((((((((River)))))))))
I am so sorry for the pain you're in, I understand it and I know how confusing it is and how difficult it is to bear up under it. I struggled for a long time with this very issue. I can remember my T telling me several times that I wouldn't ask for something until I was SURE I could get it and for the longest time my reaction was "huh?" I mean, I REALLY didn't get what he was talking about. But as I started to let my feelings in and acknowledge and discuss what I wanted from him I finally came face to face with this very issue.

My childhood was one in which I heard "no" implicitly and explicitly to so many of my requests, so many of which were things I shouldn't have had to ask for in the first place: comfort, love, physical closeness, reassurance, safety, attention. Things I desperately needed but wasn't getting. Add to that the things I was getting that I didn't need and I was left in a LOT of pain. It's an intolerable situation for a child. You HAVE to stay close in an attempt to get your needs met. It's literally a biological drive for a human being, but being in close proximity is exactly what is putting you in pain. This is the "bind" my T always refers to and is what makes healing from these types of injury and/or deprivation so freakishly hellish. My solution to this intolerable pain was to decide that my needs were the problem. If I could just stop having them, stop asking for what I wanted, then the pain would stop. You were very right when you said it's human instinct to avoid pain, that's exactly how we learned this behavior. And back then, it was the right thing to do, it allowed us to survive in a situation we were never meant to be in. But the very behavior which protected us then is injuring us now.

Hearing no can be very painful, sometimes excruiatingly so but that's not all there is. If we ask for what we need, sometimes we will hear no but at other times we'll hear yes and our needs are met. If we never ask, then we're left in a place of CONSTANT pain in which our needs go unfulfilled. And no matter how hard we try (and trust me, if there was a way I would have found it) we CANNOT shut off our need for love, protection, care and connection to other humans. We're literally physiologically in need of relationships. So there we are, with unfulfilled needs that we can't shut off nor can we get them met because we don't know how to ask for what we need. Add to this that part of what we weren't given was the ability to handle pain so that even the idea of experiencing pain is overwhelming because if I'm in pain, what do I do with it?

So to ask for what we need is to take a risk which all of our instincts tells us is the MOST dangerous thing we could possibly do. Because it once was. Our limbic system has no sense of time and we were taught, over and over, that asking for what we needed was touching a hot stove. How many times do you burn yourself before learning not to touch a hot stove? But that's exactly the area in which therapy heals us. Because now we ask for what we need from someone who is attuned to us and who is focused on our needs and one of two things will happen. Either we'll get what we asked for which is a pretty amazing feeling or if the answer does need to be no, we won't be alone with that pain. There is someone there to hear and understand our pain and help us to deal with it.

My breakthrough point on this issue was asking my T for a hug. It took me a long time and a lot of work to get to the point that I was willing to ask because I was 99.4% sure the answer would be no. But I finally realized that I NEEDED to ask especially if the answer was no. Because my other fear about asking and getting a no was that hearing no meant I had crossed the "line" and I would be thrown out of the relationship because I had transgressed. I needed to ask so I could experience hearing no and then experience that the relationship was still intact and even more importantly, still a caring relationship. That "no" was sometimes about my needs and meeting them. The session when I asked my T for a hug, and he said no, was one of the most important I ever had with him (which as you know is saying a lot ). I asked at the very start of a session because I knew we would need to discuss it. He told me no immediately (he's not a cruel man) but we spent the rest of the session discussing why I wanted one and why he said no. And it was amazing. Because yes, I experienced the pain of not getting what I asked for but I also experienced the very powerful comfort of someone who understood my desire and even understood my pain at not getting what I wanted. And who stayed. The relationship was still there and still strong even after a no. More importantly, I was still there after hearing a no. And I was able to experience that a no could come from a place of caring for me, of seeking my good NOT from a neglect of my needs.

Think of all the times you tell your daughter no. No you can't stay up, no you can't have M&Ms for breakfast (as cruel as that is!), no, you can't watch 12 hours of television a day. Those are noes that NEED to be said, that have your daughter's well being in mind. The problem with so many of the nos that we experienced was that we shouldn't have heard no to those needs. We heard no because our needs were being ignored or placed wrongly after other people's needs.

I have spent so much of my life, missing so very much, in order to avoid pain. So much of my healing has been learning that I can handle the pain and that risking pain allows me to open up and let in so much that I couldn't before. So pain doesn't cease to exist but other things also come in. Joy and fulfillment and creativity and connection and comfort.

Please know that I realize that this is SO much easier to talk about doing than to do. That the level of fear is absolutely paralyzing but unless we work through that fear, fight our normal instincts that tell us to shy away, we also shut ourselves out of life. And you deserve to have so much more. So I would urge you to risk it, tell your T exactly what you want, even if you know its impossible. I have learned so much by expressing the impossible things. And I have learned that sometimes "I love you" comes in the form of a no.

AG

River,

Thank you for taking the time to post. I can really relate to the pain, fear, and confusion you're feeling. I tried to put my feelings into words this weekend so I could post them, but I ended up with a book and didn't want to post something so long. I'm not even as far as you are yet. I'm still trying to be "good" and not ask for anything - even here!

