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Hi Ladygrey,
Great topic! Working on that with T now. What is trust? There was a great website that compared trust in self issues from trust in other issues. I think it's still out there but just not in the same form as when I first saw it. From what I remember, most trust issues are trust in self issues. I ignore things in my environment that I should not ignore. Trust too much and wind up getting hurt. You can't trust blindly, I don't think, ever. You must always trust yourself first. I don't think any one of us should give ourselves over completely to another human being, as much as we'd like to. We need to take the helm, as scary as that is. That's the living with anxiety part. Haven't gotten to post anything about living with anxiety because I've been struggling all week. But it has to do with taking the helm. Confronted T last night about some things I see as not trustworthy in him and all he said was, I can see how you would think that. You are going to have to decide if I am trustworthy. Very maddening. Let's keep talking about this. This is a good one. Thanks for bringing it up.
Great topic! Working on that with T now. What is trust? There was a great website that compared trust in self issues from trust in other issues. I think it's still out there but just not in the same form as when I first saw it. From what I remember, most trust issues are trust in self issues. I ignore things in my environment that I should not ignore. Trust too much and wind up getting hurt. You can't trust blindly, I don't think, ever. You must always trust yourself first. I don't think any one of us should give ourselves over completely to another human being, as much as we'd like to. We need to take the helm, as scary as that is. That's the living with anxiety part. Haven't gotten to post anything about living with anxiety because I've been struggling all week. But it has to do with taking the helm. Confronted T last night about some things I see as not trustworthy in him and all he said was, I can see how you would think that. You are going to have to decide if I am trustworthy. Very maddening. Let's keep talking about this. This is a good one. Thanks for bringing it up.
Hi LG
What a glorious topic.
I have discussed this quite a lot with my T obviously because it is such a difficult area for me. One session I made him pull out his psychology books and look up the definition of trust and how that differed from having confidence in him. So we looked it up and discussed it a bit and then he said that what was more important than the dictionary meaning was what it meant to me.
So this is my personal definition: Trust has a connotation of dependency on someone else which makes me feel kind of vulnerable, i put my trust in you and have to hope you come through for me. Confidence on the other hand is more a belief in my judgment of you as being trustworthy. So i feel that trust grew out of gaining confidence in my T and his ability to be there for me.
What i found interesting was that at the confidence building stage my T letting me down or dropping the ball was devastating but now that i trust him i have room within myself for his foibles (dictionary meaning of a foible is a slight peculiarity or minor weakness, idiosyncrasy).
Pan
What a glorious topic.
I have discussed this quite a lot with my T obviously because it is such a difficult area for me. One session I made him pull out his psychology books and look up the definition of trust and how that differed from having confidence in him. So we looked it up and discussed it a bit and then he said that what was more important than the dictionary meaning was what it meant to me.So this is my personal definition:
Trust has a connotation of dependency on someone else which makes me feel kind of vulnerable, i put my trust in you and have to hope you come through for me. Confidence on the other hand is more a belief in my judgment of you as being trustworthy. So i feel that trust grew out of gaining confidence in my T and his ability to be there for me. What i found interesting was that at the confidence building stage my T letting me down or dropping the ball was devastating but now that i trust him i have room within myself for his foibles (dictionary meaning of a foible is a slight peculiarity or minor weakness, idiosyncrasy).
Pan
Yeah, it`s an hard task to actually put words on what trust is and define it.. I`d liked your reply LG!
once my T said i am very trustfull, i asked him what that really meant?, - And he answered that i was personal with him, and that i invited him into ´my inner world´. I thought alot about that, and thought he was right, that matched how i felt in sessions too. That i WANTED to share my stuff with him and ´let him in´.. DESPITE that it was often scary and painfull.
Oh- and i thnik when trusting someone what you really do is trusting the good in him, - that you will be met with acceptance and understanding.
But even though i trust T, i do very often struggle with regretting having said things, for exposing myself too much etc. But that`s just a natural part of it, maybe impossible to avoid. Something like that..
once my T said i am very trustfull, i asked him what that really meant?, - And he answered that i was personal with him, and that i invited him into ´my inner world´. I thought alot about that, and thought he was right, that matched how i felt in sessions too. That i WANTED to share my stuff with him and ´let him in´.. DESPITE that it was often scary and painfull.
Oh- and i thnik when trusting someone what you really do is trusting the good in him, - that you will be met with acceptance and understanding.
But even though i trust T, i do very often struggle with regretting having said things, for exposing myself too much etc. But that`s just a natural part of it, maybe impossible to avoid. Something like that..
LG,
Great question. I have a slightly weird take on trust, because it is something with which I have struggled my whole life. Here was my turning point on trust. I kept thinking of trust as this wonderful, good thing that I was supposed to have for the people around me. After all, isn't being able to trust the holy grail so many are chasing in therapy? But one session when my T and I were discussing trust, what it was, what it meant, something dawned on me.
Trust is a horrifying concept for me, that opens an abyss at my feet that threatens to swallow me up. We are each alone, and no matter how well we think we know someone, no matter how trustworthy they seem, we have to step off a cliff edge into empty space when we trust in faith that the bridge will materialize under our feet. The very definition of trust means that there is NO certainty. It's like you get as close as possible and then choose to act AS IF you can absolutely KNOW the person will be there when really we can't. What a completely insane thing to do! My T was wonderful and affirmed that for someone with my experience trust was a terrible, threatening thing.
When I recognized that I felt this way, I finally started being able to trust. Because now I didn't have to get trust right every time. And I didn't have to be certain I could trust, before I could trust someone, if that makes any sense.
The recognition that when I choose to trust I was taking a chance, made all the difference in the world. I kept thinking it couldn't be trust if I had ANY doubts left, when far from it. Just as you cannot be brave if you are not scared, you cannot trust unless you have doubts.
I learned so much about how to trust from my T because he never told me I could trust him. He told me much later in our work, that he could have told me in the beginning that he was trustworthy, but I would not have believed him. He just had to continue to be trustworthy until I believed him. Trustworthy for me means that he is consistent, available and accepting. So many times I have gone to him expecting to be humilitated or scorned because of showing him my vulnerabilities and instead have been met with compassion and care. I can show him my deepest parts because I know he won't go away when he sees them. And I know it's safe to trust now, because I also understand that when someone fails me (as even the most trustworthy of humans will from time to time as they are very human) that's ok, because I can survive and heal the hurt. Which is the last component of someone being trustworthy. Can I trust them to repair the ruptures? Can I trust them to go on in the face of their failures and mine, so that the relationship bears up under both of our human failings? It is that willingness to face and repair any problems, to extend grace and forgiveness, to take responsibility that in the end is what is important to me.
Pan I just had to say that I absolutely agree with this. Early on in my relationship with my T, I sent him an email and didn't hear back for over three days. I called him, already pretty angry, as email has been an issue at times and when I asked him if he had read my email, he said, wait for it, "I don't remember." I was SO angry I practically hung up on him, snarling that we could talk about it at my next session. But when I hung up the phone the bottom fell out of my world, and I went into a meltdown questioning the whole reality of the relationship. (An emergency call back to my T got me through that one.)
Much later in our work after I did trust him, I left two messages spaced two days apart about needing to re-schedule an appt and didn't hear back, so I ended up calling him and when he returned my call, he apologized profusely. We were discussing it next session and my T admitted, chagrined, that he really didn't remember what happened. And it didn't bother me! I told him that earlier in our work, it would have really hurt me that he didn't remember, but I knew that he knows the important stuff about me and I know that tracking those kinds of details isn't his strong suite. So now when he messes that kind of stuff up, it's just kind of adorable instead of maddening or scary.
AG
Great question. I have a slightly weird take on trust, because it is something with which I have struggled my whole life. Here was my turning point on trust. I kept thinking of trust as this wonderful, good thing that I was supposed to have for the people around me. After all, isn't being able to trust the holy grail so many are chasing in therapy? But one session when my T and I were discussing trust, what it was, what it meant, something dawned on me.
