Don't worry AG, about 90% of my fears are irrational. You are in good company!

This reminds me of when I was so freaked out that my T and my boss (whose kids were friends) were going to be friends. That thought was agonizing! I didn't talk to my T about it until I was already pretty worked up and now I am still embarrassed by how wound up I got. I know I will eventually have to confess this embarrassment as well but I am putting it off for as long as possible. It is so not a big deal but I just can't shake how stupid I feel about the whole thing.

Hi River,
You know how to make a woman feel better.

And I remember when you were worried about that, and I didn't think you were being silly at all. So that makes this look not so silly!

And I already figured I'll need to talk to my T about it. It's fairly low key right now so I'll try not to let it go too long.

AG

so, how do you just talk to them about that stuff? i feel like he probably thinks i'm a crazy woman already without me asking any "unnecessary" stuff. i went to try and get a hold on depression, which i thought had lifted, but now he's brought up all this stuff from my past--that i don't have the time or energy to deal with....i admire the relationship you seem to have with yours. how long did it take you to trust him/her like you do?

Oh, AG, I know you are feeling threatened by this and it's not silly. I've had sillier worries so I know. You need to remember that your T is very attuned to you and has shown his care and respect for you on many ocassions. And he has been respectful of the complicated relationships with each one of you. I think you need to give your T some credit here and give yourself some as well. What I think would solve this is talking to your T about it and you have already reached this decision. So you are already on the right path. And no T worry is silly. We all have them. Hang in there.

Hug
True North

quote:

how long did it take you to trust him/her like you do?

AJB,

It depends on you and how fast you are willing to go. I think for the first year I saw my T it was pretty much just "regular therapy." I kind of see this as me talking about my problems and my struggle with depression and anxiety and she would be encouraging and affirming and would help me find solutions.

After about a year is when I believe the "deep therapy" began when I finally acknowledged my attachment to her and I began trying to stop denying the transference and talk about it. Just getting it all out in the open probably took me another 6 months.

Now after almost 2 1/2 years trusting my T completely is still a work in progress for me. In my session tonight I still felt too afraid to tell her something. We spent the rest of the session trying to tease out the reasons why I still don't trust her enough to say some things. So for me the building of trust has been in little baby steps with ups and downs and loop-de-loops. Of course before this I didn't trust anyone hardly at all (except maybe my first T) so trust is really an issue for me.

Of course it will be different for you. Remember that the relationship you are building with your T will be very beneficial to you but it is also the weirdest relationship you will probably ever have. Most likely you'll need to stretch some new relationship muscles you've never used to get there.

I must end with the "therapy ditty" (yes, that is what she called it) my T told me tonight: "The slower you go, the faster you'll get there." I hope this is true because I am moving along like a lost snail in the desert.

thanks river and ag for all the support and encouragement. you all are very helpful, which is kinda wierd since i am pretty much pouring out my heart and soul to a computer here. lol. sometimes that's easier than with people, though. don't get me wrong, i work with the public and am around others all day long. but the baggage we haul around.......i'm almost ashamed to say it but i've scheduled an appointment with my t tomorrow--after only 1 week!! and the reason is just so i can go sit and talk to him. he's probably gonna be thinking OMG not HER again. i'm gonna be SO embarrassed when i get there and he says, so...what brings you in to see me today? i don't have an answer except that i NEED to see him. why? co-dependent, maybe? transference taking over, maybe? i feel like a teen-ager who can't control herself instead of an adult(nurse) who is suppose to have some level of self-control!!maybe i should tell him all this. and the expense. it's getting to be a very expensive problem. LOL. anyway, thanks so much for letting me vent here. i feel like i'm taking and never giving here. for that i apologize. i enjoy reading your posts. i totally relate to them, but, being new to it all, i'm not sure what to say about any of it yet.

Glad we could be of help. Don't worry about the feeling like you're just taking. This place is a ferris wheel. You're car keeps moving around and sometimes you're on the bottom providing help to other and then you're on the top asking for help. Everyone does it and it does take some time to get your bearings when you're new to the board.

What you're going through sounds like transference to me which is a healthy dependency which can develop in therapy. The best way to start is by talking to your T about how you feel. But for recommended reading about the subject see Deborah Lott's book In Session,
The General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis et. al for a starter. There's also some online stuff I can recommend, but don't have time to track down the links now. I'll post them later.

And as far as being embarrassed about going back one week, if you've been reading, most of us can barely make that one week and start jonesing within 24 hours after our last appt. Heck, we have a club and T-shirts and everything. (To make sense of that see the 24-Hour thread.)

AG

AJB,
Here are some of the links I talked about earlier:

Erotic Transference in Psychotherapy Reading this is what convinced me to talk to my therapist in the first place. Actually his whole website provides a lot of good information. I actualy emailed him to thank him when things worked out really well when I talked to my T about being attracted to him and got a very nice reply.

Symposium on Transference This page provides links to video and papers from a Symposium held earlier this year on Erotic Transference. Its from the caregiver's point of view but there is good information.

The Many Hats of the Psychotherapist This guy writes a regular blog about therapy for patients and has some good stuff. On this particular article scan down through the comments until you reach the comment titled "Transference" and you'll get the therapist's take on dealing with it.