Last session was the first time I've ever asked my T a direct question about himself (I've been in therapy for seven months). It was related to something he said that triggered some fear in me. Even so, he had to tell me it was okay to ask, then he had to model how to ask the question, then he had to tell me to ask it. Sometimes it feels like he's doing all the work, like he's having to drag me along, and I'm afraid he's going to give up on me. I have a long way to go...but your question, and AG's response, give me much-needed encouragement to continue, so thank you!

AG,

Thank you so much for your response to River's questions, because they are mine too. I've never been able to articulate well at all, but I can recognize when someone else puts into words what I wish I could say. So many of the things you said reassure me that I'm on the right path and give me hope...here are some of them:

quote:

My solution to this intolerable pain was to decide that my needs were the problem. If I could just stop having them, stop asking for what I wanted, then the pain would stop.

This was me as a child. I grew up in an alcoholic home with parents who never loved each other and were too wrapped up in their own issues to give us what we needed. My mom never liked me and still doesn't. My dad seemed to like me, but sometimes in the wrong way. So I just don't have needs, or if I do have them, I can get them met myself, thank you very much.

quote:

If we never ask, then we're left in a place of CONSTANT pain in which our needs go unfulfilled. And no matter how hard we try (and trust me, if there was a way I would have found it) we CANNOT shut off our need for love, protection, care and connection to other humans.

If I wasn't hurting so much, I'd be laughing at this one...I'm still trying to shut off those needs...and feeling like I'm dying inside at the same time. What really kills me is that I spent years in a 12-step program (AA) and I thought I'd worked through this...but now I see this was a problem even in AA. I remember how the few people I did let close would tell me, "You need to talk about what's going on with you." Problem is, I didn't know HOW. This explains a lot.

quote:

So there we are, with unfulfilled needs that we can't shut off nor can we get them met because we don't know how to ask for what we need. Add to this that part of what we weren't given was the ability to handle pain so that even the idea of experiencing pain is overwhelming because if I'm in pain, what do I do with it?

I don't know how to ask and I don't know how to deal with the pain except to shut down.

quote:

I have spent so much of my life, missing so very much, in order to avoid pain.

Yup...I'm an expert at isolating and fantasizing.

Thank you for the recommendation to read "A General Theory of Love"...I finished it last weekend and there are so many things I've highlighted and want to take to my appointment tomorrow. I want to start with the part about limbic resonance...I realized my fantasizing is my way of creating my own limbic resonance. Kind of like emotional masturbation...and just as satisfying compared to the "real thing" And when I feel limbic resonance with anyone, particularly a guy (like my awesome therapist don't worry, I won't try to debate whose is better), I feel "in love"...this really helped to demystify that feeling somewhat. This helps because I'm in the middle of telling him about my transference, and the fantasizing is the last thing I want to tell him...but seeing what it may really be about gives me a little more courage to talk, and a graceful (?) way to introduce an awkward subject...easy to say now, but I'll probably still choke when I'm in front of him. (I had to laugh when you and another member posted about "hiding" so your therapist couldn't "see" you when you were telling him embarrassing things...I've done the same thing: I shield my eyes so I can't see him, even peripherally, because then it feels like he can't "see" me either )

quote:

And I have learned that sometimes "I love you" comes in the form of a no.

Again, thank you for explaining this...my neocortex "knows" this but my little old limbic brain can't hear a thing, which is why I have to *ugh* "experience" it My limbic brain screams "Anything but that!" But this gets me a tiny but very important little step closer to the recovery I hope for someday...

There are a lot of parallels between your story and mine: We started marital therapy because I was having an emotional "affair" with an old flame I had run into (in my mind only - like I said, I'm an expert at fantasizing), neither one of us knows how to ask for what we need, I went to individual therapy with the T we started out with and now am working on transference issues...it's as if I'm at the base of a mountain I need to climb, and you are encouraging me (and others) from the other side of it...I would have already bolted from therapy without the questions others are able to articulate, and answers like yours, on this board, because therapy is SO not what I expected...but apparently exactly what I needed. Thank you so much for your help.

SG

Hummingbird,

Your posts have helped me so much too - thank you!! I just want to scream when I hear that saying "Do you want me to give you something to cry about?" It was one I heard a lot too, particularly when I DID have something valid to cry about But I like how you turned it around: You're already hurting so why not try anyway? So thank you for the new way of looking at it. I will try to remember that tomorrow when my T is looking at me with those clear, intense blue eyes of his, and I'm squirming with awkwardness.

And I could echo what you said about AG and apply it to several members of this board, including you:

quote:

Your reply was phenomenal, please, please please can i come and live with you and learn how to be just like you.

Thanks, HB!!

SG

This is pretty much exactly what I want to say when my T asks me if there is something she can do for me:

quote:

...please, please please can i come and live with you and learn how to be just like you.

I know I get a little bit of this every time I see her but I really want more than just these little 45min increments of her time. I don't even need her constant attention, can't I just hang out and soak it all in?

Thank you for the replies - they are very encouraging and good reminders of what is really going on inside me.

quote:

please, please please can i come and live with you and learn how to be just like you.

HB,
Not possible since I want to be you when I grow up. The master should not sit at the feet of the student.

AG