Trust is a horrifying concept for me, that opens an abyss at my feet that threatens to swallow me up. We are each alone, and no matter how well we think we know someone, no matter how trustworthy they seem, we have to step off a cliff edge into empty space when we trust in faith that the bridge will materialize under our feet. The very definition of trust means that there is NO certainty. It's like you get as close as possible and then choose to act AS IF you can absolutely KNOW the person will be there when really we can't. What a completely insane thing to do! My T was wonderful and affirmed that for someone with my experience trust was a terrible, threatening thing.
When I recognized that I felt this way, I finally started being able to trust. Because now I didn't have to get trust right every time. And I didn't have to be certain I could trust, before I could trust someone, if that makes any sense.
The recognition that when I choose to trust I was taking a chance, made all the difference in the world. I kept thinking it couldn't be trust if I had ANY doubts left, when far from it. Just as you cannot be brave if you are not scared, you cannot trust unless you have doubts. I learned so much about how to trust from my T because he never told me I could trust him. He told me much later in our work, that he could have told me in the beginning that he was trustworthy, but I would not have believed him. He just had to continue to be trustworthy until I believed him. Trustworthy for me means that he is consistent, available and accepting. So many times I have gone to him expecting to be humilitated or scorned because of showing him my vulnerabilities and instead have been met with compassion and care. I can show him my deepest parts because I know he won't go away when he sees them. And I know it's safe to trust now, because I also understand that when someone fails me (as even the most trustworthy of humans will from time to time as they are very human) that's ok, because I can survive and heal the hurt. Which is the last component of someone being trustworthy. Can I trust them to repair the ruptures? Can I trust them to go on in the face of their failures and mine, so that the relationship bears up under both of our human failings? It is that willingness to face and repair any problems, to extend grace and forgiveness, to take responsibility that in the end is what is important to me.
quote:What i found interesting was that at the confidence building stage my T letting me down or dropping the ball was devastating but now that i trust him i have room within myself for his foibles
Pan I just had to say that I absolutely agree with this. Early on in my relationship with my T, I sent him an email and didn't hear back for over three days. I called him, already pretty angry, as email has been an issue at times and when I asked him if he had read my email, he said, wait for it, "I don't remember." I was SO angry I practically hung up on him, snarling that we could talk about it at my next session. But when I hung up the phone the bottom fell out of my world, and I went into a meltdown questioning the whole reality of the relationship. (An emergency call back to my T got me through that one.)
Much later in our work after I did trust him, I left two messages spaced two days apart about needing to re-schedule an appt and didn't hear back, so I ended up calling him and when he returned my call, he apologized profusely. We were discussing it next session and my T admitted, chagrined, that he really didn't remember what happened. And it didn't bother me! I told him that earlier in our work, it would have really hurt me that he didn't remember, but I knew that he knows the important stuff about me and I know that tracking those kinds of details isn't his strong suite. So now when he messes that kind of stuff up, it's just kind of adorable instead of maddening or scary.
AG
HI LG,
I hope you don't mind me hijacking your thread but since we're talking about trust, I thought I'd get some feedback on the situation I talked about with my T this week. Please let me know what you think.
So I've been going twice a week to my T since around November. It was really hard for me to ask to go weekly and excruciatingly hard for me to ask to go twice weekly. But I've really needed to see him that often. He told me that he had a lot of cancellations around the holidays and would probably be able to give me a second appointment ahead of time. For me, the unspoken words were but after the holidays, I would have to go on his float list for the second appointment and await a cancellation. I hate being on his float list but I figured I would cross that bridge when I got to it.
I saw him the Monday before Christmas. I got pretty triggered during the session but didn't express it. Although my face turned bright red. I was in a heightened emotional state as I left the session. T said, let's go look at the book for Thursday, the 23rd. We go to look. As I said, I was already triggered. I can't read the book upside down. But what I saw was a name with a line through it. And then he and his secretary both threw their hands down on the book to cover it up as he told me he didn't have anything available for Thursday and they would call me. I bolted out of there. Not sure of what I witnessed both with the line through the name and their hands. I decided that I could NOT trust T. Was not feeling safe. So within 15 minutes, I called his secretary, told her to take me off the float list. I figured that I would just go through the holidays and decide afterwards whether or not to continue with him.
Within an hour, T called me himself, something he has never done without me asking him to call. He said that he felt really bad that he didn't have an appointment for me but in that time, someone called and cancelled and there was now an opening on Thursday and would I please come in. I figured I would go because to not go would be to harden the anger within me and it would ruin the holidays. And, so I went. I bought a gift for his secretary. I've never given her a gift before. I gave her the gift and she looked really really awkward taking it and then she said, I'm sorry for what I do to you.
That day, I only talked to T about the possibility that an appointment opened up within an hour like that and he said it did and it happens all the time.
I almost decided to let it go until this week because we've been talking about trust. So, I told him what I saw with my eyes that Monday and what his secretary said to me on Thursday and how awkward she looked. And, that's when he said, I can see how you would interpret that, but you are going to have to decide if I'm trustworthy.
Also, recently he was telling me that he is very direct. And if he didn't want to treat me anymore he would be very direct about it. Then he told me, e.g., a woman wanted to see him who didn't have insurance and she wanted to pay him $50.00 a week. And, his reply was, well over time, I would resent getting $50.00 a week. So he said no. I didn't say anything until the next session but I left feeling awful because between my insurance and my copay, he gets $65.00 a week from me. Not too much better than $50.00 a week. So next session, I brought it up, that he only gets $65.00 a week from me and he said, yeah, it stinks and that some of the other insurance companies pay more and between what they pay and the copay, he gets $80.00 a week, much better. He said that he was actually thinking of dropping my insurance company but keeping me on at $65.00. We've been having trouble with our insurance company so I called his office to find out which plans he's keeping to see what kind of deals I could get and now I'm not getting a straight answer. He's not sure what he's going to do.
He has never ever mentioned money to me before. Not sure WTF?
Also, a lot of the Thursday appointments they've given me was at the 2:15 slot. Every week, his secretary had a different reason for that particular slot being available: the girl was snowbound. She moved up her appointment. Etc. Just feeling soooo jerked around. Do I get past all this or not?
I'm terribly attached to him and it burns me to the core to experience these little "rejections". Trying not to freak out. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I thought about going in on Monday and just saying, look this is just too much for me to get past without some reasonable explanation. Have I reached my first rupture?
I've read that no matter how often you reassure a borderline, it's never enough. That they are hypervigilant and look for reasons to mistrust. Not sure if this is what's going on here or if you'll would feel the same way. Am I just being borderline? On the other hand, I think I do need to know that he cares about me. The therapeutic relationship is so unique and there aren't the normal "markers" along the way, like there might be with a budding friendship. Although not sure the markers I've looked for in the past are reliable ... but ... at least I knew what to look for. Not so with the therapeutic relationship.
Thanks in advance and sorry again LG for hijacking,
Liese
I hope you don't mind me hijacking your thread but since we're talking about trust, I thought I'd get some feedback on the situation I talked about with my T this week. Please let me know what you think.
So I've been going twice a week to my T since around November. It was really hard for me to ask to go weekly and excruciatingly hard for me to ask to go twice weekly. But I've really needed to see him that often. He told me that he had a lot of cancellations around the holidays and would probably be able to give me a second appointment ahead of time. For me, the unspoken words were but after the holidays, I would have to go on his float list for the second appointment and await a cancellation. I hate being on his float list but I figured I would cross that bridge when I got to it.
I saw him the Monday before Christmas. I got pretty triggered during the session but didn't express it. Although my face turned bright red. I was in a heightened emotional state as I left the session. T said, let's go look at the book for Thursday, the 23rd. We go to look. As I said, I was already triggered. I can't read the book upside down. But what I saw was a name with a line through it. And then he and his secretary both threw their hands down on the book to cover it up as he told me he didn't have anything available for Thursday and they would call me. I bolted out of there. Not sure of what I witnessed both with the line through the name and their hands. I decided that I could NOT trust T. Was not feeling safe. So within 15 minutes, I called his secretary, told her to take me off the float list. I figured that I would just go through the holidays and decide afterwards whether or not to continue with him.
