Monte

Glad you're still around.
Sometimes reverse is safer than travelling onwards uncertainly, so take as long as you need

starfish

So sorry, Monte. Uncertainty certainly stinks. Wish I had a great solution or wonderful words of wisdom or could just plain fix it for you. I hate knowing you're stuck in such a hard spot and I'm sure it hurts. Even though we can't do much more right now than listen, we ARE here to do that much for you, so please know that we're here to support you and that we care. Hang in there, Monte. You're in my thoughts daily...

MTF

Monte,

Well, you may be grumpy, but at least you made me smile again! To me that means you might be doing a little better? Pretty funny idea you've got there about the drug. And I'm with you about it being nice if our Ts could just 'feel' what we're feeling once in a while. Sometimes I just want to scream because I feel like I'm so alone sitting there feeling like such a fool for even opening my heart (or mouth). And my T never talks about my feelings (and maybe it's better that way, I don't know), so I don't feel like she even knows what they are, let alone understands them. Sucks...big time.

Glad you're posting again. I've missed your presence around here. Keep it up!

MTF

Monte,

The anger could be a really good thing. I got really angry at my T. Right before everything happened that propelled me to where I am now, which is a heck of a lot better than where I've been. Seems we've got to feel something other than depression to get us motivated, and that's a hard thing in and of itself. All the feelings we experience in therapy are SO HARD, aren't they? Having my life consumed by this attachment stuff has been WAY more than I feel I can handle most of the time, and there are days where I just want to run away from life and take a vacation, although you can't run from this stuff. It's always there...

I'm just glad you're posting again. I worried about you, and still do. I get really triggered sometimes when I get on the forums and read something that is really close to what I am going through or brings up feelings that are similar to my own, especially with my issues with my T right now. I wish I could have been more supportive to you when you posted about your last session with your T, but it had me feeling sick and I just couldn't go there. I hope you didn't feel like I didn't want to support you; I just didn't know what to say and couldn't put myself that deeply into your situation at that point. Still can't. I really feel for you and know you're struggling. I'm so sorry. I wish our Ts could really understand us and do something about our pain. I know I want some resolution and to just know she really understands me and how I feel. She hasn't even asked me what my feelings for her are, and we've never discussed what I am going through or how I feel. It's just 'attachment'. Whatever that means. Fun stuff...

So yeah, whenever you get that drug developed, I'd like some, too! Sounds fantastic!!!

Take care!
MTF

quote:

I think I'm in a pickle, Monte.

Me too, BB. We're all three in the same boat. I hate it when I read other people's stuff and I feel like I could write it myself. It's sad. I guess it helps me not feel so alone in my issues, but I always wish someone could fix my stuff, ya know? At least we're all in a 'pickle' together and at least have others who can understand our sad predicament and support us in our sorrows and struggles. I really feel for you ladies.

MTF

Monte,

Please let me get out of the wooden shoe first before you chuck it at your T's head.

BB, thanks for the poem. I actually loved that one as a kid, and there was a group here in the states back in the 60s called The Big 3 that did it as a song and I really love it. Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas sings lead vocal and it's really quite a nice lullaby type song. Anyway, thanks!

Yeah, taking leaps and risks with our Ts is definitely not easy, and quite honestly scares the heck out of me. That's why I'm still sitting where I'm sitting. I know they want us to, but sometimes I wonder if they can take us and our stuff. I know I wonder if I can take myself most days. I have to have faith that my T can handle me, it's just my fears and insecurities that stand in my way.

MTF

BB

Thanks for the memories - it brought back an old poetry book to me that I had as a child with beautiful illustrations. I think I knew every word by heart of those poems. Saw the shoe in the sky and the trundle bed.........

Yes sad too, I agree.

starfish

Hi Monte!

Glad to see you back again! This sounds wonderful, and I'm glad to hear you have a plan. I think the whole idea of expressing your emotions through your artwork is wonderful, and hopefully your T WILL 'get it' and this will be a new tool for the two of you to use to help you get where you need and want to go in your therapy. A fantastic idea!! I wish I could come up with something cool like that! I'm still stuck with trying words and writing, and they're not working too well.

I'm with BB here; I'd love to hear more if you feel up to it. Art is a mystery to me, too. I like to paint (oil is my favorite medium, but it's been about 15 years since I've done it) but never considered trying to express feelings through it, especially to share emotions with someone through it for therapeutic purposes. I like the idea and am interested in how you go about doing something like this.

Thanks for updating us and sharing such a cool idea. I really wish you the best with it and hope your T does see it as helpful and that he can make the most of it to help you move forward in your therapy together. Please keep us posted on how it goes!!

MTF

Hi Monte

Lovely to see you post

Monte I love the sound of your story in a sketchbook - that must have been very powerful for you to have done, but so real and so personal too. I am in awe of you for doing that, to communicate so effectively when words just don't work, especially when all the helpful words you have just vanish when you need them most. I am sure that your T will be immensely proud of your achievement and moved by what he sees. I so know about the fear of handing over such personal stuff - it seems like a risk almost doesn't it? That if they don't get it (our fears, usually unfounded and based on stuff from way back) then it is more disappointing than ever BUT if they do, which they inevitably do, the WOW! The most amazing breakthroughs are made. So please have the courage of your convictions and hand it over Monte - I look forward to hearing his response and how it mmade you feel.

starfish

(((( Monte )))) Great to have you back.

