Hi Agent,

Don't know if I've welcomed you to the boards or not, but welcome!! I look forward to more posts from you!

MTF

Hey Monte,

I too have been wanting for ages to say how delighted I was to read of the new developments with your T. Really, when I think of this I just have this feeling of great relief inside. What a beautiful, beautiful thing to have been emotionally held like this, heard and held. You have waited for so long for this, waited, struggled, felt around in the dark looking for the way forward to this connection. And now you've found the magic ingredients, the magic doorway, through all that hard work. Beautiful. I know you are still going to have times of struggle and fear and pain and doubt, but I believe it will be fundamentally different - in that you KNOW that connection is possible, and if it's possible now, you can get to it again, even if the way is obscured sometimes as you go along.

Just so delighted for you.

J

Hi Agent and welcome to the Board. It will be nice to get to know you better in time.

Monte, that was a truly amazing session you had with your T and I'm so glad he was able to put aside some of those "rules" to reach out to you. Safe touch can be so healing but beyond that he was willing to go the extra mile for you because he is truly committed to your healing. I'm so glad it all worked out so well for you and I think that this portends some really great work ahead. You took a risk and he met it beautifully. There was a point where I was truly struggling with my T and his lack of experience in trauma and I gave him some material to help him gain more knowledge about this. But I was afraid to ask him if he actually used the materials. When I found out in a subsequent session that he was very much paying attention and using them well... I burst into tears. I guess I didn't realize how scared I was that he didn't care enough to do that extra bit to help me. It has really made a world of difference in my therapy.

TN

Oh, NEXT Thursday! Well then I'll have my session the day after yours! My T called yesterday and moved my session from the 16th to the 2nd. Seems she'll be out of town the 16th. So I'll have a whole month between sessions anyway, just at a different time. I'm going to get myself busy and write her a letter (I know, not the best way to communicate, but it's tough stuff this time again) and get some stuff out that needs to be aired. How's the next drawing coming along? I sure wish we could actually see some of this artwork of yours. I'm sure it's lovely! Well, take care and have a great weekend, Monte!!

MTF

Monte,

Good luck at your session! I'll be thinking about you and just wanted to say I hope it goes great!!

MTF

Hi Monte,

Can I just selfishly say, I hope you keep posting about this, even though as I read your account I do feel quite envious...it's only because I am just amazed and awed and inspired by how your T is meeting you where you are really at, and would love a T go there with me too...where that poor little abused girl is at. My heart just ached and cried out to read about the cupboard...Monte how awful and terrible and dark and lonely, I am so SO sorry that something so hideous was done to you. It is brave of you to express it at all, and somehow it makes more sense to express it in pictures...there are no words for something so unspeakably evil and wrong. And I LOVE how your T is fighting your ogre with you, I love how he made it go sit in the chair and then turned it around...this is amazing work you and he are doing and please don't hesitate to post about it, I love hearing it. It is truly good to know there are T's who are willing to go to these lengths...it is what we all are looking for in our own way...and it is also good to hear of your courage in going there. Thank you for sharing this.

SG

Monte,

Thank you so much for sharing such a beautiful (albeit difficult) interaction with your T. I'm so sorry for what happened to you. It was not your fault. I could feel the pain of your little girl in your writing. I love what T did with the chair. That is great! I think you are making marvelous progress. It took months and months before my little parts could talk to my T and even longer before some really let her in. So, I think you are doing so well having just arrived at this place with your T. The feelings will come as the little girl in you starts to realize that your T is real and genuine in his caring and he is not going to leave her when she gets upset. Each interaction like this that you have with your T is slowly telling your nervous system that the danger has passed and when your nervous system finally lets that guard down enough, the feelings will come. I look forward to reading more as you feel comfortable sharing.

Monte

Thank you so much for your incredibly moving and powerful post. I am so glad that your T sounds so very attuned with you and protectively turned that chair away. Monte I am also so very sad that you had to endure such horrors ((((((Monte)))))) as a child, but so glad that you have a chance to free yourself from those terrors now.

I could relate to what you described and want to thank you for showing me that there is a way through such ordeals, that we need to push on through the pain and shame to overcome these fears that live on inside. Thank you Monte, sometimes we can see it clearer in someone else's progress BUT saying that I am so sorry that it happened to you

Go gently Monte,

starfish

Monte,

Hugs to you my friend. I'm so happy you are making such tremendous strides in your therapy. What a tough session you had, but amazing work you are doing with your T. You are getting there!! It makes me cry for you. What a wonderful T you have. He sounds just fantastic, and you are so blessed to have him. I am jealous, I must say, but so very thrilled and happy. Keep up the great work, Monte!! The safety and tears will come with time. Just keep at it. I'm thinking of you and always pulling for you. So happy to hear things went well. Thank you for sharing the details with us. You write beautifully about your sessions. I'm sorry for the heartache you have suffered and continue to suffer, and pray you find the healing and peace you so deserve. You will get there. You're doing the hard, difficult work and you WILL find what you are searching for...I know it.

MTF

Monte,
No time!! But thank you for sharing that, you're doing incredible work and I am so happy for you. I am sorry for the pain you are facing and sorry for what happened to you. I know that the pain can be close to overwhelming but I also know that there is healing on the other side of that and that you are moving forward into that healing.

