work from there.
It's funny how tough the wildlife is here. You have to be careful enjoying nature because you could become part of the food chain out there!
Llama said:
Oof, C is getting on my nerves something terrible and I've never even met her! It's nice that K is motivated to get done with school and find a job though.
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Thanks Llama, she is being so weird. She forced me into deciding if we would do therapeutic visitation or break our agreement to do this in the temporary separation agreement. So I'll go along with this until it no longer is beneficial for K, and then we will terminate this, and J will probably stop paying for therapy (that's why he is paying for therapy - so K goes to the therapeutic visitation). We can get jobs and pay for at least group therapy. I also found a great channel on Youtube on healing from narcissistic abuse that I showed K yesterday, and we both really like it, so we'll be listening to that now and reading our psych books. We have a great one that I think we should get back to reading. It's on immature parents and how that affects their children. So I think we will be ok if J stops paying for therapy, and as long as we try the therapeutic visitation I think we can wiggle out of the temporary separation agreement because therapy is voluntary, and J can't force K to go. So I am reframing this as K getting to tell J off with a therapist there, and when she is done, she walks away more empowered.
Cate said:
Go, M!!! You'll sort her out!
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Thanks Cate, I will! There is no way in the world I am letting K out of my sight once she is out of the therapy room if the therapy is in person!!

So yesterday was really good because we did another soak in the big tub with jets and we opened the windows so we could hear the birds. It rained all day and was so beautiful and cool. I am still feeling tired, but not so stressed. My lawyer called and she is having heart troubles so she has to go to the doctor which pushes off the mediation. I am actually ok with mediation being later, and just concerned for her health. I am really going to focus on creative ways to get us doing a healthy routine that we love.
 
Emilyrose said:
Sorry to hear the latest update with the therapist kind of making strange stipulations? Anyway, you're dealing with it well. Enjoy the weekend, Marsia. I'm intrigued about the weather in New Orleans at the moment. I'd love to go there at some point - is this a good time of year in terms of temperature?
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Thanks Em! The weather this time of year is perfect in the South. All the flowering shrubs and trees are in bloom, the deciduous trees are leaving out, and it's either slightly muggy and warm (but not hot) or cool and rainy. I visited New Orleans in my 20s and had the most magical time. Just be careful to stay in the tourist areas. New Orleans has a lot of crime. Anyway, I especially loved the folk art museum, the voodoo museum with a tour of a cool cemetery, and eating beignets and sipping coffee with chicory in it in the French Quarter. I was poor back then and we camped in a swamp with tent sites on raised sand boxes. You had to wade to your tent after the rain and then quickly unzip the tent, get in, and kill all the mosquitos that got in. When you woke up in the morning, you were greeted with a little swarm of them waiting outside the tent screen. But there were also incredible amounts of lightning bugs lighting up the swamp. I had never camped in a swamp before and thought it was so amazing. :)
 
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Llama said:
Sorry to hear things got to be too much for a bit :grouphug: Good job taking care of yourself on a day like that!
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Thanks Llama! Today was much, much better. We explored a neighboring island that is still wild and a farming community. We explored a local fishery that looks beautiful but the walking trails were closed today. We also found a beautiful winery where we pet a lovely miniature cow for a long time, and she licked us and talked to us and was just so sweet. We're 2/3rd done with the semester and I have to really get going on all the projects that need to get done before the house can be sold. We'll get the front flower bed planted out with stuff from other places in the yard tomorrow, and hopefully start mulching.
 
Thanks everyone! I did really love gardening yesterday. Got a flower bed weeded and lots of things tidied in the yard. I emailed and told C (the therapeutic visitation therapist) that I either wanted Zoom therapy for J like she told me would happen initially or for me to be in the waiting room, and I explained again why. She wrote back and said that we are too high conflict a family and will refer me out to another therapist. I was relieved because I've been having near panic attacks about the therapeutic visitation. But now J has paid for a ton of therapy and didn't get his therapeutic visitation, and I don't know what to say to him. He is going to see this as me sabotaging therapy. If anyone can think of how to tell him what happened, I'd really appreciate feedback. Anyway, I feel about 200 times better now, and we can just focus on finishing up school and on getting the house ready. Our friend N comes over for more gardening stuff today, and I just bought a few greens in 6 packs so we have a little to tide us over in the screen house before we move. I hope I get to plant them out today maybe with some leeks and garlic that are ready to plant.
 