It’s interesting that you have come up all by yourself with the idea of using art to express emotion, bypassing the brain so to speak. There is a school of therapy called Art Therapy (which I’ve actually tried) that focuses on exactly that - a more direct and spontaneous expression of stuff. It involves all sorts of things not just drawing and painting and can be really effective.

A lot of Ts do use art therapy as one of their tools so it’s highly likely he will not only really appreciate what you’ve done but may also be amenable to using that sort of approach with you.

Wow 6 weeks since you saw him last and another 2 weeks before your next appointment - that’s a LONG time. You have probably explained about it in another post but either I’ve missed it or forgotten it, but why have you such a long gap?

Anyway Monte good to hear from you again.

Lamplighter

Hey Monte -

I love the sound of this sketchbook. Incredible that you found that way forward in the break between appointments/between you. My fingers are crossed that your T recognises this for the gift that it is to your therapy - surely he has to!!

I've been in this situation of having shared creative work with my T. Not stuff that I've done for therapeutic purposes, explicitly, just my work. I hate that feeling of hoping, hoping, hoping that this person will get it, somehow. But my work is pretty obscure; people don't tend to relate to it unless they've had some experience in the field, and even then, kinda rarely.

I don't know, I do it for myself, not anyone else, so in a sense I don't care. But sharing with my T - I really hoped she'd see enough that we'd be able to work with this in therapy so I had more creative freedom. But that would have taken a lot more time than we've had, and now we're winding up.

Can I be bothered showing it all to the next T? Hard to imagine, right now!

I reckon if I were your T I would want to think about it, hard and deep, and talk to you in person about the work so I knew you'd hear me. But still, I hope you get an email for a little immediate relief!!

Keep us posted.

PS It's not wrong to want him to feel your pain. Human empathy, that deep understanding of another's experience, the feeling - that's how we connect to one another.

quote:

I feel I have tapped into something that may finally propel me past all those blocks to emotional connection...

Monte, I LOVE the idea of finding right-brain ways to get past the left-brain blocks. And I sincerely hope that your T recognizes the value in what you're showing him, and the risk you're taking, how vulnerable you are making yourself, in a way that words can't even express. I hope he treats those sketches like the treasures they are. You've basically handed him your heart. I hope so much that he "sees" you in those pictures. I would think a T would be THRILLED that a patient would be so creative in expressing themselves. But here's the hard part...even if he doesn't react as well as you hoped, that doesn't take away the value of those sketches, just like it doesn't take away the value of your heart. It is still beautiful, still unique, and still yours.

Actually I kind of wish you could share your pictures here... I don't suppose...?

Hugs,
SG

quote:

SG...Thank you also for what you wrote in your post - that even if he doesn't offer the response I need to what I have offered, it is not of any less value. That is truly the hardest part to accept. The Pope, The Queen of England and Simon Cowell could fall at my feet in admiration for what I've done, but it'd mean nothing. I need my T to respond favourably, I need to know he has been moved and that I have given him a deeper understanding of my pain...and of my needs in therapy. That's all that counts. Also...he is not exactly the most effusive type - not in the capacity I know him anyway - and I just want to break through that...which is probably wrong.

Monte,

I can totally relate to you here. I have never shared anything so deep and personal with my T as what you are sharing with yours, but what I have shared has been difficult to do, and I agree that it is so hard to accept that we may not get the response we so desperately 'need' from them. It's excruciating to intentionally make ourselves that vulnerable, and I sometimes wonder if they truly 'get' how difficult it is for us, and how much we need from them when we do that. It's definitely no small feat! And I get the part about your T not being the most effusive type. We both seem to have Ts that have that same issue as therapists, and I understand the desire to want to get past that with them, to break through their boundaries or whatever it is that keeps them so stoic almost. I agree with you that it is probably wrong, but I can't help myself, either. It's a driving force within me that I can't seem to shake. If anyone can help us out here (well, me anyway, as I have to speak for myself), please speak up!! I need to quit trying to change my T and either accept her ways, or find a new T. Sigh...

Good luck, Monte. I know the next two weeks won't be easy. It's hard to drop something like that off and then wonder, wonder, wonder what is going on in your T's head, what he thought, what he'll say, if you'll get what you want out of it, etc. It'll be agony. Been there myself, and only had to wait over the weekend! Keep posting if you need support, as we're here for you! I really hope this is 'IT' for you!! You deserve it, but please know that like SG said, your efforts and your work and your emotions and feelings all have tremendous value, no matter what. And that's the key here. I commend you for doing what you've done in expressing yourself as you have. That is so awesome! Way to go!!

HUGS!
MTF

quote:

I need his unsolicited encouragement, enthusiasm for me to pursue this direction.

Yeah, Monte - I really get that. For me it's like I can't even work if I don't have someone in that role, wholeheartedly believing and encouraging. My T is suggesting I can learn to do it for myself, but I've had bugger all success so far.

J