AG

I'm so glad that the closeness is helping you to heal old wounds. It's wonderful that your T really understands you, is seeing you, and by his proximity is telling you that you are in no way repellent, and are in fact completely lovable.

Your work sounds extremely hard. I just want to echo what STRM said - I'm so sorry for what happened to you, and it wasn't your fault. I know that in time you'll be able to allow yourself to be vulnerable, to get to that place you need to be. Keep on.

Agent

quote:

this little thing comes out from the pit and he is there and the little thing wanting to hold on to him and not let go...I don't know how he or I will deal with that.

Monte,

Oh how I can relate to this! My T works with my little parts and she recently started holding them when they are processing traumatic material. She has touched them before, but had not held them until recently. Well, the thing is, it feels like you describe....like something they've been waiting for all of their lives, but then it feels scary at the same time. It is SO vulnerable and so raw and then they wonder when it is going to be taken away. When will T realize that they really don't deserve it and that they will just keep wanting her to hold them. The needs that her caring evokes are so repulsive at times (especially to the more independent parts of me) and there is great fear that it will become too much for T. Now, rationally I know that this isn't the case. I have talked to T about it and she assured me that she is willing to offer this experience any time I need it, but it still feels like she is going to take it away.

It also sometimes feels oddly unsettling even though it feels good. Nobody ever held me when I was a child and certainly not after the horrible things that were done to me. So even though it feels safe and it feels good those feelings are all very foreign and it's like being dropped into some alternate universe. It is going to take some time to get used to.

Monte,

Yes, but you haven't been in this place with your T for 14 years. In other words, you've just arrived at this new experience with your T and this new way of experiencing with him so it is going to take some time to adjust. I'm really just saying to go easy on yourself. You are doing some really hard and important work.

Monte

I agree with what STRMS said, this is new for you and difficult work to boot, so it will feel very different and very hard. I have been with my T for many years too, but the relationship evolves and trust is always at the centre of that - the more you can (both) trust, but you especially, the more deep and effective the work. The nature of what you went through means that trust does not come easily, we are cautious, wary, frightened all too easily and have put up strong barriers of protection - when the barriers come down, the real work begins.

quote:

How amazing and comforting to be allowed to be hurt and frightened and little and have someone sit by you and talk gently and not be freaked out or repelled by the 'smell'...and someone that will TOUCH you while you are being that and not find you icky...to have someone sit and wait for you to come out because they want to see you and hold you if you want to be held

Monte, that touched me so much. It is so very true and I am so glad that you can feel that from your T; to know that he will walk with you and stay with you is the greatest comfort to that liitle child. I still sometimes wait for my T to get up and leave, still wait for her to hurt me, be repulsed by me, by what I am saying and remembering.....oh yes, and the smell thing, yep that too, big time. But at those times she comes even closer, holds me and stays with me and my head can't really believe that I'm actually safe. But when I allow myself to feel that safety and truly believe that it's different now, that's when the real healing has begun.

Oh and Monte, about the crying, because nobody ever came it was never worth doing and for the very same reasons, is too great a risk to do now. Absolutely. That was my graetest reason for never crying, that if I did I might be ignored, hurt, punished, just as before - so being alone with my sadness definitely a safer and more comfortable option. I really cried with my T for he first time ever recently and those same fears haunted me, even at the time was wanting to escape first before she did....BUT none of my fears came true and like you were kept safe with your memory by your T, mine did the same for me when I was crying - beautifully. Monte, it's so so hard to take that leap I know, but if you want to cry, remember that he's walking with you and has shown no signs of not being there for you, infact the complete reverse

Monte, not a word sounds mushy or silly, it's exactly as it is. I am sorry you have had to experience all that as a child, but so pleased you are coming through this. (((Monte))) Look after yourself, that overwhelming feeling as you remember is a tough one, but it will come and go and you are doing so well,

starfish

Oh Monte,

You don't sound mushy or silly at all. In fact, what you wrote evokes similar feelings in me because I too know what it feels like to have those desires and needs from someone special. To want to be comforted and cared for, to be loved for you who you are, no matter how awful you feel that part of you might be when seen by that other person, is so powerful a need and an ache from deep within. I'm so thrilled for you that your T has finally met you where he has on this. That you took that leap in desperation and helped yourself along makes me so proud of you and gives me hope that I can get desperate enough myself, either with my current T, or with another. When I read my T my letter some months back and she held my hands in hers and gazed into my eyes while hers were filled with tears, it was quite the experience. She talked in a low, quiet voice and 'held' me in a way I'd not been held before. I've never felt that connected to another person and it was something that was safe, yet scary at the same time. I long for that connection again and think that that is also what I am terrified to experience with her by reading her another letter. Sad how our minds and hearts can pull us in such opposite directions and mess with us so much.

I am sure that your T will be okay to handle whatever comes out when it comes. He sounds like he's been hoping for this as you have, or he wouldn't be so willing and so 'there' for you right now. I think it is amazing and sounds so safe. I really am quite jealous, but so very happy for you, Monte. It sounds like just what you have been searching for and working for. Happy day! I'm glad that YOU cleared the speed bump! Now to get MY engine revving!!! Thank you, my friend. You are amazing. (((((Monte)))))

MTF