i just realized this in another post, but how CAN a therapist fill that LOVE 'gap' that i never got growing up, from parents (an 'authority' figure, so to speak) if they can't LOVE you?

i am loved deeply by my husband (peer level love, although i know it is deeper, but stay with me on this), and i am loved by my kids (subordinate level), but that 'authority/parent' level of love? that i guess i am trying to find (didn't realize it til today) through therapy maybe?? and it is deeply unquenshed through T#1's lack of compassion and warmth, T#2's falling asleep in session...i know what you are saying...'self-love' and i just have to take a great big YAWN at that concept, i don't know, i know (now) that i am loved by God...maybe that fills that need? i don't know, something is missing...but really, if a therapist can't love you (and i don't think i want them to) how can that ache for parental/authority/'above you' love be filled?? maybe i shouldn't put T above me, but seems they know alot, or are supposed to...kind of a judge? i don't know, seems my T needed as much therapy as i do. i do know they don't get into this business coz they have their life all figured out. aren't most drawn to psychology because they are trying to treat themselves? despite a very altruistic 'cover' i might add. hmmmm...always a skeptic!! ((wonder where that came from, mother!!)

is this 'approval' i am searching for?? if so, that gets back to always DOING and KNOWING the ANSWERS or something in that realm...i don't know....comments??? have YOU got the answer on this one?? WHAT 'ITCH' CAN THAT THERAPIST 'SCRATCH' THAT NO ONE ELSE CAN??? if i've got a great husband, kids, and God...DO I NEED T#3 ??

((i just read my own post, and it is apparent this poster needs therapy, so don't worry, i know it))

Good question Jill! I'm not sure that I can really give a great answer or the answer you are looking for, but I can speak from my experience.

I know the ache that you are talking about. For me, it is the constant knowledge of the void in my life that should be filled by parents who were and are loving, nurturing and love me unconditionally. I never had that growing up and the hard part is realizing that I will never have that experience as a child. My T is not my mother and she can't fill that void. However, what I do get from my T is the experience of unconditional support, regard and acceptance. No matter what I tell her, no matter if I like her in the moment, no matter if I get mad at her etc. She is still there for me and still cares for me. This is similar to a parent/child dynamic in that I can be upset with the actions of my child, but I still love them. Now, my T doesn't "love" me in that way, but I know that she does truly care about what happens to me. Growing up, I never had positive physical contact or any contact that wasn't somehow tangled up with sex. Through being with my T, I have learned that it is possible for me to receive and accept caring (words, gestures etc) and safe touch. So while this doesn't replace what I missed as a child it does mirror some of what a parent/child relationship would have provided. In addition, part of the work that is being done with my T is learning how to grieve for what I should have had and what I deserved to have, but didn't get. My T helps me see that it was and is normal to have that longing and just because that need wasn't met it doesn't mean that I didn't have a right to need it.

I also have a very supportive and loving husband and I have other positive relationships in my life. The relationship that I have with my T helps to heal those early attachment wounds because I don't have to worry about her needs in the relationship. Again, this is similar to a parent/child dynamic because children aren't supposed to be consumed with the needs of their parents. They are cared for just because they are children. My other relationships, while necessary and beneficial in my life don't allow me the opportunity to be completely focused on myself and my needs in the way the relationship with my T does.

i am just curious, how long does one need to be in counseling to 'heal'...and i know that is a loaded question, with no facts to build on, and in a way, they are irrelevant.

seems like forever. i was in nine months, and am very functional, but addicted to this website, addicted to 'thinking' and figuring out...escaping.

i have a 'need' to go back to T#1 TOMORROW, as i am without support right now. i am bleeding out again!! but i know he doesn't have the tools with that stupid cognitive behavior stuff he sells. then i feel like i just want to go spend a hundred dollars to tell him how disappointed i am in what he could and couldn't offer me...NO EMOTIONAL HEALING!! isn't that what they are there for!! he jsut illuminated the gaping cause of my problems, which was huge, but i am just standing there at the abyss, and he has NO TOOLS FOR HEALING!! nothing but a flat expression that is depressingly like the unmoved expressions i got from my parents...

