Six month goal...

Too much.  It is just too much for me to try and catch up, the way that I want to do so.  It is my hope that I might doing some remembering over the next short while, but for now, I wanted to write something that has been on my mind so that it is captured.

Still.  First.

My mother, a very talented interior designer, offered to come and help me pick out a better sofa this time, even knowing that I very much wanted a sofa and a love seat and she was not certain a love seat would work in my space.  Translate that:  Even knowing we might disagree.

Mother hit the ground running and went to two furniture stores the night I picked her up from the airport.  Watching her shop and discuss the options with store staff was an eye-opening lesson for me.  First, she was in her element and her great skill was on display.  Second, buying a sofa is like buying a car.  You NEVER pay sticker price and all is fair in love and war and price negotiating.

Mother had proffered that I get a love seat and two chairs.  But that scenario was too expensive and also not the capacity of seating that I wanted.  The sofa style I discovered before she came is very close to the far greater quality sofas that she was able to help me purchase, buying both, ultimately, as floor models to save even more.  I LOVE them.  They are firm, comfortable, and EXACTLY was my uncomfortable, in-pain self was wanting. [Note:  The color of the sofas is more of what you see on the love seat to the right than on the sofa.]

We found a chair that we both liked and fit the space and was ... yes ... GREEN.

This is the view from my main staircase, looking out across the room.  The living room is now focused around comfortable, inviting seating.  I moved things around for the chair and the love seat and I am very, very, very pleased with how the space turned out.

Financially, after my birthday money and selling my beloved GREEN recliner and all the other selling that I did, including my original couch and my grandmother's jewelry, the living room furnishing switch out was paid for in full.  Whew!

Mother also helped me with the search for a mattress, which I bought on 24-months no interest.  Since it's arrive, I no longer sleep or wake up in pain.  Neither my back nor the nerves in my arms hurt.  Clearly the mattress was needful and I my goal is to get it paid off before that 24 month period.

In short, I spent the majority of my life either sitting or lying down and, now, neither of those activities leads to additional pain.

Mother was here for eight days and had asked me to make a list of things I would like to do besides furniture shopping.  One of those was to work on some of the empty spots in my yard.  Armed with rebate money and a miles redemption, she helped me shop for my yard.  I will not post all the millions of things we accomplished, but I did want to show how I finally finished off the side bed.  I am not a patient person, but I waited four years for the perfect way to do so.  This is the perfect way.  A variegated maple tree.

Awesomeness.
Total, utter awesomeness.

I started coming down with a cold whilst Mother was here and spent the next week really, really, really ill.  My cold is over, but the cough remains.  A pernicious cough.

If you have been online of late, I wouldn't be surprised if you have seen something about the sentence of the former Stanford swimmer who raped a woman.  I am not, at this moment, in a safe enough place to honestly write about what an injustice act the judge did in that case, nor about the horrific statement the perpetrator's father made.  Our society has centuries to go when it comes to honoring and valuing women and protecting and bringing justice to those who have survived sexual abuse.

SIGH.

But I do want to talk about something that has been niggling at me for a while:  The fact that my former counselor abruptly told me, one day, that I need to set a six month goal of hugging her.  In my mind, there are all kinds of things wrong with that and I want to try to explain, in part, why that is.

For someone who is trying so very hard to take back control of her body, after a lifetime of it being controlled and violated by others, it makes absolutely no sense for a counselor in a sexual abuse program to continue that pattern of taking control.

She could have said:  Myrtle, I'd like to set a six-month goal, now that you've been working on your past for a while.  What type of goal would you like to pursue?  Instead, she told me what my goal would be.

She could have said:  Myrtle, I'd like to set a six-month goal that has a physical component now that you've been working on your past for a while.  What is a way you could have physical contact with someone?  Instead, she told me what my physical goal would be.

She could have said:  Myrtle, I'd like to set a six-month goal of hugging someone, now that you've been working on your past for a while.  Who do you think you might could hug or want to hug?  Instead, she told me who my physical goal would be with.

Do you see?  Do you see how she left me no control over my body in this situation?  From her approach to her choice, I cannot see how it was beneficial to my growth in this area.  Instead, it just made me want to run and hide, wondering what else she would eventually make me do.

When I rejected the goal of hugging her, the counselor was hurt.  I knew she was at the time, but it was something that came up again, something she verbally flung at me, leaving me figuratively ducking in fear.  And that she was hurt is one of thing things I did not care for about the counseling.  Her feelings were very much a part of the sessions, leaving me feeling pressured to ensure that she felt good.

For example, she got angry at my cardiologist's nurse and violated my directive not to talk to the cardiologist about what his nurse said.  Her excuse for violating HIPPA law was that it was just like a situation with a woman who works at her doctor's office and so she was angry.  Yes, well ... No.  Her anger was no excuse to violate HIPPA, violate my trust, and run roughshod over what I wanted because of how she felt.

Mostly, I wanted to write about the goal of hugging her, because that was wrong.  Her approach to a counseling goal was wrong.   Trying to force me to accept that action was wrong.   Effectively punishing me because I didn't like her goal was wrong.  [I mean, seriously, there are at least a dozen people I know who would be a better first physical contact than someone I only met a short while ago!!]

I very much wish, with that HORRID comment about "20 minutes of action" floating around my head, that I still had access to a counselor, still had help addressing my past.  But I want help that is about me, not about my counselor.  SIGH.