Hmmm...I don't know if it is a matter of right and wrong, but I think everything you are experiencing is understandable, even if the anger gets directed at T and you start splitting. The fact that you "see" it is immense in itself. Can you share this stuff with T? I often tell T ways I feel about him that I intellectually know are not about him, but none-the-less feel like they are. She is still your T while she is here. It can be hard to share your anger with the object of your anger, but it can be helpful too. I outright called my T callous last week for something he said. I could not do that with ANYONE else in my life, save maybe my H, and in my H's case, it would turn into a fight and no longer be safe. With T, I have a safe place to be angry about something. Whether or not the anger produces a change, acknowledging it is an important part of the process, and you are doing that. It's hard, because we want our anger to make our T's say, "You're right, I was wrong, I will meet that need." But...like any relationship, sometimes they just can't. And then it hurts. And being in pain makes us angry. Of course it does. But, if you can let that anger go where it wants to rather than forcing it back on yourself, that would be good. It's not like you're going to physically attack your T or anything. And, you sound like you are able to communicate about it with your rationality still engaged, even if it gets temporarily overridden. So...as risky as it is...I think sharing these exact sentiments with your T would be so good.

I'm not sure I was any help. I am so sorry this is so hard. I have nightmares about being in the sort of situation you're in, SB. I can't imagine the gut-wrenching pain. ((((((((((((hugs)))))))))))))) to you and those parts of you who got hurt and abandoned so long ago.

(((((( SeaBlue )))))

I have LOTS to say about your awful predicament, I'm just so sorry I'm not in a good enough place right now to post much so just wanted to say I've heard you - when I get my head together a bit more I'll be back to comment properly. Hang in there Sea, it's frightening and confusing but it's all perfectly ok. Ok???

LL

quote:

Directing anger at myself has always been easier, and is something I struggle with quite often.

I am right there with you Seablue. It's so much easier for me to hate myself than to be mad at someone else.

I know you only have a few sessions left, but I definitely think it would be worth discussing the displaced anger with your T, if anything, being heard might bring some closure?

Sending you lots of hugs right now, you are much stronger than I am at the moment, and I admire the work you are doing as you move through this tough time!

(((((Seablue)))))

Seablue, I am not sure if anything I would say could be helpful or not, but it seems like it is perfectly natural to be angry at T for leaving. Yeah, I guess I would say, you feel what you feel and it is not wrong- feelings can never be wrong since they just are, right? You can't help or change how you feel. Of course you are angry- who wouldn't be? Here you have worked hard to establish trust and work intimately on your healing with someone at tremendous personal exertion and cost, and then they leave before you are done- when you still desperately need them! It totally unfair. I think it would be very unusual for anybody not to be angry in this situation, and then, there is the old childhood pain triggers coming back too- of course you are angry!

((((Sea))))

BB

yaku,
How are you doing today, after your ordeal yesterday? I know it was incredible triggering, even with your Dr.'s empathy.

I have shared some of this with my T. She tells me that she would rather have me get angry at her than turn it on myself. I have made progress towards that, but it's like I keep thinking, "no, but really? It's really OK?" and then never really get around to actively letting it out. It feels like I don't have the opportunity to let it fully come and to let it out. I blame it on busyness but know it is probably more about wanting to avoid it....it feels so scary. When it does come, I am inevitably without privacy or time and have to stuff it back down. And where will it lead? Will it take me down a path away from what is healthy? Will I become focused on anger (and other feelings) at her instead of using her as a means to heal childhood wounds or is this part of the healing? I think part of me is afraid I will become this crazy angry irrational person or that I will do something violent (probably unrealistic) or that T will see the "real me." I feel like much of what I am angry about with T moving is around personal choices in her life that she would not normally disclose, but did in my case because of my attachment to her. She said she felt like it was appropriate to tell me she was having to move for her partner's career so I would know she wasn't just haphazardly breaking my heart and that there were circumstances out of her control. Another reason it feels unfair to be angry directly at her. And because she doesn'd normally disclose anything, it feels wrong to take her disclosure that is about her private life and throw it back at her. Does that make sense?
It's strange because when I read your post about calling your T callous, I thought "that is so great!!" So, why is it so hard to apply that to myself?

LL,
I am so sorry you are feeling rejected and stifled. I love that you are as you said insisting on letting your anger be!! Please do not apologize for not posting more to me. I really appreciate your support and know how depleting intense feelings can feel!! Thank you for relating to me and you hang in there too!!

R2G,
I hope you are doing ok. I appreciate you offering me support, especially in the midst of your own difficulties. I see T today, so will talk more about the anger. I am so needing to let her have it, but I just keep talking ABOUT it and walking AROUND it. Frustrating. I feel it getting closer and as it does there is this desperate need to allow it while I am trying to run from it at the same time.

BB,
Of course what you have to say is helpful!!!!! I really appreciate your support and validation.

quote:

Here you have worked hard to establish trust and work intimately on your healing with someone at tremendous personal exertion and cost, and then they leave before you are done- when you still desperately need them! It totally unfair.

This resonated and I hadn't been able to acknowledge it before now. Half of me is saying "YEAH.... it IS totally unfair and it feels careless of her. How dare she play wih me like that!!!!" The other part is saying "but she has to move, she isn't choosing to, and I will make her feel worse if I get angry at her for this when she already feels horribly guilty." I am so used to having to be "good."


Thank you to you all. You are wonderful!!

quote:

Will I become focused on anger (and other feelings) at her instead of using her as a means to heal childhood wounds or is this part of the healing?