Last but not least, if you haven't read it yet, see Shrinklady's article on Transference. The woman has an incredible knack for explaining therapy concepts in a way that easy for the layman to grasp.

I hope some of this helps.

AG

AG,
THANK YOU SO MUCH!! i have searched and searched for reading materials on these subjects. the stuff made so much sense! and some of it seems so simple. the links are AWESOME! they should keep me busy reading for awhile. thanks again!!

You're more than welcome, I'm really glad you found it helpful. Even though the healing has to take place by experiencing a new kind of relationship, understanding what's going on can help you get through it. Please feel free to talk about anything you're feeling or ask questions. There are a lot of people dealing with this and being understood and getting input is also really helpful in healing.

I'm feeling really wiped today. My husband went to see our T last night and I got seriously triggered. When he came home he said a few things about the appt but not a whole lot. I had a really over the top, anxious reaction, convinced that all kinds of horrible things had been said despite my husband reassurances that they really didn't talk about me at all. (Which I believe because I rarely talk about him in my individual sessions). But no matter what my head was telling me, emotionally I just lost it.

I was able to tell my husband how I was feeling, he was really understanding (have I mentioned he's a good guy?). And I was even able to hear from him that he felt a little bad that my concern was all about me instead of how he had done. I got out a VERY large hammer and started beating myself over the head with it.(Metaphor ) I felt so out of control reacting this way. It felt so unfair and selfish of me. And I wanted to call my T but that just felt like it would make it even worse. That he couldn't see my husband alone without getting a hysterical phone call from me. I actually decided that when I saw him on Friday I was going to tell him that we needed to terminate my individual therapy. It felt like I just couldn't continue to do this, it's too painful and grossly unfair to my husband (don't worry I got over it, I was in the middle of a meltdown.)

I ended up crawling into the tub and having a good long cry and going to some pretty bad places. When I started having flashes of memory I realized that I needed to call my T no matter how scary that was. It felt like I was in free fall in a deep dark pit and there was no bottom. Of course, by now it was like 9:15. I normally call my T during working hours because I feel more comfortable calling then and we have never talked about how late its ok to call. But I was really bad, so I decided to call especially since I realized that if I wasn't so agitated, 9:15 isn't all that late.

I called my T's answering service and he called back in 15 minutes and was his usual calm self. I couldn't even talk for the first minute or two. So he told me to remember to breathe (I stop when I'm really upset, embarrassing but true. ) I finally choked out how I was feeling and he said that instead of hating myself for how I was feeling that I needed to see this as another opportunity to examine how I feel about my close attachments and why was this so threatening. Instead of beating myself up for overreacting why not try to figure out why I was overreacting. He said to breathe through the feelings and we would try to sort it out.

I've been working through a lot of grief and processing a lot of emotions from my childhood and in recent sessions (intense in their own right) I had glanced off the realization that I had done things I felt deeply ashamed of to keep the relationship with my father; that I had "voluntarily" joined in. I know that its not true; I was a child and really had no choice. But realizing I still struggled with those feelings made me realize that I needed to bring it up in my next session. (When it came up two sessions ago I had literally said "I don't what to go there now.") My husband seeing my T made me feel like I was going to lose my T to my husband and I was terrified about what I would have to do to try and keep the relationship.

My T's response made me realize why I love the man so much. He told me that he wasn't going anywhere and I would not lose him. That I would not have to do anything to keep the relationship. Then he said, you don't need to hang on to keep me here. It's a gift and it is freely given. That went straight to my core; it was EXACTLY what I needed to here. And something that had never been true for me.
I kind of started crying pretty hard at that point.

When I had calmed down, I told him how hard it had been to call and he reassured me that I had done the right thing. Realizing that a large part of the anxiety was about it being late, I asked him how late was too late to call. And he said, I kid you not, "It's never too late to call. I must admit I'm sometimes not too useful in the middle of the night. But it's really no problem until around 11. But call at 2:00 in the morning if you need to." To put it mildly, that was wonderful to hear. Then I told him I was scared to get off the phone because it felt like I would go back into free fall. He told me to breathe ( ) and take a minute or two to calm down. The last thing he told me was to call again if I needed to. Yes, he's certifiably insane.

OK, I'm NOT quitting therapy. I am just so grateful for this man. I'm also completely wiped today, I ended up talking to a friend on the phone until almost midnight to process what had happened and wind down. But grateful, really grateful that if I have to go through this I can do with his help.

AG

Wow! I have tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat AG! I am so glad you called your T and I am amazed and happy how he so wonderfully responded so directly and so attuned to your needs. I love how he told you that “It’s never too late to call.” How great is that? And of course I am glad you didn’t quit therapy. (again )

I hope your day gives in to a little more peace and stability. But it's no wonder why you are wiped out today. I think running a marathon would be easier on us than the emotional spirals that overwhelm us.

Always here for you,
JM

Thanks JM, I appreciate your generosity in being happy for me when you're missing your T so much!

I can't begin to describe how it felt to hear him say that stuff. I'm glad I called too.
And that I'm not quitting. (And yes, I'm starting to notice a pattern in my responses. )

And I love that you get the exhaustion, so many people don't understand the kind of energy you use dealing with this stuff.

AG