I just wanted my T to have some attachment to ME, for crying out loud. I hate that I need her but she doesn't need me back - so obviously one-sided. I hate that I am desperate between sessions. What kind of life is this? She says she cares enough to let me do what I must [i.e., quit therapy] and that shows her "true caring" - not the selfish kind. I say BS, it sounds like cold, distant apathy to me. She doesn't care if I leave. She didn't even try to change my mind. If I go back to her now it is like saying its OK if she is apathetic. And it's NOT OK! It hurts!!!!! How can this pain heal me? How can this one-way attachment prove anything other than that I am unloveable! I need to go back to NOT needing ANYONE, but I don't know how.

I'm learning so much from this conversation. My sympathy to you MH, and to you Caeti, for the big storms you're going through with this.

quote:

My P would not chase me if I left. He cares but he would not chase after me. It is my choice if I want to be there or not and that therapy wont work if I am there because he keeps chasing after me.

I like what Pippi says here, it seems really important. It's hard to get that therapy is something WE choose for OURSELVES. For me it's like - well then I don't want it because a) it's lonely and b) it's not important.

wait - it's not important because I CHOOSE IT FOR MYSELF? It's scary that when I look around my life I see I live like this. I only invest in stuff if someone else wants it more than I do. The stuff that is important to me most of all gets floated out to sea. This is a half-life, with lots of obligation, trappedness, deference to the pains of others, loss of my dreams. It's as if it's more comfortable this way - to live half-forced into everything, in the safety of someone else's desires.

Lonely? My T is so present. I push her away all the time. I have no idea what is possible in this relationship and most of the time don't want to know. So the loneliness doesn't come from her....

MH, I can hear how much pain you're in. It's a horrible situation but it seems like there's this little rustling seed making itself known - the seed of your will to do this difficult, painful thing as an act of care for YOURSELF. to choose it, to be allowed to choose, to be safe to choose, to drive the car, steer the ship, to receive on YOUR terms, because you want to receive, from someone who is willing (but not forced) to give to you, someone capable and competent and steady and centred....

let us know how you're going, and remember that even the Terminator of all terminators said "I'll be back".

I feel like you do Jones, never investing in anything for myself, in fact, the reason I am in therapy is to survive so my boys won't think I didn't love them enough to stay alive and fight for them.

Hi Halo -
I can understand that. For me it feels safer to rely on what someone else wants/needs than on my own ambivalence. At times in my life when I've felt really depressed that's what's got me through too. Your boys do need you. I think if you keep fighting, then one day your own sense of wanting life and happiness for yourself will be that strong too.

I went back to my T today. My resolve to shield myself from pain couldn't outweigh my need for attachment, I guess. Pathetic, perhaps. But for the moment - and I don't know how long this moment will last but I hope I can hold onto it - I am glad I went back. Therapy is damn hard, but at this stage it is harder going without it. I talked to my T about what Jones said, about the lonely, unworthy feeling of going for myself instead of going for someone else. She says I can't accept much of what she has to offer me until I start loving myself enough to come for myself. I'm still trying to digest that, because I don't want to accept it.

My T and I talked briefly about my needing some sort of connection to her between appointments to get me through. What I am going to try next time is tape recording our session so that I can listen to her voice during the week. I was very relieved that she was open to this idea. Hopefully that will also help prevent me from distorting the memory and meaning of various comments she makes when I analyze the session later in my mind. I just hope I can block out the sound of my own monotone voice enough to focus on hers.

Im glad to hear you went back. I know how you feel about all of this because I am fighting the urge to just quit on my P. I wish mine would do something for me like yours is doing with the recording. I told my P I needed something that would give me a connection to him between sessions and thats why I call him and save texts and voice mails and he just said that is something I have to learn to do for myself. I thought about stealing something out of his office or waiting room, something small thats worth nothing but would belong to him to give me some kind of connection to him but I dont know if I would do that.

I recorded my session with my P once just so I could hear his voice when I wasnt in session. I didnt talk to him about it before and it did not go well. i had the tape recorder in my pocket it and it ended up clicking off before the session was over and he heard it and wanted to know what it was so I of course had to come out and be honest with him about it. He was very upset and almost stopped seeing me over it. He gave me the next couple of weeks to think about what I needed to do because of what I did, which he thought it meant to give the tape back to him. I felt so bad that I finally did give it to him at the next session. That was the only time he ever went way over our time so I had no reason to believe I would have got caught or the tape would run out of time since usually only get 20-30 minutes with him (but thats how my luck always is) I now wish I still had it because the only thing I have with his voice is the voice mail with the angry message from Tuesday night when he was basically telling me it was over and if I wanted any change of still seeing him I had 2 minutes to call him back. I dont really want to hear that over and over again but at least its still his voice.