i know i am venting, and no one has to read this, but i am DYING HERE!! and i'll be danged if i know what to do with this. how the heck do you function when you are dying inside, and mad as hell that your first therapist, who you poured every nuance of your personality to, couldn't fix stuff.

sorry, i'll be ok, glad no one knows me here. i'll have to change my name if i come back, but then maybe y'all accept me.

how nuts am i that i am looking into internet forums for a friend that i can be honest with, and the truth is, i have many, i just hate to drain them. gotta be nice, y'no, so people will like you!

dang, i want to move to montana.

i am really dying inside, i present 'well', but are y'all ever just dying inside, but the outside looks so fine that no one knows.

i guess it doesn't help that my abusive sister just called, hence, the downward spiral. every one is mad at me in my childhood family, and i have just got to get over that fact, that i am trying to live in reality of the abusive and neglectful past, and they are in fantasy land of a normal past. ever have to get over that?? i still wish they would all roll down a very tall hill, and, like humpty dumpty, have a big fall....my psychiatrist says i am stuck at four years old....how 'bout that!!

ah, better, thanks.

Hi Jill,

Please read about client Centered Therapy and find a good therapist that practices it. It is about using unconditional love. My T loves me, I am sure of it. I like that he love me like this, but I wouldn't mind if he sort of loved me in a different way too, but that is my issue.
Happy hunting. check out this site to avoid a "wonkey therapist" I think that is what Susan- (the author of this site) calls it.

i will, monte. i think i need a female therapist though. gender shouldn't matter, and i always thought women (i am one) were a bit catty and competitive...and had opted for male. but all this attachment stuff i am reading about, i just don't want to deal with that in a male/female way. i just don't think i could.

i never thought of T#1 in a sexual way, i think i was too reeling from what i was discovering about my past to think of him as anything but a god-like source of truth and reality checks, but i think he did, and i know that may sound egotistical and wrong, but i had too many weird things he said out of context, and now that i look back, things add up a bit better. he seemed to enjoy me, and my stuff a bit too much, then it all changed, and he went dead-pan. i really hate him, and yet, i need him right now. and i don't want to need anyone, especially him because i am so mad at him for not being wiser and more able in his therapy to heal that inner child. kinda like my mom. i just BLASTED NEED HEALING, and surely he could help, surely my parents could help me, surely someone can help!!

i am sinking my teeth into another therapist tomorrow, agh...off to take a clonozipin.

Hi Jill, nice to meet you. I just wanted to pipe in and say that I chose a female therapist for exactly the same reasons you mentioned, and so far I am not sorry for that choice. However, I know some here on this board have had both male and female Ts and feel there are vital things they have learned from both genders.

I also want to add in my own immature way that I for one am dedicated to getting my T to love me. I haven't given up yet!

isn't that a wrong goal?? i am asking, because i don't know. i tried to separate myself from acknowledging him as a person after awhile, as i felt so socially uncomfortable with the whole one sidedness of therapy at first. then things got so deep on my end, that he was a life preserver of sorts. now i hate him.

glad to see you are doing well with a female, i am contacting several today,

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jill,

quote:

isn't that a wrong goal??

Hmmm, well I am sure some people think so. I am not willing to concede that viewpoint is correct, however. I suppose it largely depends on one's definition of love and expectations from it. For example, just because a T loves a client doesn't mean he will cross all boundaries. Actually, if a T truly loves a client, he will strive not do anything boundary-wise to harm that client, even if it is personally difficult. Neither do I believe the answer is for a T to safely remain cool, aloof, and emotionally detached -- at least not for folks with attachment-based issues. A good T must be strong enough to love but with self-discipline. Personally, I don't think anything short of that will heal me.

madhatter, i think you are right, true love, in the respectful way, sees to the client's needs first, not their own. so, logically, you are right. i guess i am throwing objections out there in a self protective / self reliant way ((as is my nature)) to just PROVE MY THEORY THAT I DON'T NEED LOVE.

"i wonder where that came from, mother...see, i don't need your (non-existant!) love anyway!!"

i'm back to the four year old mode AGAIN!! and i didn't even recognize it, til you brought it up...man, i have really got a head-full of therapy needs....i am a four year old....two psychiatrists have told me that...actually one said four, the other said five....

man, how this transference resurrects itself in EVERY FORM AND FASHION CONTINUALLY IN ALL PHASES OF MY LIFE!!

un-blasted-believable!