Within an hour, T called me himself, something he has never done without me asking him to call. He said that he felt really bad that he didn't have an appointment for me but in that time, someone called and cancelled and there was now an opening on Thursday and would I please come in. I figured I would go because to not go would be to harden the anger within me and it would ruin the holidays. And, so I went. I bought a gift for his secretary. I've never given her a gift before. I gave her the gift and she looked really really awkward taking it and then she said, I'm sorry for what I do to you.
That day, I only talked to T about the possibility that an appointment opened up within an hour like that and he said it did and it happens all the time.
I almost decided to let it go until this week because we've been talking about trust. So, I told him what I saw with my eyes that Monday and what his secretary said to me on Thursday and how awkward she looked. And, that's when he said, I can see how you would interpret that, but you are going to have to decide if I'm trustworthy.
Also, recently he was telling me that he is very direct. And if he didn't want to treat me anymore he would be very direct about it. Then he told me, e.g., a woman wanted to see him who didn't have insurance and she wanted to pay him $50.00 a week. And, his reply was, well over time, I would resent getting $50.00 a week. So he said no. I didn't say anything until the next session but I left feeling awful because between my insurance and my copay, he gets $65.00 a week from me. Not too much better than $50.00 a week. So next session, I brought it up, that he only gets $65.00 a week from me and he said, yeah, it stinks and that some of the other insurance companies pay more and between what they pay and the copay, he gets $80.00 a week, much better. He said that he was actually thinking of dropping my insurance company but keeping me on at $65.00. We've been having trouble with our insurance company so I called his office to find out which plans he's keeping to see what kind of deals I could get and now I'm not getting a straight answer. He's not sure what he's going to do.
He has never ever mentioned money to me before. Not sure WTF?
Also, a lot of the Thursday appointments they've given me was at the 2:15 slot. Every week, his secretary had a different reason for that particular slot being available: the girl was snowbound. She moved up her appointment. Etc. Just feeling soooo jerked around. Do I get past all this or not?
I'm terribly attached to him and it burns me to the core to experience these little "rejections". Trying not to freak out. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I thought about going in on Monday and just saying, look this is just too much for me to get past without some reasonable explanation. Have I reached my first rupture?
I've read that no matter how often you reassure a borderline, it's never enough. That they are hypervigilant and look for reasons to mistrust. Not sure if this is what's going on here or if you'll would feel the same way. Am I just being borderline? On the other hand, I think I do need to know that he cares about me. The therapeutic relationship is so unique and there aren't the normal "markers" along the way, like there might be with a budding friendship. Although not sure the markers I've looked for in the past are reliable ... but ... at least I knew what to look for. Not so with the therapeutic relationship.
Thanks in advance and sorry again LG for hijacking,
Liese
Just doing a bit of reading today in A General Theory of Love and finding it to be a beautiful book. Really resonates with me. Felt as though what happened to me in October was me going into despair that my attachment figure was gone. I think TN tried to tell me that but I wasn't listening. So, I decided to place an emergency call to T which I've never done outside of office hours because I am in such distress and panic tonight. So, I called and left him a voicemail. Wasn't sure how often he checks his messages, wasn't sure if I'd get a call back this weekend but it was so damn empowering just to call and say "I'm in distress. Please call me." I need you right now. If you're going to bring to this precipice, you'd better be there for me when I need you. I'm having a shitty weekend because you were unable to say whatever I needed to hear on Thursday. Why should you have a good weekend when I'm having a shitty weekend? Well, of course I didn't say all that but I was thinking it and it felt good to think it. It felt empowering. Like I have a choice. Like I'm not some victim who has to sit there and just decide if a certain therapist is trustworthy or not. I have power. I can say, I don't know if I trust you. Maybe I need to find a new therapist if this isn't going to work. I was going to write all this as I waited for him to call. But my computer died. I had to find the plug and take care of some other things.
By the time I got back to my computer and turned it on, he called. That these "mistrusts" of mine are just miniscule compared to the big picture, that I'm brutalizing myself unnecessarily. He told me that he wants to work with me. That he thinks we work well together and he feels bad for what I'm doing to myself. He told me to pay attention to the thoughts that I tell myself that brings me into this state. (THE CBT training.)
I have to say that it was the General Theory of Love that gave me permission to call. In reading the book, I realized how interconnected we all are. And, how this is his job. To fix me. He must know this. He must know all about attachment theory and the limbic brain. He has to. I can't fix myself. I can pay attention to my thoughts. But really, I think it's only going to be my interactions with him when I am in distress and how he reacts towards me that's going to be helpful or not helpful. Right? Maybe that's what trust is. Oh it hurts to need and to trust. But it's better than not trusting.
I keep thinking he's pushing me away but am I projecting? Am I pushing him away? Why do I do this to myself?
Thanks for listening.
Liese
By the time I got back to my computer and turned it on, he called. That these "mistrusts" of mine are just miniscule compared to the big picture, that I'm brutalizing myself unnecessarily. He told me that he wants to work with me. That he thinks we work well together and he feels bad for what I'm doing to myself. He told me to pay attention to the thoughts that I tell myself that brings me into this state. (THE CBT training.)
I have to say that it was the General Theory of Love that gave me permission to call. In reading the book, I realized how interconnected we all are. And, how this is his job. To fix me. He must know this. He must know all about attachment theory and the limbic brain. He has to. I can't fix myself. I can pay attention to my thoughts. But really, I think it's only going to be my interactions with him when I am in distress and how he reacts towards me that's going to be helpful or not helpful. Right? Maybe that's what trust is. Oh it hurts to need and to trust. But it's better than not trusting.
I keep thinking he's pushing me away but am I projecting? Am I pushing him away? Why do I do this to myself?
Thanks for listening.
Liese
quote:You can't trust blindly, I don't think, ever. You must always trust yourself first. I don't think any one of us should give ourselves over completely to another human being, as much as we'd like to. We need to take the helm, as scary as that is.
Oh, Liese...this is sooo true! My T2 said something about self-trust recently and I didn't quite understand what she was trying to say. You said it so much better! Thank you for sharing that.
Also, you didn't hijack my thread, Liese. I'm happy that you took the opportunity to tell us what is going on for you right now. I'm not sure what to say about what happened with your T and his receptionist, but it certainly sounds a bit shady and I can see why you would be questioning things. But, I also recognize that as you pointed out, borderlines are always looking for reasons to mistrust. We are hyper-vigilant and are always on the alert for the slightest sign of harm, betrayal, etc. It is possible that you have read too much into what happened. I guess without knowing the full details, you can never know but can only chose to continue to trust him or to allow this to come between you. It sounds to me that he is asking for you to have some faith in him, to trust that he has your best interest at heart. I know its scary to take that leap of faith and put aside your concerns and trust him, but maybe its the best thing you can do in order to grow and in order to keep the therapeutic relationship in tact.
quote:What i found interesting was that at the confidence building stage my T letting me down or dropping the ball was devastating but now that i trust him i have room within myself for his foibles (dictionary meaning of a foible is a slight peculiarity or minor weakness, idiosyncrasy).
Pandora, I love what you have written here. T1 seems to drop the ball on me a lot, but then she eventually is always there for me. In a sense, she is teaching me that people won't always be there for you right when you need them, but they will always come back to check on you. Its a much more realistic dynamic, really. I mean, who can really be there for you every moment of every day other than yourself? Nobody. Its important to learn this and even though its a scary process, T being a bit inconsistent in being there for me but always being there for me overall is teaching me a valueable lesson in trust.
