19 october 2024
15:36
t: Well, that fucking sucked
r: Indeed
a: our chest hurts; we are anxious
t: And pissed.
a: it's an uncomfortable emotional cocktail
t: Yeah, I know this feeling. We start thinking about things like moving out.
a: anything to escape
r: Yes, but like we are also objectively in the wrong. She deserves to enjoy your home as much as we do.
t: Aha! That's why this feeling is familiar. Remember when our roomate back in Oakland said he didn't want us to have standup in our room, and then our response was to move out?
r: Yeah, I mean, that didn't end terribly
a: running is a common first response for us
a: but why are we actually upset?
t: I'm upset because she doesn't tell us she's upset. The fact that she was sitting on 'wait for one of us to answer before you come in' for who knows long shows she harbours a resentment and isn't comfortable speaking up in the moment--or even after the fact--when we're doing something to bother her.
r: Right, and that means we can't ever truely be comfortable because we'll always be wondering if we crossed a line.
t: Exactly, and we've been careful to surround ourselves with and created environments where we can candidly communicate with our fellows. When we can't do that, we can never truly relax.
t: And do we really want to bring that dynamic into our chosen family?
r: There's the rub. We could just distance ourselves from someone with this disposition, but we can't when we live with them.
t: And this isn't really something you can give feedback on, and we also know for a fact that she's received that feedback before. It's a core trait that's hard to change without intentionally working on it
E: I don't think this is a helpful line of thinking.
a: Evelyn is right
r: I know, I just hate feeling like this.
a: let's start with that. We can't change her, but we can change ourselves
r: What tool we using? Thought records?
t: Or tenth step
a: I'd rather not do an AA tool.
r: Thought record it is:
Thought Record
Situation
t: At home. ~14:15. We had previously been chatting with someone about restringing their violin. We woke up this morning and they had messaged us on t4t saying they were free today or tomorrow. We knew we were hanging --
E: You're rewriting history, try again
t: At home. ~14:15. We had previously been chatting with someone about restringing their violin. We woke up this morning and they had messaged us on t4t asking when we were available. We knew we would be busy tonight and tomorrow, so we offered today and Tuesday. They said they could meet today. We gave them our address. We told M & P that we were expecting someone sometime today to restring their violin. They asked if we knew the time. We said no. Later, they messaged us 2p, but we forgot to tell P until right at 2p. We offered Pearl to take them straight to our room instead, but she said "do your thing". Restringing the violin took approximately 15 minutes. Pearl was visibly upset with us, but didn't say anything. We later received a text from M that they were upset and that P also didn't want us to come into their room after knocking, but to wait until they opened the door. M then called us, where they confirmed that P was mad at us, and offered up solutions to try to avoid this in the future, including phrasing visitors as a question.
r: Wow, that's a little novel. Didn't your therapists to just write a few sentences.
t: I'm pretty sure that's just because they don't want to spend five minutes listening to someone bitch. I tried to avoid the bitching and stick to the facts. I think it helps because anger crosses our wires, and doing our best to objectively restate the facts can help us sift through the situation.
a: carrying on!
Emotions & feelings
r: quilt 4
t: anger 6
a: bewildered 5
Automatic thoughts
t: I can't live with P
r: I want to to distance ourselves from P (e.g. stop hanging out in her room, don't get a 'family' card, limit our contact)
a: I just don't want to feel this way
a: I can't sustainably be around passive-agressive people.
r: We fucked up.
Hot Thought
"I can't live with P"
Cognative Distortions
r: Overgeneralization
t: Emotional reasoning
Evidence for
t: I feel really shitty right now for helping a stranger, which normally makes me feel good.
a: Our anxiety cannot take something like this happening regularly.
r: