(no subject)
It's me again! I'm gonna try to post more. In addition, I've started a therapy journal on paper to show my therapist every week since writing something is often easier than saying it. Plus, my memory sucks. I don't know if I mentioned it, but my cat is sick. She went to the vet very quickly and is thankfully doing much better now. Unfortunately, the whole experience set me back a few hundred bucks and I now have to find a way to get her to eat a pill. I'm thinking the whole crushing and concealing it in food is the way to go. I also have to clean her ears every other day and put a cream in twice a day. My sister is helping me with the cleaning(thanks a bunch, sis!). I finally figured out how to join a community without watching it(it was easy) and I joined customers_suck. Although I no longer work in retail (or at all due to my illness) I remember clearly all the sucky things that can happen when dealing with customers. On a similar note, I'm working with the employment services at the mental health center towards getting a volunteer position somewhere working with animals. I'm shooting for the animal shelter here in my city. I have worked at the one in another city, but am reserved about going back because my rabbits went there when I was in the hospital for 7 months. Unfortunately, I don't like the employment worker (IPS worker) I'm working with very much. She is WAY too perky, talks too much and asks funny questions. There is a man working on the IPS team, so maybe I can get him, since I work much better with men. They want me to get used to working with women, but I really don't like this one. I am close to deciding to do the Dialectical Behavior Therapy program (DBT). It's basically a group in which you learn DBT skills. You then discuss them with you therapist during one-on-one. You also have to do diary cards for the skills you used each day and the amount you experienced certain urges and used certain behaviors (target one behaviors, which are individual to each person). I don't like the diary cards at all and HATE group therapy, but it has helped me in the past when I did the less extensive adolescent DBT. My therapist told me that the adult groups are very small, so that should help. I haven't decided for sure yet, but everybody is encouraging me to do it. They also want me to start using what is called the warm line. It's sort of like the Emergency Services line, which you can call for help, but they also do groups and outings during the week. They especially want me to do the outings. I am very reluctant, but realize that in order to start the recovery process I have to do the things I don't want to and work really hard. I have been fighting this fact because I did work really hard for quite a while, with rather negative results. I think it's time to try again, though. I don't want to stay this way for ever and I need to learn skills to live with my voices since meds don't help much and I'm reluctant to give them up. I've had them for as long as I can remember and am very attached to them, even though they are sometimes angry and mean. It's scary to realize, when the meds do work, how used to these voices and hallucinations I am. I've always commented that one of my pills always tastes like garlic and they told me it was a hallucination since nobody else ever said that. I didn't believe them until very recently when my new med took away some, but not all, of my symptoms. It doesn't taste like garlic anymore. It was scary to realize that it wasn't real and I am still upset by it. Back to the cat. I spent $50 more on her today on wet food (the doc said it was better for cats with urinary problems), litter that scoops (if there is even a little poop in her box or a lot of pee she will use the carpet instead), litter box liners, treats (she usually doesn't like them but I wanted something since we're gonna be torturing her with the ear thing) and a new collar (her old one was tattered.) She actually likes the treats due to some careful selection on my part. Most people don't put collars on their cats, but she likes to run into the hall and up the stairs and I'm worried that someone is gonna come in while I'm trying to catch her and that she'll escape out onto the streets. She has never minded the collar at all and it has both her Animal Rescue League ID from when I adopted her and a tag with my address and phone number. I feel safer with her wearing it. I'm finally running out of things to say, so I'll stop here. As I said, I'm trying to post more, so I should be back reasonably soon. Laterz :).