Frog,
I completely relate to what you wrote about struggling with feelings of regret after telling T things, after exposing yourself. There are times that I feel so safe with T2 that I find myself telling her things that later, on my drive home, I am cringing about...saying to myself outloud, "I can't believe I said that!!" and I wish I could undo it. Hopefully those feelings will go away as I continue to experience trust with her in the moment.
AG,
What you wrote about how your T makes mistakes and doesn't always remember certain details...yet you find it endearing and cute and not maddening or scary...this really touched me. I think it is so important for us to realize that NOBODY is perfect and if we are seeking perfection, we will always be let down. But if we can learn to accept that the people we trust will eventually let us down in some capacity but the important thing is that overall, they are there for us, we can feel safer being vulnerable with people. Just as you so eloquently said, "the very definition of trust means that there is NO certainty". So if we are constantly seeking certainty in order to trust...we will never trust.
What you wrote about how your T makes mistakes and doesn't always remember certain details...yet you find it endearing and cute and not maddening or scary...this really touched me. I think it is so important for us to realize that NOBODY is perfect and if we are seeking perfection, we will always be let down. But if we can learn to accept that the people we trust will eventually let us down in some capacity but the important thing is that overall, they are there for us, we can feel safer being vulnerable with people. Just as you so eloquently said, "the very definition of trust means that there is NO certainty". So if we are constantly seeking certainty in order to trust...we will never trust.
quote:trust him to do the best he can. The trust I think I struggle with is trust in the process. Often I feel that I don't trust him at some core place, but I think what it is is that I don't trust him to be able to offer 'enough'. I don't mean enough in terms of therapy, I mean it in terms of offering enough to fill my void.
Monte,
It sounds like you have developed a great relationship with your T...one in which you can trust that he does care about you, even if he cannot respond right away. It makes me think of something in my own life...I used to freak out if my exhusband didn't text me back right away. yet I find myself trusting T1 when she doesn't get back to me. My initial thought is to panic but then after I sit with that emotion for a minute or two, I am able to become more rational and recognize that her lack of response right away is not a sign that she doesn't care, but just means she is busy and will get back to me later. If only I could have had that level of trust in my marriage!!
I also want to add that I smiled when I read your description of our trust in our T's as being "wobbly". What a perfect word. it's like learning to walk. You are going to fall down but you can always get back on your feet. I love it!
MAC,
Great question, "Is there such a thing as unconditional trust?"
Hmm....I am going to have to sit on that for a day or two. it's a lot to think about, but my initial thought is that no, there is not such a thing as unconditional trust. Yikes...that's scary! but perhaps true. I will give this some thought.
Great question, "Is there such a thing as unconditional trust?"
Hmm....I am going to have to sit on that for a day or two. it's a lot to think about, but my initial thought is that no, there is not such a thing as unconditional trust. Yikes...that's scary! but perhaps true. I will give this some thought.
Just a few thoughts about trust...
First, (and I'm stealing this from a very wise friend) if we could fix ourselves then when we showed up at therapy our T's could hand us a self-help manual and send us on our way. All that we would need to do is read the instructions and follow them and we would be "fixed". Obviously, that is impossible. Especially for those of us who are dealing with interpersonal trauma and betrayal and childhood development gone awry. These wounds can only be healed "interpersonally and relationally" which means in relationship with another person, most particularly with a T/P. Through a safe, consistent and supportive relationship where we can explore our hurts and our pain and have the other person focus soley on us, we can lay down new neural pathways in our brain, we can rewire our limbic systems to relate in better and more healthy ways. This is not conjecture it's scientific.
On trust... this is a tricky area for me. What it means to trust is to allow yourself to be vulnerable and open and honest with someone who you feel will accept your "humaness" and your faults and mistakes and still be there for you and will treat you gently and understand that you are only human. You believe (you trust) that this other person will not harm you.
Trust is a really difficult thing for those with complex PTSD because we do not view the world as a benign and harmless place as those who had healthier childhoods would. We have been harmed by those who were supposed to be there to care for us and so trust becomes something we have to work at and fight for. We know from first hand experience that bad things happen to innocent people/kids. So we view people differently and evaluate everyone for their safety and trustworthiness and their potential to harm and abandon us before we will allow them to come close to us.
T's cannot just say trust me. They have to EARN our trust through being there, being consistent, showing their care, and keeping their own emotional balance so that we can learn from them implicitly, what it means to feel safe, to trust, to regulate our emotions.
My oldT often told me I should trust him. That he was safe. That he would never harm me, or abandon me, or reject me. He told me that I could tell him anything about me and he would not turn away from me. Yet when I finally told him that I trusted him and felt safe enough to stop fearing his abandonment... he abandoned me. So what does that say about trusting a T that says trust me?? Where does one go from there in the trust department?? How can you go to another T who says those same things to you?? Would you believe them??? If you did you would be crazy right and perhaps asking for the same rejection over time. How do we ever really know who we can trust?
My T, to his credit, never asked me to trust him. He knew it would be a losing argument anyway because I would just remind him that oldT said the same things to me. But instead he just behaved in a trustworthy way. He is HUGELY consistent. He is accepting... ALL THE TIME. He keeps the focus on ME, he never gets defensive at all. Even if he feels like it, he never shows that to me. And I know I have rocked him a bit in my anger and bitterness. But he is always calm and accepting. He also reminds me that we are a partnership, that we collaborate. He also reminds me of the "red flags" of a T (or anyone for that matter) who should be avoided. This fosters trust in him but ... and I think this is very important... it teaches me how to trust myself and my observations and opinions about others. This is a way of keeping myself safe.
In the end we can never be 100% guaranteed that someone is worth trusting but we can weed out the ones who are obviously showing us they have too many of their own problems to be trusted. In order to do this we learn to trust ourselves and to listen to ourselves. And then ... if we are hurt by someone we have to trust in ourselves that we will and can survive it. That others will be there to help us and that we will one day move on to trust again.
TN
First, (and I'm stealing this from a very wise friend) if we could fix ourselves then when we showed up at therapy our T's could hand us a self-help manual and send us on our way. All that we would need to do is read the instructions and follow them and we would be "fixed". Obviously, that is impossible. Especially for those of us who are dealing with interpersonal trauma and betrayal and childhood development gone awry. These wounds can only be healed "interpersonally and relationally" which means in relationship with another person, most particularly with a T/P. Through a safe, consistent and supportive relationship where we can explore our hurts and our pain and have the other person focus soley on us, we can lay down new neural pathways in our brain, we can rewire our limbic systems to relate in better and more healthy ways. This is not conjecture it's scientific.
On trust... this is a tricky area for me. What it means to trust is to allow yourself to be vulnerable and open and honest with someone who you feel will accept your "humaness" and your faults and mistakes and still be there for you and will treat you gently and understand that you are only human. You believe (you trust) that this other person will not harm you.
Trust is a really difficult thing for those with complex PTSD because we do not view the world as a benign and harmless place as those who had healthier childhoods would. We have been harmed by those who were supposed to be there to care for us and so trust becomes something we have to work at and fight for. We know from first hand experience that bad things happen to innocent people/kids. So we view people differently and evaluate everyone for their safety and trustworthiness and their potential to harm and abandon us before we will allow them to come close to us.
T's cannot just say trust me. They have to EARN our trust through being there, being consistent, showing their care, and keeping their own emotional balance so that we can learn from them implicitly, what it means to feel safe, to trust, to regulate our emotions.
My oldT often told me I should trust him. That he was safe. That he would never harm me, or abandon me, or reject me. He told me that I could tell him anything about me and he would not turn away from me. Yet when I finally told him that I trusted him and felt safe enough to stop fearing his abandonment... he abandoned me. So what does that say about trusting a T that says trust me?? Where does one go from there in the trust department?? How can you go to another T who says those same things to you?? Would you believe them??? If you did you would be crazy right and perhaps asking for the same rejection over time. How do we ever really know who we can trust?