I thought about trying that again sometime but our relationship is so rocky and back and forth right now that I am not even willing to give it a try right now. Maybe Ill talk to him about it and doing it the honest way maybe he wont be so mad about it or might even agree to it.

Pippi, I hope you don't mind, but I talked to my T today about your recent experience with your P because it has been bothering me and increasing my fear and insecurity about therapy. She said it sounded like your P was being unethical, because professionals don't play abandonment games and especially not with people who have abandonment issues. She said there are very few reasons that justify terminating someone against their will. My T has been practicing for over 20 years and in all that time she has only threatened a client with termination two times. She said both times they worked through the serious violation involved so that termination was avoided. I feel so bad for what you are going through right now.

I really dont mind you talking to her about it because I really do like to have other professionals opinions on what is going on between me and him and how to solve it. Right now I am trying to figure some way for us to get out of this cycle that we are in of me making him mad, him threatening to stop seeing me, me freaking out and feeling like I need to call him to hear his voice to know that everything is okay and then he gets mad again and the cycle continues.

I am going to talk to him about this situation and see what he says and see what he thinks about the ethical part of it. I want him to realize that its not just me that sees a problem with it. I some times wish I wasnt so in love with him so that I could just walk away, but I really do want to work this out and make things okay between us and get to where I can talk and open up even more to him. But it does make sense to me that because I have been abandoned so much that it wouldnt be the smartest or nicest thing to do to threaten to abandon me and I dont think its in my best interest. I almost wish that I could make the appointment for sooner to deal with this sooner but the problem with that is that he is going to be out of town the week after next so I will have to actually wait the whole three weeks.

My problem now is trying to figure out who to explain this all to him and how to get over my fear of talking to him. I am afraid to talk to any one about how I feel especially if it involves me being hurt or anything like that because I am suppose to be the tough one that never shows emotions or breaks down. I have no idea how to get past it. I can go through my head over and over again about how I am going to do it and how the conversation will go but as soon as I sit down and look at him the fear takes over and I cant get the words out. I will write stuff down which helps so he at least knows what I write down but then I still cant talk about it after he read its. I need some way to get past the fear!

Pippi,
I think the tricky part is that he is not actually your therapist is he? And you are not actually see him for therapy sessions since it is only every 3 weeks for 20 minutes, isn't it? Maybe it is fair of him not to walk away from you knowing that he means so much and you need him. But you need him to be your therapist and he is not your therapist. I can't imagine seeing somebody for 20 minutes every couple of weeks. It must be tormenting! It's like being constantly thirsty and getting only few drops to drink. I can't see how can you feel secure in this relationship. Way too rocky.

Hi Pippi,

I think Amazon has an interesting point there. When I think about it, I often feel like it takes me forty minutes to warm up to my t, and I see her every week. Maybe you are asking too much of yourself (and he is asking too much of you) to try to process all the feelings you have about this relationship in that really limited contact. There's no way I'd be able to spit stuff out straightaway under those circumstances. Maybe your psyche is trying to keep you safe by not letting you - telling you that you need a more secure environment.

How often are you seeing your other T now, the woman? Is there a chance you could see her more often? I know you're not in love with her, so it's not the same, but she could maybe take more of the weight of helping you process those feelings.

He is not actually my therapist but we do therapy. He does do therapy with some patients but that costs more money. The session we have is set up for med check/psychotherapy for 20-30 minutes. If I open up and am honest and can actually start talking than he will usually go longer. It is hard only seeing him once every four weeks which is why we moved it to every three weeks. I cant afford much more than that. But it is like you talk about where you are constantly thirsty and only get a few drops which is probably why I feel the need to contact him so much in between sessions. I wish I could see him more often and for longer and he would probably let me if I could afford it. Actually, he would probably let me even if I couldnt afford it but I already owe him so much money that I dont want to owe him any more than I already do.

I am seeing my other therapist every other week right now. We just decided that two weeks ago so I will see her again this Tuesday. Seeing her every other week is only a temporary thing but I am also seeing a lady at church for christian counseling and I am doing that every other week. She is helping a lot and we have started talking about the transference and feelings from a christian view point. My therapist that I see every 2 weeks is kind of weird about transference. She thinks any transference is a reason to immediately stop seeing the patient so she is hard to talk to about the transference. My psychiatrist said he is willing to talk to her about things and work out a plan and has called and left her messages over and over again but she has not called him back. The lady at church has offered to go to an appointment with me and maybe that will help me talk about things better cause she will be there to back me up and she will help me be able to keep talking when I start to shut down. We will talk about all the feelings ahead of time so that she will know what needs to be said and then she will be there to support me through this. Which is really nice of her since she doesnt have to and she doesnt get paid for any visits. I was suppose to meet with her on Wednesday night which I was excited about cause we could have talked about how I feel about the whole seeing him hug someone else but she had to cancel at the last minutes so now I have to wait until next Wednesday or possibly Sunday if I get to see her at church.

But yall do make good points.