I don't think you should tell him anything: he's going to pretend you're unreasonable for not letting him have what C unrightfully promised him no matter what you say. Unless he comes right out and says something (at which point you could just say the situation was unworkable for you because C didn't stick to her word, without going into detail) I'd let sleeping dogs lie. Any extra detail you give he's going to try as ammo against you. He is not a well-meaning but awkward friend you want to be as fair and kind as possible to. He's an abuser who wants his power back.
 
I agree with Llama, almost word for word. I am so glad that the C visitation is not going to happen. What a relief!
 
Thanks for the feedback Llama and Cate! I have to think about it a while. There are all these appointments set up for the therapeutic visitation, and if J learns they are cancelled from C instead of from me, that probably won't be good. I do really agree about C unrightfully promising J things that were in contradiction to what she told me. I am going to talk with my therapist about it, but I am glad I asked you, because I get so focused on smoothing things over as long as possible so that we don't get further targeted by J that I don't think about what happens when he is inevitably told NO. That day is coming up in mediation, so I need to switch gears and stand up for myself and not keep trying to push off the inevitable. I really like what Llama said about him being an abuser who wants power back. I need to focus on that now!

Today was good. I went to the pt and he showed me what to work on with the shoulder muscles now, and said I was 25% better than last time he saw me, and that it was a marked improvement. I showed him how I am modifying yoga poses and made sure that they are safe, and they were, and he told me what to look out for. The new places to concentrate on are different than what I thought, so that was really good going in, plus getting worked on felt wonderful. It's so freeing being able to move in ways I couldn't before, though it is also somewhat painful just because healing a frozen shoulder is painful.

I can hear K practicing guitar in the next room. She liked the suggestion to set up her guitar so she can grab it and play a little here and there.
 
I can understand you not wanting to poke the bear. I avoid confrontation whenever I can. Will you see your therapist soon? Is there a way for you to frame/cushion letting J know about the change(without lying of course) which will seem reasonable to him, do you think?
Your PT work seems to be going very well. Yay for K being able to just pick up her guitar easily & strum. I'm envious. She has real talent xo
 
Yay for more shoulder improvement! I hope you can see your individual therapist soon as well, they'll be sure to have more useful advice than me.
 
Sounds like a good idea to talk it out with your therapist about the best approach with J. Good for you standing up for yourself in asking for your needs to be met with the visitation. Do the counsellors ask K what her needs are in all of this?
Anyway, I hope it all gets sorted in as stress-free way as possible!

Nice to hear you had a good appt with the pt and nice to hear that K is getting some guitar playing in! :)
 
Thanks so much everyone! My therapist was so helpful. She is going to talk with C, and I resent the child abuse report to everyone and sent C a note saying that we need to push the initial "clarification" session back. The clarification session is where J reads his apology letter and K responds. My therapist liked that K can tell J what she wants to tell him at that clarification session, but then past that point, she thinks reunification therapy is an extremely bad idea. She told me not to schedule the clarification meeting until I know the new mediation date so it can happen after mediation. She also told me how to word it so it's clear I need to be in the waiting room. This way K gets therapy hopefully until the clarification meeting, and then can give J a piece of her mind. My therapist was really shocked that no one was fighting for K's actual therapeutic needs but me, like Liza is saying!

Anyway, I am home now and got all the therapist emails written and we can start school for the day. It's so nice having a therapist who is on my side and who helps me straighten things out. It's also good to know that my instincts about all of this were correct, and to have someone validate them! Thanks for being so supportive. It really helps!❤️
 
I'm so glad you had a chance to discuss this with your therapist & that she validates your concerns & can help you work your way through this. It's excellent to have her support. :grouphug:
 
Thanks Cate! I really hope this is the end of the weirdness for a while. We were just getting into a rhythm and getting things done. I hope to go to sleep early tonight, wake up reset, and charge ahead again. (Fingers crossed.)
 
So glad you have an excellent therapist in your corner :grouphug:
 
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