My T, to his credit, never asked me to trust him. He knew it would be a losing argument anyway because I would just remind him that oldT said the same things to me. But instead he just behaved in a trustworthy way. He is HUGELY consistent. He is accepting... ALL THE TIME. He keeps the focus on ME, he never gets defensive at all. Even if he feels like it, he never shows that to me. And I know I have rocked him a bit in my anger and bitterness. But he is always calm and accepting. He also reminds me that we are a partnership, that we collaborate. He also reminds me of the "red flags" of a T (or anyone for that matter) who should be avoided. This fosters trust in him but ... and I think this is very important... it teaches me how to trust myself and my observations and opinions about others. This is a way of keeping myself safe.
In the end we can never be 100% guaranteed that someone is worth trusting but we can weed out the ones who are obviously showing us they have too many of their own problems to be trusted. In order to do this we learn to trust ourselves and to listen to ourselves. And then ... if we are hurt by someone we have to trust in ourselves that we will and can survive it. That others will be there to help us and that we will one day move on to trust again.
TN
quote:I have to say that it was the General Theory of Love that gave me permission to call. In reading the book, I realized how interconnected we all are. And, how this is his job. To fix me. He must know this. He must know all about attachment theory and the limbic brain. He has to. I can't fix myself. I can pay attention to my thoughts. But really, I think it's only going to be my interactions with him when I am in distress and how he reacts towards me that's going to be helpful or not helpful. Right?
Liese, I'm glad you are enjoying the book and that you find it helpful. I'm glad it helped you to reach out to your T when you were in distress but I wanted to address the quote above.
I just wanted to say ... don't be so sure that your T knows and understands attachment theory and the neuroscience of the limbic brain and how emotional regulation is learned implicitly, how we weave new nerual pathways and how our brain's plasticity works to help us heal from interpersonal trauma. Many T's have not studied this. Although attachment theory as written about by Bowlby, Main and Ainsworth has been around for many years, it has only been... probably in the past ten years that it has been clinically used in psychotherapy. My T has a strong object relations background (which was the precursor to attachment theory) and majored in neuropsychology so he picked up on attachment theory very easily and has worked with it... but many older practioners may not have learned all of this unless they have done so through continuing education courses. My oldT had NO IDEA about how attachment worked. NONE at all. Even though it was his job to know and he should have known, especially as it is a developmental issue and he treats a lot of kids.
I do agree with you that you cannot fix yourself (none of us can... read my post above) but I'm not sure it's his job to "fix" you. I think he is there as a guide to help you learn about yourself, to be there to help you to integrate trauma, to be supportive, to be accepting, to reassuring and to offer you the space you need to grieve and accept the past. I think what happens in our therapy is facilitated by our Ts but we have to do a lot of the work ourselves by being open, by being honest and by working with T to make those connections and finding that insight we need to understand our feelings and why we are compelled to react in certain ways to certain things or people. We need to allow our feelings to surface so that we can listen to what they are telling us. Our feelings tell us a lot if we would look and them and listen. This is where a good T is so helpful because those feelings can be shameful and scary and dark. I think we also need to learn in therapy how to be kind to ourselves and to silence our inner critic.
Therapy is not for the faint hearted, as you know already. It's a tough thing to tackle. I'm really glad your T called you back and told you he wants to work with you and thinks you work well together. What you need to do is to keep revisiting the trust issues until you feel better about them. Talking about your relationship with your T is the biggest part of the therapy... especially in the beginning phases when you are working hard to feel safe.
I hope you are feeling better and can enjoy the rest of the weekend.
Hugs,
TN
lady grey, what i am learning about trust, for myself, is...that ultimately, the one i most need to trust is MYSELF. to trust that i CAN take a risk and put trust into another person, BUT, i can be ok if that does not go the way i would like, that I HAVE THE RESOURCES TO HANDLE IT.
and the way i would do it, is in an all or nothing way. i would put myself emotionally so fully into anothers hands (like handing an infant to another) that i was so hurt and surprised that they literally DROPPED that infant (it felt like).
OR
i would not make myself vulnerable, thus, CONNECTED, at all. and, that left me feeling isolated and unconnected and alone. but, i felt that was, although lonesome, at least safe...like the turtle with all legs and head pulled into the shell.
what i am finding now, is that it is ok to trust someone, to be vulnerable, to expose myself to the wind, and know that i have the ability to take care of myself and not be so personally rejected if they aren't able to handle me the precise way i would like.
now, i must admit, this is something i know logically, but emotionally, and 'bodily', i am not there.
so, that is my take on trust. knowing that one has the ability to stand through the strong winds of a storm without breaking...but without always having to be in the shelter of another.
i hope this make sense, i hear i talk to metaphorically....jill
and the way i would do it, is in an all or nothing way. i would put myself emotionally so fully into anothers hands (like handing an infant to another) that i was so hurt and surprised that they literally DROPPED that infant (it felt like).
OR
i would not make myself vulnerable, thus, CONNECTED, at all. and, that left me feeling isolated and unconnected and alone. but, i felt that was, although lonesome, at least safe...like the turtle with all legs and head pulled into the shell.
what i am finding now, is that it is ok to trust someone, to be vulnerable, to expose myself to the wind, and know that i have the ability to take care of myself and not be so personally rejected if they aren't able to handle me the precise way i would like.
now, i must admit, this is something i know logically, but emotionally, and 'bodily', i am not there.
so, that is my take on trust. knowing that one has the ability to stand through the strong winds of a storm without breaking...but without always having to be in the shelter of another.
i hope this make sense, i hear i talk to metaphorically....jill
Got hit with a stomach virus right after my last post and have lots of questions for all the posters above. I just started a reply and lost the whole thing. So I'm going to try to get on the computer tonight after dinner and aske all my questions. Saw T today and again he said something that really pushed my buttons. I can't even type out the words because I think you will all tell me to leave him. By I decided to "trust" T that he wasn't trying to hurt me and move beyond that thought. And then the most amazing thing happened. I suddenly felt balanced as if a boundary had been reestablished. It's too much to go into now but that eventually led me to the thought that i fluctuate between a fear of abandonment and FEAR OF ENGULFMENT.
After my "insight" I called and set up an appointment for Wednesday. I'm going to "trust" him enough to go back for one more session to see if that's where all this businesslike crap has been leading to. If so, I will stay with him. If not, I just don't get him and it'll be time to move on.
People with intimacy problems often swing back and forth between fear of engulfment and fear and abandonment. So, it makes sense to me that this is what he has been trying to bring out. I'm going to go with it for now.
Does anyone have any thoughts about fear of engulfment????
After my "insight" I called and set up an appointment for Wednesday. I'm going to "trust" him enough to go back for one more session to see if that's where all this businesslike crap has been leading to. If so, I will stay with him. If not, I just don't get him and it'll be time to move on.
People with intimacy problems often swing back and forth between fear of engulfment and fear and abandonment. So, it makes sense to me that this is what he has been trying to bring out. I'm going to go with it for now.
Does anyone have any thoughts about fear of engulfment????
And, Mac, what happened to your post? I loved it and now it's gone!!!
Sorry Liese, I got triggered and had to delete!
Hey Mac ... sorry you got triggered. Hope you feel better now ...
Okay DF, here's what he said. We were talking about what I can do when he says something that I interpret as he's rejecting me or abandoning me. He was saying things like well, you need to step back and think, what is my experience with this man? And, is he generally caring? And, blah, blah, blah .. So I told him how difficult that was for me .... I can't tell the difference between what happened with his secretary and what happened with my daughter's soccer coach ... And he said, and this is the part that upset me, "Well, you need to say to yourself, he's not telling me today that he doesn't want to work with me anymore." Well, at that point, my mouth dropped opened in disbelief that he would even say something like that, as if he didn't say it today but could say it tomorrow. And, he just smiled and joked, well, you know my nickname, mr. here and now.