"i wonder where that came from, mother...see, i don't need your (non-existant!) love anyway!!"

Hi Jill,
I can relate to what you are saying. I think I needed the love anyway, but somewhere in time it wasn't there. I suffer and obssess after each session with my T, who is female. I think I want some kind of aknowledgement from her of acceptance, care, support, love, etc. but it doesn't come. To me it's obvious that's what I look for from most people I bump into in life. When you think about it, why do I put that responsibility on them. Others don't owe that to me. I suppose I should be able to comfort myself, but I can't. If my T did give me what I was looking for, I would "fall into her" and would want to be taken care of. That's what I have done in the past. I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel like I am thrashing around like a child trying to scratch an itch that I can't get to. I hope you are able to find a good female T. Most of the time I think mine is doing exactly what's best for me and other times I am scared to death she is going to lose patience with me and send me away. Good luck with your search. KOI

Jill, I could have written your post myself. Amazing how some people can say exactly what you are thinking.

"how the heck do you function when you are dying inside"

"i am really dying inside, i present 'well', but are y'all ever just dying inside, but the outside looks so fine that no one knows."

I know these feelings so well. I am highly functional - I have been in the same job for many many years, even worked 2 jobs at one point. No one from the "outside" would ever think that I have been addicted to drugs, used while working, see a t, or even tried to die a couple of times. Dying on the inside.
Always have the happy face, an uplifting word, just everything is lah-dee-dah. Ugh!

I love the humpty-dumpty thing!! Can my family come too?

Jill! good posts and good thread! so sorry
you are hurting so much

quote:

how the heck do you function when you are dying inside, and mad as hell that your first therapist, who you poured every nuance of your personality to, couldn't fix stuff.

I could have written this myself!

quote:

dang, i want to move to montana.

oh can I join you?

my brain is fried, i have no good input - i'm still wondering how to figure this one out! just wanted to say you are not alone in this and was i thinking of you

jane, smiley, koi

i wrote this awhile ago, and thanks for bringing it back to life, for me to see that i do, right now, feel better.

i don't think she is going to kick me out. i can't say she loves me, but i think she feels for me a bit. and maybe enjoys the challenge and the trust i am slowly putting into her hands.

she is smart, and fairly direct, and so far so good. and yes, smiley, plenty of room for misfits in that humpty dumpty egg. too, smiley, i guess it is good that we are so highly funcitoning, i know the 'lie' of it feels bad, but, it let's us get out of our pain a bit to function and be taken 'as if' i were a competent adult inside...my t thinks a third grader is running my emotions. true, and kinda helps to put it in that term. she IS i believe going to help me grow that up. janedoe, come on to montana!! really, i am better now, thanks for being here with this post. and koi, that itch you refer to, i think one day, and i am beginning to see it might be there, that itch won't itch so much...at least it won't itch for every person we meet...t told me about 'throw away' friends, in relation to a topic i brought up about how an aquaintance really triggered me, and that i need to look at these people as not 'maybe going to be that perfect person in my life that can meet all my needs' but as an opportunity to practice being an assertive person. with little to no consequences. i have tried that, and funny, this chick's attitude has turned around towards me into a more equal relationship. hmmmmmmmmmmm...could therapy be working????

Jill,
That is so wonderful. Sounds like you Have a great T! I am very happy for you. You sound like things are really looking up. You have brightened my day! Take care of yourself!
KOI

quote:

And T told me once you have this healing, you will be in healthy relationships where you can experience mature, lasting love....while prior to healing your inner wounds, you might be with (either consciously or unconsciously) people who may be abusive...for various reasons..

Oh, how I wish that happens to me some day...


On the downside I don't dare to call what my T is offering me "Love"
He does give me so much, my life is not the same as before and I will not go back to the place where I was before therapy.
But still, to call it love... I don't know if that is... acceptable. I would not want to lie to myself and name something with the name, that he would never use.
He said once: I think you don't believe you can be loved by a man.
That is very much true. I want something that I can't have, so I try to make myself forget about it, stop wanting it or find a proof that maybe I am like others and can have it too. It's very hard, but I feel so much stronger and I am much more able to deal with that.