deleted for privacy
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
BG
You're experiencing what I fondly thought of as the ballistic rocket path of therapy.
When a rocket flies towards another planet it accelerates along the path until it reaches the point where it needs to start slowing down in order to not shoot past it's target. So what a rocket does is to essentially flip over and start accelerating AWAY from where it's trying to reach which effectively slows it down. I used to approach my sessions the same way. I would live in a fever of anticipation, not knowing how I could possibly make it through the week gap until I saw my T again, then usually around 24 hours beforehand, I would flip and start dreading the appointment and feeling like no way did I want to see my T.
I spoke about with my T and we identified it as "the bind." When we have attachment issues, especially when we were injured by the very people whom we were supposed to turn to for comfort and protection, we learn that moving closer in relationship gets us hurt. On the other hand, we're human and biologically wired to move closer to others to get our needs met. This places us in an impossible bind. The very thing we need to do to meet our needs, terrifies us and for good reason, based on our experience.
I think this is what you're feeling. When the appointment is far enough away, you can anticipate the good parts of being able to express yourself and be heard and receive understanding from your T. But when the appointment draws close enough, your limbic systems senses you moving closer to someone which equals danger so I think two things happen. It interferes with your ability to think of topics in an attempt to remove your reason for going and on a more primitive physiological level, when we're scared, our cortex gets flooded with hormones that actually interfere with our ability to think (so that when our hind brains yells "run" we can't stop to argue).
I'm afraid the only solution I ever found was to go and talk anyway. Sometimes by starting out and telling my T I was a blank. Eventually after enough experience it stopped being quite so scary. On the upside I sometimes found the sessions when I went not knowing what I wanted to talk about turned out the most productive.
Sorry though, I know it can be confusing. I hope your appt goes well.
AG
You're experiencing what I fondly thought of as the ballistic rocket path of therapy.
When a rocket flies towards another planet it accelerates along the path until it reaches the point where it needs to start slowing down in order to not shoot past it's target. So what a rocket does is to essentially flip over and start accelerating AWAY from where it's trying to reach which effectively slows it down. I used to approach my sessions the same way. I would live in a fever of anticipation, not knowing how I could possibly make it through the week gap until I saw my T again, then usually around 24 hours beforehand, I would flip and start dreading the appointment and feeling like no way did I want to see my T.
I spoke about with my T and we identified it as "the bind." When we have attachment issues, especially when we were injured by the very people whom we were supposed to turn to for comfort and protection, we learn that moving closer in relationship gets us hurt. On the other hand, we're human and biologically wired to move closer to others to get our needs met. This places us in an impossible bind. The very thing we need to do to meet our needs, terrifies us and for good reason, based on our experience.
I think this is what you're feeling. When the appointment is far enough away, you can anticipate the good parts of being able to express yourself and be heard and receive understanding from your T. But when the appointment draws close enough, your limbic systems senses you moving closer to someone which equals danger so I think two things happen. It interferes with your ability to think of topics in an attempt to remove your reason for going and on a more primitive physiological level, when we're scared, our cortex gets flooded with hormones that actually interfere with our ability to think (so that when our hind brains yells "run" we can't stop to argue).
I'm afraid the only solution I ever found was to go and talk anyway. Sometimes by starting out and telling my T I was a blank. Eventually after enough experience it stopped being quite so scary. On the upside I sometimes found the sessions when I went not knowing what I wanted to talk about turned out the most productive.
Sorry though, I know it can be confusing. I hope your appt goes well.
AG
All the time, BG, all the time. It drives me nuts. Usually it all comes flooding back after we log off...then I get to wait 3-4 obsessive weeks to go through the whole annoying thing again. But lately, I've had some success. The last two session I had, I just determined that I would not "try" to say or feel anything, or to *perform*, except to tell him what is really there, *especially* if it seemed really dumb and unimportant to me- and be as honest and forthright about what was happening right in the moment as I could. So, I would say: "I'm scared because I had all this deep stuff that I needed to talk to you about, and now I that I see you sitting there, I just feel empty and none of it feels relevant anymore...and I'm upset about that because it means I lose the opportunity to talk to you about all this stuff, and to connect with you." Or like that...whatever it *really* was. It wasn't magic answer but it certainly did help us to connect better, and me to gradually open up about deeper issues than that that were worrying me over the course of the session...I hope to be able to discuss some deeper issues in this way. Just by trying to piece together waht is going through my mind *in the moment* no matter how mundane, and then figure out a way to say it...without allowing myself to think "gosh, he will think that is really dumb and unimportant and that I don't need him, and why am I wasting his time with this drivel..." And instead, just say it. Of course I had to get to the point where I really had nothing to lose anymore, before I was really able to do this- but I just took it from there, and it seemed to simplify it for me...I hope this helps a bit...I know how weird and frustrating and empty that place of having "nothing to say" is. Ick, there is nothing worse, imo. Hope you can find a way through it....many good thoughts, coming your way...
BB
BB
Yeah, what AG said.
I don't find myself not wanting to go (well, sometimes I guess I feel both wanting and not wanting at the same time), but I often have what I call a total "brain dump" when I'm there. It's like the thoughts just fall out of my head.
One day recently it felt like I had all of these thoughts, but I couldn't say anything. It was as if someone had taken a whole pile of words and just dumped them in the middle of space, but I couldn't seem to put them together to form anything that would make sense. Very annoying indeed!
I hope your session goes well in spite of the empty thoughts right now.
I don't find myself not wanting to go (well, sometimes I guess I feel both wanting and not wanting at the same time), but I often have what I call a total "brain dump" when I'm there. It's like the thoughts just fall out of my head.
One day recently it felt like I had all of these thoughts, but I couldn't say anything. It was as if someone had taken a whole pile of words and just dumped them in the middle of space, but I couldn't seem to put them together to form anything that would make sense. Very annoying indeed!
I hope your session goes well in spite of the empty thoughts right now.
I used to struggle with this every session. What I do now is write bullet points in my journal over the week of the things I need to talk about. I write down the things that I know are going to be hard and I know I’ll want to back out from saying. I found this helps me a lot with thinking of so many things I want to say, but then backing out when I’m sitting there.
In my session today- I think I had 3 bullet points (1 big important one and 2 smaller ones) that I wanted to say during the session. The first one was hard to talk about but it turned out okay. And then after that the two smaller ones were easy. And of course lots of other things come up during the session and I pretty much say whatever pops into my head, but what I write down in my journal are the things that I force myself to talk about NO MATTER WHAT. There’s no chickening out. Sometimes it comes out less intense than I had written in my journal, but at least I said it. Then about 10 or so minutes before the end I check my journal to make sure I have talked about each bullet point, and if not I have to say it- no backing out!
I still have times when I just don’t want to go, but I tell my T about all those feelings now, and we’re always able to make some sense out of them.
I hope your appointment goes (or went) well, BG.
In my session today- I think I had 3 bullet points (1 big important one and 2 smaller ones) that I wanted to say during the session. The first one was hard to talk about but it turned out okay. And then after that the two smaller ones were easy. And of course lots of other things come up during the session and I pretty much say whatever pops into my head, but what I write down in my journal are the things that I force myself to talk about NO MATTER WHAT. There’s no chickening out. Sometimes it comes out less intense than I had written in my journal, but at least I said it. Then about 10 or so minutes before the end I check my journal to make sure I have talked about each bullet point, and if not I have to say it- no backing out!
I still have times when I just don’t want to go, but I tell my T about all those feelings now, and we’re always able to make some sense out of them.
I hope your appointment goes (or went) well, BG.