I don't know, maybe I'm looking for reassurance that he'll never hurt me, that the relationship will never end and maybe that's why that statement just burned a hole through my soul. Maybe he's trying to let me know that relationships end and we can never have that certainty. Anyone of us could get hit by a car tomorrow and not mean to abandon our loved ones but that's exactly how they would feel. It certainly wouldn't be the intent but would be the result.
I was going in on Monday after feeling pretty beat up and triggered over the weekend, having placed my first weekend emergency call to him ever and just really expected, I guess, that he was going to comfort me. And, that didn't happen. We talked more about the insurance issue. And, he said, this is how I make my living and I'm lucky that I happen to like it. It was just more business as usual. I was feeling pretty bumped around.
He did keep trying to reassure by saying he's my teacher. So I tried to stand back when I left and not FEEL triggered and said to myself, okay, what is he trying to TEACH me? And, in some kind of convoluted way, I got to the Fear of Engulfment. I felt so high about the insight that the fear that he meant any harm to me or is trying to get rid of me just vanished and I called to make the appointment for tomorrow. But now that tomorrow is around the corner, it has come to my attention that I had that conversation with myself and I really have absolutely no idea if that's what his intent is or was. I'm just so beat up that I can't bear to go back in tomorrow to get beat up again. I was thinking of calling him tonight and asking him if he's friend or foe and if he's a foe, I will skip tomorrow's appointment and just go on Monday. My nervous system has been in overdrive and it just needs a break.
Off to a winter concert. Hope everyone is well. Hope to log on later and be more active.
HUGS TO ALL,
Liese
Okay DF, here's what he said. We were talking about what I can do when he says something that I interpret as he's rejecting me or abandoning me. He was saying things like well, you need to step back and think, what is my experience with this man? And, is he generally caring? And, blah, blah, blah .. So I told him how difficult that was for me .... I can't tell the difference between what happened with his secretary and what happened with my daughter's soccer coach ... And he said, and this is the part that upset me, "Well, you need to say to yourself, he's not telling me today that he doesn't want to work with me anymore." Well, at that point, my mouth dropped opened in disbelief that he would even say something like that, as if he didn't say it today but could say it tomorrow. And, he just smiled and joked, well, you know my nickname, mr. here and now.
I don't know, maybe I'm looking for reassurance that he'll never hurt me, that the relationship will never end and maybe that's why that statement just burned a hole through my soul. Maybe he's trying to let me know that relationships end and we can never have that certainty. Anyone of us could get hit by a car tomorrow and not mean to abandon our loved ones but that's exactly how they would feel. It certainly wouldn't be the intent but would be the result.
I was going in on Monday after feeling pretty beat up and triggered over the weekend, having placed my first weekend emergency call to him ever and just really expected, I guess, that he was going to comfort me. And, that didn't happen. We talked more about the insurance issue. And, he said, this is how I make my living and I'm lucky that I happen to like it. It was just more business as usual. I was feeling pretty bumped around.
He did keep trying to reassure by saying he's my teacher. So I tried to stand back when I left and not FEEL triggered and said to myself, okay, what is he trying to TEACH me? And, in some kind of convoluted way, I got to the Fear of Engulfment. I felt so high about the insight that the fear that he meant any harm to me or is trying to get rid of me just vanished and I called to make the appointment for tomorrow. But now that tomorrow is around the corner, it has come to my attention that I had that conversation with myself and I really have absolutely no idea if that's what his intent is or was. I'm just so beat up that I can't bear to go back in tomorrow to get beat up again. I was thinking of calling him tonight and asking him if he's friend or foe and if he's a foe, I will skip tomorrow's appointment and just go on Monday. My nervous system has been in overdrive and it just needs a break.
Off to a winter concert. Hope everyone is well. Hope to log on later and be more active.
HUGS TO ALL,
Liese
(((Liese)))
I'm sorry that T wasn't reassuring. I can totally understand why you were bothered by T's telling you that he wasn't terminating you today. I had something very similar happen in my session yesterday and I haven't been able to come up with a lesson from it yet. Good luck tomorrow with your appointment.
di
I'm sorry that T wasn't reassuring. I can totally understand why you were bothered by T's telling you that he wasn't terminating you today. I had something very similar happen in my session yesterday and I haven't been able to come up with a lesson from it yet. Good luck tomorrow with your appointment.
di
Incognito,
what happened in your session? Do you want to share? Maybe it'll help me.
what happened in your session? Do you want to share? Maybe it'll help me.
UV,
Hi, how did it happen? And how did you handle it? I've been meaning to ask you about your posts above. I'd love to hear more about your insights into the cognitive vs. emotional answers. And, also about the external vs. internal locus of control.
LG, are you still with us? Did we lose you?
Hi, how did it happen? And how did you handle it? I've been meaning to ask you about your posts above. I'd love to hear more about your insights into the cognitive vs. emotional answers. And, also about the external vs. internal locus of control.
LG, are you still with us? Did we lose you?
UV,
Are you sayting that for you trust is not, will this person hurt me or not but rather that if this person doesn't meet your needs and you feel hurt, you would first of all assume that it was an oversight and unintended, and second, you would bring it to their attention and you would trust that most likely they will be sensitive to your needs and want to meet them?
Are you sayting that for you trust is not, will this person hurt me or not but rather that if this person doesn't meet your needs and you feel hurt, you would first of all assume that it was an oversight and unintended, and second, you would bring it to their attention and you would trust that most likely they will be sensitive to your needs and want to meet them?
Jill,
I like what you said about having the resources to handle it. That's a great way to look at it.
I like what you said about having the resources to handle it. That's a great way to look at it.
Liese I'm sorry your T was so misattuned to you in Monday's session. That had to hurt. You were looking for reassurance and some discussion of your feelings and emotions and where they were coming from. What I'm seeing a little bit of here is that he seems to get off topic and I'm wondering if he is using these topics as a distraction because he is at a loss, therapeutically, as to what kind of treatment you need. Talking about insurance, his livlihood, saying well he didn't ask you to leave today and that he is Mr. here and now... this is all distracting conversation. I'm even a bit concerned about the time used to discuss the soccer situation. That is counseling not psychotherapy, which is fine if that is what you are looking to do. Counseling has it's place for sure but if you are wanting to delve into the past and how the traumas from the past influences your feelings and emotions of today, then you need to do psychotherapy.
Do you ever get the feeling that you want to go back to the past but that your T is keeping you in the present, sort of pulling you back to the here and now and resisting your efforts to talk about the past? If so, this is a red flag that needs to be looked at and addressed.
I'm curious about something... how did you come up with the whole fear of engulfment idea? Did he say anything to make you feel this way?
I do hope your session goes better for you tomorrow and that you are able to bring up and discuss the things that are bothering you and that your T comes through for you because I know how much you value the relationship.
Hugs
TN
Do you ever get the feeling that you want to go back to the past but that your T is keeping you in the present, sort of pulling you back to the here and now and resisting your efforts to talk about the past? If so, this is a red flag that needs to be looked at and addressed.
I'm curious about something... how did you come up with the whole fear of engulfment idea? Did he say anything to make you feel this way?
I do hope your session goes better for you tomorrow and that you are able to bring up and discuss the things that are bothering you and that your T comes through for you because I know how much you value the relationship.
Hugs
TN
TN,
The book is really amazing. I feel like I finally know what you guys are talking about, well at least a little bit.
When I said that it was his job to fix me, I didn't explain that so clearly. I don't mean that I don't have to do any hard work. I was thinking more along the lines of how you can't do therapy alone and I love this quote from AGOL: "Psychotherapy changes people because one mammal can restructure the limbic brain of anohter." To me that is the most beautiful statement of fact I have ever read. How amazing that, one mammal can restructure the limbic brain of another. Speechless.
The book is really amazing. I feel like I finally know what you guys are talking about, well at least a little bit.
