I met with a different potential new therapist today, Trial T #2. It went better than TT#1 because luckily #1 helped me see her concerns from her point of view, so I approached TT #2 differently. We covered a lot of ground and I feel like she understood how I felt and what I had to say very well. I have no complaints except that it was maybe too easy. Ha ha. OK, maybe I am never satisfied. But, she asked me often how I was feeling about how it was going and asked me to slow down a bit a few times and asked me to sit with how I was feeling a bit and asked a lot of good questions and gave me a lot of feedback, like noticing things that I was struggling to work out how to say and offering her thoughts about what was going on with me.

She asked me how I was feeling about having been crying just then and I said "fine." So then she said, OK, but what does fine feel like for you, because I don't know.

At one point she asked me where I felt something in my body, and I kinda cracked up--partly just due to having high emotions but also because I immediately thought about the discussion here! Everyone talking about foam fingers and pointing to where they felt things and so on. Made me smile, made me chuckle.

It was great to mostly know what I was talking about and to be able to explain what I wanted and to explain how I am affected by my experiences with old T and how it connects to my experience with my mother.

Like I said, I think we covered a lot of good ground, and even some new ideas. So I am hopeful.

I feel very good that my very smart, very valued friend and confidante helped me to see that an AEDP therapist might do the trick for me. Thank you friend, for caring about how I feel, sometimes more than I do, and for staying with me when I am not sure what I want or how I feel or what I am trying to say.


Two hours later I was with new T/current T. Can I just call her Alice or something? And Old T can be Jack? So this session was more interesting than TT #2 in a way. It was a lot of work, but I am really glad I kept at it. I started out asking her if she remembered anything from last week. I said It's not a test, I am just wondering what you remember. So she told me she remembered the silence and she also said a little more. It was accurate and a good statement. But then I asked her what she thought about that, like what her impressions were about it. So then she said that it made her think that maybe I was more bruised by working with Jack than she had thought and also that maybe we should be doing the IFS stuff that we were meant to be doing. Basically, I kept asking her questions and telling her about how I have been feeling and going back and forth with her. I remember at one point she said that she has been having intense feelings with me. So I said How am I supposed to know that you are having feelings with me? She thought about it for a few seconds and then said she didn't know. This was in response to me saying that I was perceiving her being sort of blank slatey, like Jack. So I was like, well, I know that one way I could know that you are having feelings is from the tone of your voice, and also maybe from what you say, right...? And I was hoping she and I could brainstorm together how I could know that she was having feelings in there. But she said she didn't know again.

At some other point she said that if I didn't feel an emotional connection with her, that yes, that's something we should have talked about. So I was like, but Alice, how was I supposed to know that if I didn't feel an emotional connection with you that I should tell you that? Like, if you think that it is not OK that I am not feeling an emotional connection to you, then shouldn't you maybe ask me if I do feel an emotional connection to you?
At another point when we were working things out I said So if I don't know what you are feeling and you don't know how I am feeling, what are we doing?

So she steered me to IFS a couple of times, which is legit, and I actually believe that IFS can be really effective for me. I have done some before, so I believe in it. BUT, I told her, I also feel like if you just ship me off to IFS where I can figure out how to help myself heal my own parts with my own self, then that sort of makes me feel again, like then you don't have to really be that involved with me and it is ok if our relationship is weak, because you are just the guide while I work things out with myself with IFS. She said that it wasn't like that and that the relationship with her was important in order for IFS to work.

So, I realized and told her that not everything I was thinking and feeling was fair or accurate or reasonable, but that is how I am thinking and feeling about things. I told her about not wanting to do all the work and how I feel like I am, even if that is not an accurate perception. I told her about not wanting to drive the bus even though to some people it might feel like a privilege to drive the bus.

She had told me something about IFS and her role and I told her that I was not assured or convinced by what she was saying. And she said, well, I don't think I can convince you. So I told her how hard it is for me to hear generic things and be convinced. I gave an example of how Jack was always very generic about everything that he said about me, like that I was honest or that I worked hard, but he would never give any specific examples. He would never say what made him think I was honest or tell me about a time when I worked hard, but I was just supposed to feel something from his generic comment, and I didn't. I told her that it is for me like when kids write essays and they are all general about stuff, and the stuff is true, but without a "for example" or some details from the book or the movie or real life, it was not convincing. So then she got a bit bent, which I have never seen her do, and I was like OH! She said that she WAS real and that she did give me specifics at the very beginning of the session when she told me about what she thought about last session. So I was like, true, BUT I HAD TO ASK YOU TO TELL ME about what you thought about what happened last session. And I don't want to work that hard all the time to get something from you. And so we went around again.

The thing is though, at some point in what turned out to be the last round, she said, OH, so it's kind of like you want someone to find you in there? And I was like bingo! and started crying. I told her that I knew that it wasn't realistic or even fair to expect that from someone, but I did. So as I was crying she says Can you ask that part to step aside? So I am like um, NO! Because it felt important to me to feel this thing so I wasn't going to ask it to step aside even if it was a bit unreasonable to want someone to find me. So I said NO. So she just waited. Then I got fuzzy and couldn't remember what we had just been talking about. So she explained it back to me and told me what I had said, which was good. And then she made it clear that when she asked me to ask the part to step aside, she meant the part that said that it wasn't reasonable to want someone to find me.

She said that I had a right to want someone to find me. That was the highlight of the session. We got to there, and that was really good for me.

I told her that I was really glad that we had had this important conversation. But I also said that I had to push to get it done and I don't want to be the one working that hard all the time, not anymore, not after all that time with Jack. I just can't do it anymore. I was crying then, too.

Then I asked her if she knew anything about AEDP. She said that she knew that it was a legitimate approach or something. OK. So then I told her that after meeting with her last week I thought that the situation with me and her was too much like me and Jack, even taking into account all the ways I am responsible for that dynamic. I told her I was seeing some new Ts this week. I told her that I wanted her to know what I was doing and why. We were already past time by about 10 minutes, so I left. She asked if I was coming back next week and I said that I did plan to come back but that if I changed my mind I would call and cancel early.