Beating a Dead Horse

Yeah, I'm beating a dead horse.  Again.  It's back to physical therapy and more confusion.  I'm astounded by the fact that PT seems to be having a conversation with me on a whole different level than the one I think I'm on.  Perhaps the most surprising thing about it is that I spend most of my day talking to people and I'm generally very good (at least at work) at figuring out what people are trying to say even when their words aren't exactly clear.  Why is it then, that I always leave physical therapy wondering what was said and whether I accidentally "said" something that I didn't mean to imply or what the hell it was that PT was saying and why.

Today started out normally.  PT gave me some attitude, like he always does, about how I don't work hard enough, and I gave it right back to him while I did my exercises.  He told me I needed to work harder to get better because he couldn't come home with me.  Absolutely not, I said.  After a while he asked if I minded that he got on my case like that, and I said it didn't bother me, and even if it did it's not like I could do anything about it.  He said I could file a complaint against him and he could lose his license.  I asked a rhetorical question about why I would possibly file a complaint about PT giving me crap in order to get me motivated to work.

Then he asked what I was doing for lunch today.  I told him that I had the afternoon to myself and had planned on going to my favorite Mexican restaurant alone and really enjoying my lunch but that I wasn't really feeling like hot spicy food.  He said I could always get my food mild and I told him that Mexican food is best hot and I'd rather not have it at all than have some sissy mild food.  So he said I'd have to change my plans and I said probably, but there are other places downtown where I can grab some lunch so I'd be okay.  So far, this all seems normal to me.  Then he says that he'd love to have lunch with me, that he thinks we'd have a great time talking and I'd be surprised at what a good conversationalist he can be, but that he can't have lunch with me.  WTF?  Where did that come from?  I laughed it off and told him that if he was going to come out for Mexican with me and eat it mild, I'd make him sit at a separate table anyway.

Later I was telling him about something funny that happened at a party some of my work friends attended.  We discussed how I don't socialize with too many people from work because my function and my level in the company tend to make people feel inhibited when I show up at purely social events and I don't like to do that to people.  He agreed and said that he no longer socializes with people from work after having a bad experience years ago.   We talked a bit more, then it was time for me to go.  He left me waiting in the room until a lot of the other clients had left, then he came in to walk me out and he told me that he'd love to go to lunch with me but that he couldn't.  I was puzzled, but I just said okay.  And I left feeling like some sort of dejected loser when I hadn't asked him to have lunch with me in the first place -- how can I feel rejected like that when I never put myself out there to be rejected?

In my mind, I hadn't asked him to have lunch and hadn't hinted that I wanted him to come out for lunch with me.  Good grief, it was just lunch.  I find that when I talk to people about lunch, it is because I am talking about lunch, period.  It is not because I am trying to invite them to lunch.  If that is the case, then I usually make a statement or ask a question that overtly indicates that I want to eat lunch with that person -- I'll take you there some time, we should go there, do you want to come with me, do you want me to pick something up for you -- all these are ways I would indicate that lunching together is an option.  And, lest it not be obvious, I find myself very capable of having lunch with people, regardless of their sex or sexual orientation, and having it be just lunch rather than some sort of date type event.  If lunch with someone constituted a date, then my husband would go out of his mind at what a slut I am, eating lunch with lots of people who aren't him.  Hell, I even eat lunch with multiple people at the same time. . . is that an orgy now?

I feel out of touch, as though there's some way of having conversations that I don't understand.  At the same time, I feel as though it can't possibly be me because I can manage to have conversations that appear to be normal exchanges with other people.  It's just PT who leaves me feeling as though I missed part of the conversation or as though I said something innocuously that was interpreted as meaning other than what I meant.

I'm also feeling that I'm starting to understand a little about what is going on with PT, although at this point it's intuition rather than anything easily demonstrable.  I'm really starting to wonder if he had an issue with a female client in the past and is behaving so oddly with me because he doesn't want it to happen again.  It sounds like he's worked at bigger and nicer facilities than the one I go to, and I know he was a supervisor/manager in the past, which he definitely isn't now.  He also commutes a good distance from out of state, which makes me wonder if he can't work closer to home because of his past history.   If that's true, it's too bad because he's good at what he does.

I just need to get through my last couple of physical therapy sessions and then I'm all set.  I'm tempted to start wearing my iPod at therapy so that we can't have any more of these conversations that leave me wondering what I said/did to provoke PT's unusual behavior.  I did bring my iPod to therapy with me today, but I didn't have the guts to take it out and use it even when PT started singing (badly) along with a song on the radio.

I guess a bit of my back story is in order here.  I'm feeling a little fragile right now because there are a few things going on that I can't really blog about, and they've all really hit in the past 48 hours.  I've dealt with some death and dying issues (other people's, not my own) and I've observed the anniversary of a friend's brother's death in Iraq.  There are other things going on, too.  My biggest fear about wearing my iPod at therapy is that a song that reminds me of something sad will come on and I will lose it while I'm working out.  I can't be that vulnerable in front of PT.

Thanks for bearing with me over the past few posts. 

Comments

[Nancy]

PT is kind of freakin' me out and I'm not even there:)

I think you should just get through the last few sessions by focusing on the fact that you're almost done. Your "read" on him seems to make a great deal of sense but I suspect that he may have some patient/therapist boundary issues so it's good that you're almost done.

Definitely forgo the IPOD, it could make the sessions a little more awkward if he feels you're ignoring him, but more importantly you want to keep any strong feelings you're going through right now to yourself. Music can do that to me also and there are days when I have to be careful on the subway lest I turn into a balling mess because of some song that hit a certain place in me.

Hope things get better soon.

[Annette]

I think you're right on the money that he's sending some weird signals. It seems he really likes talking with you, but doesn't trust himself and a past incident could help explain it. Or, we're all just focusing on this weirdness to not think about other things.