When I said that it was his job to fix me, I didn't explain that so clearly. I don't mean that I don't have to do any hard work. I was thinking more along the lines of how you can't do therapy alone and I love this quote from AGOL: "Psychotherapy changes people because one mammal can restructure the limbic brain of anohter." To me that is the most beautiful statement of fact I have ever read. How amazing that, one mammal can restructure the limbic brain of another. Speechless.
Hi TN,
We crossposted! You know better than anyone how much I have struggled with my T. On the one hand, I've managed to stay with him the longest and that is very alluring to me. On the other, I can't always share my feelings with him because I'm not sure he cares about my feelings. He says he does but I just don't believe him. (Transference???) In my FOO, emotions were taboo. Got punished for expressing emotion - so it IS very difficult for me to believe that anyone would really be interested in and sensitive to my emotions.
The soccer situation was very distressing to me. I kept thinking that it would have been an easy situation to handle for most people to handle. But I really got the sense that T understood how hard it was for me and how it was triggering my deepest fears. More than anyone I know. We spent quite a few sessions on it at my request.
I don't know if it's me or if it's him but we're trying to get to the deeper stuff. He thinks there's definitely more work to be done. It's just getting there, that's all. He's definitely made it clear that whenever I'm ready to talk about the trauma, he's ready. I just don't know when I'll be ready. All this crap makes me feel very insecure and I want to feel secure with him when I tell him or I don't think it'll be therapeutic.
About the fear of engulfment. So this is how it happened. What triggered me was his statement that he's not asking me to leave therapy today, right? I was in my car all triggered when I said to myself, okay, he told me that he's not trying to hurt me, he's my teacher. So I am going to force myself to stop reacting to this one statement right now. My first thought was that I felt so ashamed. I kept asking myself, why do I feel so ashamed???? The answer was that in my mind I was making a link between all this business stuff he's been talking about and him trying to send me a message. What is the message???? That I want something from him and he's managing the transference???? He's making sure I know this is a professional relationship and nothing else is going on? Then I thought: I'm pretty sure I accept the boundaries of this relationship, unless I'm really really lying to myself somewhere, somehow. No, I'm pretty sure I do accept the boundaries. So then I decided I had nothing to be ashamed of. Once I let go of feeling ashamed, I just felt balanced about everything. If he was drawing boundaries or making them clear, they felt good. And I started to think back about how insecure I felt in my relationship with him until he told me I could stay in therapy as long as I want .... Just having the reassurance that I could stay as long as I wanted wasn't enough, I guess, because it wasn't long before I started to feel anxious again and wanted to run. I felt nourished by him and terrified by him. I was feeling trapped in the relationship, needing it so much but wanting to run out of there like crazy. He was being so nice to me. Fitting me in twice a week. Being really caring. He hung my little ornament. Made me feel special. Told me I was a priority and that's why he was fitting me in twice a week. I started to think that maybe he actually liked me. Then I started to wonder if he was lonely and was taking me on as a project. Then I started to worry about his needs overtaking me and me trying to please him. These thoughts have been floating around in my head for several weeks on and off. So, I think when I thought about how businesslike he's been, it restored a balance in my psyche that it's really okay that this is about me and I felt relaxed and relieved. And, I thought, wow, isn't it amazing that once I actually put my fear of abandonment aside and was able to let his messages get to my psyche about this being for him a business and a professional relationship, that my psyche actually found it comforting and I felt balanced? It occurred to me then that the only thing that would account for that was the fear of engulfment at work.
I looked back over my relationship with T and saw how he has made me feel both secure and insecure. Sometimes by being available and sometimes by being unavailable. When he seemed unavailable I was more comfortable in the relationship. when I thought he was too busy to see me more than every other week. It made me sad that he was too busy for me, but i just accepted it. It just got to the point though where I wasn't learning anything about myself and either I was going to leave therapy or I had to ask him some difficult questions. As I've felt more important to my T and felt like I deserved more of his time and asked for more and was almost given everything I've wanted, at first I thought it was exactly what I wanted but then why do I still want to run from the relationship?
So now I'm starting to see a pattern in my own life with my H. How my fear of abandonment made me attach to my husband who also has a fear of abandonment. I've always felt pretty secure that he wouldn't ever leave me. But he has also been pretty consumed with his career for most of our marriage and emotionally unavailable. I thought I was happy that way. Once I realized in therapy how terribly unhappy I was ( I always had a smile on my face but was deeply unhappy) and started to work on myself and be less available to him because I was busy working on myself, he started to feel insecure and started to give me more attention, which caused me to want to run away from him.
Anyway, so haven't talked about any of this with T yet. Isn't that the point of therapy, that they help you identify your patterns? It all makes sense to me. It took a long time to get here. He could have just told me during my first year of therapy: you have a fear of engulfment. You have a fear of abandonment. But honestly, that would have been meaningless. By him making me feel alternatively secure and insecure, has enabled ME to identify the thought patterns in my head when those fears are at work, because ultimately I am the only one who can do anything about my fears and I have to be able to identify the thought patterns. Whew. Does that make sense? Or am I making all this up?
We crossposted! You know better than anyone how much I have struggled with my T. On the one hand, I've managed to stay with him the longest and that is very alluring to me. On the other, I can't always share my feelings with him because I'm not sure he cares about my feelings. He says he does but I just don't believe him. (Transference???) In my FOO, emotions were taboo. Got punished for expressing emotion - so it IS very difficult for me to believe that anyone would really be interested in and sensitive to my emotions.
The soccer situation was very distressing to me. I kept thinking that it would have been an easy situation to handle for most people to handle. But I really got the sense that T understood how hard it was for me and how it was triggering my deepest fears. More than anyone I know. We spent quite a few sessions on it at my request.
I don't know if it's me or if it's him but we're trying to get to the deeper stuff. He thinks there's definitely more work to be done. It's just getting there, that's all. He's definitely made it clear that whenever I'm ready to talk about the trauma, he's ready. I just don't know when I'll be ready. All this crap makes me feel very insecure and I want to feel secure with him when I tell him or I don't think it'll be therapeutic.
About the fear of engulfment. So this is how it happened. What triggered me was his statement that he's not asking me to leave therapy today, right? I was in my car all triggered when I said to myself, okay, he told me that he's not trying to hurt me, he's my teacher. So I am going to force myself to stop reacting to this one statement right now. My first thought was that I felt so ashamed. I kept asking myself, why do I feel so ashamed???? The answer was that in my mind I was making a link between all this business stuff he's been talking about and him trying to send me a message. What is the message???? That I want something from him and he's managing the transference???? He's making sure I know this is a professional relationship and nothing else is going on? Then I thought: I'm pretty sure I accept the boundaries of this relationship, unless I'm really really lying to myself somewhere, somehow. No, I'm pretty sure I do accept the boundaries. So then I decided I had nothing to be ashamed of. Once I let go of feeling ashamed, I just felt balanced about everything. If he was drawing boundaries or making them clear, they felt good. And I started to think back about how insecure I felt in my relationship with him until he told me I could stay in therapy as long as I want .... Just having the reassurance that I could stay as long as I wanted wasn't enough, I guess, because it wasn't long before I started to feel anxious again and wanted to run. I felt nourished by him and terrified by him. I was feeling trapped in the relationship, needing it so much but wanting to run out of there like crazy. He was being so nice to me. Fitting me in twice a week. Being really caring. He hung my little ornament. Made me feel special. Told me I was a priority and that's why he was fitting me in twice a week. I started to think that maybe he actually liked me. Then I started to wonder if he was lonely and was taking me on as a project. Then I started to worry about his needs overtaking me and me trying to please him. These thoughts have been floating around in my head for several weeks on and off. So, I think when I thought about how businesslike he's been, it restored a balance in my psyche that it's really okay that this is about me and I felt relaxed and relieved. And, I thought, wow, isn't it amazing that once I actually put my fear of abandonment aside and was able to let his messages get to my psyche about this being for him a business and a professional relationship, that my psyche actually found it comforting and I felt balanced? It occurred to me then that the only thing that would account for that was the fear of engulfment at work.
I looked back over my relationship with T and saw how he has made me feel both secure and insecure. Sometimes by being available and sometimes by being unavailable. When he seemed unavailable I was more comfortable in the relationship. when I thought he was too busy to see me more than every other week. It made me sad that he was too busy for me, but i just accepted it. It just got to the point though where I wasn't learning anything about myself and either I was going to leave therapy or I had to ask him some difficult questions. As I've felt more important to my T and felt like I deserved more of his time and asked for more and was almost given everything I've wanted, at first I thought it was exactly what I wanted but then why do I still want to run from the relationship?
So now I'm starting to see a pattern in my own life with my H. How my fear of abandonment made me attach to my husband who also has a fear of abandonment. I've always felt pretty secure that he wouldn't ever leave me. But he has also been pretty consumed with his career for most of our marriage and emotionally unavailable. I thought I was happy that way. Once I realized in therapy how terribly unhappy I was ( I always had a smile on my face but was deeply unhappy) and started to work on myself and be less available to him because I was busy working on myself, he started to feel insecure and started to give me more attention, which caused me to want to run away from him.
Anyway, so haven't talked about any of this with T yet. Isn't that the point of therapy, that they help you identify your patterns? It all makes sense to me. It took a long time to get here. He could have just told me during my first year of therapy: you have a fear of engulfment. You have a fear of abandonment. But honestly, that would have been meaningless. By him making me feel alternatively secure and insecure, has enabled ME to identify the thought patterns in my head when those fears are at work, because ultimately I am the only one who can do anything about my fears and I have to be able to identify the thought patterns. Whew. Does that make sense? Or am I making all this up?
LG,
I loved what your wrote about T1 dropping the ball but still being there for you, maybe not exactly when you need her but eventually. I can't remember exactly how you worded it, so I'm sorry if I chopped it all up. Sometimes I wonder if some of our angst is really the pain of separation. And, that's what we have to learn what to do: separate. We have to attach but then we have to separate. And in separation there is anxiety. But living with that anxiety and knowing T will be there for you, maybe not exactly when you want her but at some point, she comes through for you, then you have started to separate successfullY? Just a thought.
And thanks for your support re: interpretation of the interaction with his secretary. I always love validation. Don't always get it but love when I do. I decided to let it go because T is insisting he's trustworthy and I'm going to try to get past it. Though I did tell him he needs to give her a raise for all the guilt he causes her. He just stared at me blankly. It was pretty funny.
I loved what your wrote about T1 dropping the ball but still being there for you, maybe not exactly when you need her but eventually. I can't remember exactly how you worded it, so I'm sorry if I chopped it all up. Sometimes I wonder if some of our angst is really the pain of separation. And, that's what we have to learn what to do: separate. We have to attach but then we have to separate. And in separation there is anxiety. But living with that anxiety and knowing T will be there for you, maybe not exactly when you want her but at some point, she comes through for you, then you have started to separate successfullY? Just a thought.
And thanks for your support re: interpretation of the interaction with his secretary. I always love validation. Don't always get it but love when I do. I decided to let it go because T is insisting he's trustworthy and I'm going to try to get past it. Though I did tell him he needs to give her a raise for all the guilt he causes her. He just stared at me blankly. It was pretty funny.
Monte,
Thank you also for validation of the situation with his secretary. I'm glad to hear that it would bother you as well. I also really appreciate your support in terms if me not dismissing myself as just being, X, or whatever. I really invalidate myself. So glad you pointed that out.
I hope I didn't sound too demanding when I wrote that about T bringing me to a precipice and then wanting him to be there for me. My first three years of therapy were relatively uneventful. The last three months have been hairraising. My T would and will deny it but I have no doubt that he knows how to push my buttons and has done so and will continue to do so. this has caused some really strange things to happen to me. Like the time I couldn't get out of my car for a half hour. Just couldn't move. Then I finally got into the building where I was going and I couldn't move again. when I finally figured out what was going on with me, it was all because I didn't want to go home. And then I thought I was going to run away from home. I didn't call T that night but when I look back, that was a really stressful event and I probably should have bothered him with that one. Then there's been the awful anxiety that I've never experienced before. My nervous system running out of control. I don't know what I did with my anxiety before. They do say depression is anger turned inward. And, so maybe he has somehow managed to release some anger but now it is running wild in my nervous system. Just a theory. These events happen for me at strange times, not during therapy because seeing him, as terrifying as it is, it also really stabilizes me. So, my thought was, I don't know how long this stage i'm in will last. At some point, hopefully I'll have it all under control. But while it's going on, he's my doctor and sometimes I get sick and need him. It's like any other illness, right? Sometimes you have to call when they are off duty.
Monte, also very interesting what your T said to you about wanting to connect with you but you resist him. Have you followed up with him about this? Do you have any more thoughts about how you do this? You're probably right about the preemptive thing. I know what you mean about feeling all icky. Has he answered your email yet?
Thank you also for validation of the situation with his secretary. I'm glad to hear that it would bother you as well. I also really appreciate your support in terms if me not dismissing myself as just being, X, or whatever. I really invalidate myself. So glad you pointed that out.
I hope I didn't sound too demanding when I wrote that about T bringing me to a precipice and then wanting him to be there for me. My first three years of therapy were relatively uneventful. The last three months have been hairraising. My T would and will deny it but I have no doubt that he knows how to push my buttons and has done so and will continue to do so. this has caused some really strange things to happen to me. Like the time I couldn't get out of my car for a half hour. Just couldn't move. Then I finally got into the building where I was going and I couldn't move again. when I finally figured out what was going on with me, it was all because I didn't want to go home. And then I thought I was going to run away from home. I didn't call T that night but when I look back, that was a really stressful event and I probably should have bothered him with that one. Then there's been the awful anxiety that I've never experienced before. My nervous system running out of control. I don't know what I did with my anxiety before. They do say depression is anger turned inward. And, so maybe he has somehow managed to release some anger but now it is running wild in my nervous system. Just a theory. These events happen for me at strange times, not during therapy because seeing him, as terrifying as it is, it also really stabilizes me. So, my thought was, I don't know how long this stage i'm in will last. At some point, hopefully I'll have it all under control. But while it's going on, he's my doctor and sometimes I get sick and need him. It's like any other illness, right? Sometimes you have to call when they are off duty.
Monte, also very interesting what your T said to you about wanting to connect with you but you resist him. Have you followed up with him about this? Do you have any more thoughts about how you do this? You're probably right about the preemptive thing. I know what you mean about feeling all icky. Has he answered your email yet?
Here is my definition of trust: Before I can trust myself, I have to learn to be aware of my own needs and to take care of them. Then I have to learn to trust myself to take care of that which is most important to me: me! I have to take the time to study people and learn about them and their character and trust them to act in a way that is consistent for them, though not necessarily in accordance with my needs. That I trust my worth enough not to rush into relationships because I feel empty. That I trust myself enough that if my needs aren't being met, I can find a way to get them met. That leaving my needs in the hands of other people is not necessarily a good idea.
Some years ago a T pointed out to me that I had no issues with earning trust with others - just that trusting them back was not in the cards.
The error in my method was obvious...yet still not completely solved.
Trust is the ultimate gift, when earned.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no big ego-boost by granting that same boon to someone else. I muddle on...........
After all this time, I still think the most ultimate trust of all is that which you allow yourself.
The error in my method was obvious...yet still not completely solved.
Trust is the ultimate gift, when earned.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no big ego-boost by granting that same boon to someone else. I muddle on...........
After all this time, I still think the most ultimate trust of all is that which you allow yourself.
Littleplanet,
Hi there. Your post was concise and packed with meaning. Wondering if that T was right, if trusting back was not in the cards for you? It seems a bit grim that a T would say that. I like to believe that learning is always possible.
Hi there. Your post was concise and packed with meaning. Wondering if that T was right, if trusting back was not in the cards for you? It seems a bit grim that a T would say that. I like to believe that learning is always possible.