SB - I think the latter is what I'm trying to say. T encourages me, over and over, to get in touch with my anger (which I rarely feel toward anyone but myself, and even if I do, I can't sustain for longer than minutes before it turns inward). Your T is making you relive something very painful. It's completely appropriate to be angry. And you know what? It's completely appropriate to be angry AT your T. Why? Because anger is a response to someone hurting you. Anger isn't about whether they MEANT to hurt you are even could HELP hurting you. It's just a raw response to someone injuring you. And, whether or not your T could do anything to avoid it, she is hurting you so badly right now. The anger is justified whether or not the intention was there. The choice on what you do with that anger is the part that takes into consideration her intentions. So, would I recommend screaming threats at her, assaulting her, kidnapping her and locking her in a basement so she can't leave you? No...well, maybe the last one! But, would I recommend you release that emotion and tell her, "Look, I know you can't help it, and I know most of this anger isn't really about you, but I am so mad that you would let me get attached to you and then leave me, and make me relive this bull$#!+ again. I don't deserve this!" And let her respond to your anger in the way a caring parent should, to receive it and be sorry that she can't make it better, but still be there for the time she can...to show you that your anger will NOT change her care. It will not make her threaten you, neglect you, leave you earlier than she absolutely has to. And that, I think, would be healing.

Thanks for asking about me. I'm doing OK. My arm hurts a lot. I randomly come to tears the last day. I could barely look at my H last night for some reason, when I got home from dinner. I was telling my friends about how things are (including other ways that he has/is hurting me, emotionally mostly) and I'm splitting on him and rotating between good H and bad H so quickly that it's making me dizzy. I can't seem to make him one, whole person right now. It's very confusing, because I usually don't split too much with H.

Sea I’ve been thinking about the way you’re feeling and how conflicted it’s making you feel and firstly want to say that all your angry feelings are totally natural, normal, ok, and not indicative of anything wrong or dysfunctional or immature in you.

As Beebs has said, it would be a bit unusual if you felt no negative/angry feelings towards your T for moving away – she’s the one who’s choosing to go, not you.

Ok I’m in the middle of a great volcanic rage at the moment, so I can both empathize and sympathize with what you’re going through. It’s all very well saying go ahead and feel those feelings, don’t try and squash and control them, or indeed, rationalize them away, but I so get why it’s unbearable because no matter how angry you are or how much you express that anger it’s not going to change the fact that your T is leaving, it’s not going to make her change her mind and stay.

But it can change something. I’d strongly advise - oh yeah me giving advice, ok I’ll rephrase that, if I were in your place this is what I’d do. I’d go to T and tell her everything you’ve said in your first post, even show a bit of the anger if you’re feeling it in the moment. If your T is a good T and understands how difficult and painful terminations are, she’ll openly and non-defensively hear you out, and most importantly accept and validate your anger (as opposed to giving you a rational lecture and end up explaining all over again her reasons for leaving…)

The outcome, which is where I think change occurs, is that having her, the object of your anger, accept and validate it, will allow you to get in touch with and express the unmet needs that are causing the pain underneath of what she’s doing to you, and being able to express that to her and her accepting it without judgement I think, is going to let you both experience her positively again (resolving the splitting you are talking about), allow the anger to just disappear (because you won’t feel like it’s wrong or destructive or unacceptable anymore, and it’s served its purpose) and let you start grieving properly while the object of your grief is still there to support you with it. Does that make sense? On a deeper level, if you’re able to go there, expressing these apparently ‘irrational’ angry feelings to T, might just let you connect to the older feelings of the transferential stuff and have a chance to understand them a bit more and express some of their pain…

I’m sort of trying to explain an emotional process, and I’m not in a very clear head space either so this is probably coming across as incoherent and a bit waffly, but I really think it would be a good idea if you could tell all this stuff to T, as you feel it. It sounds to me like you’re struggling with feeling somehow bad and wrong and childish for having these sorts of feelings and thoughts, and so ok maybe life would be a whole lot sunnier and pleasanter if we didn’t feel this way, but it worries me that you’re somehow blaming yourself, as if it’s some sort of failing in you that you feel like this. Want to categorically say, what you feel is perfectly ok – both on a transference level and in reality.

Sorry I’ve just reread your post and see there’s quite a lot I haven’t referred to in it, I’m just not thinking straight enough at the moment so before I end up waffling on too much more, will stop.

Sending you lots of good wishes and support. (((( SeaBlue))))

LL

p.s. I wrote the above before seeing your reply and Yaku’s response, I guess what I’ve said still holds though, and I fully endorse (lol as much for me as for you) what Yaku has said about its having nothing to do with someone else’s intent, but simply that. I hope you can open up more to T and show your hurt/anger about what it is that IS hurting you – that’s a big risk but also potentially very healing...

Sea... thinking of you and hoping your session was helpful today (((SB)))

R2G, Thank you for your kindness!

quote:

Anger isn't about whether they MEANT to hurt you are even could HELP hurting you. It's just a raw response to someone injuring you. And, whether or not your T could do anything to avoid it, she is hurting you so badly right now. The anger is justified whether or not the intention was there.

This does help me see that the point is that it hurts and not whether T intended to hurt me. I am trying to see it clearer by applying the logic to a physical injury. It is true that a person who had heir leg broken wouldn't reject the pain because the person who tripped them did not intend to. Thank you yaku.

How is your arm? How is the rest of you? Sorry you are feeling so confused about H right now. For what it's worth, I think you are in a complicated situation and I do not think your confusion about it is a reflection of some failure on your part. Relationships wihout all that is happening are complicated and confusing. Be kind to yourself. I am glad you opened up o some friends and I hope it was helpful. How did your session go?

LL, How are you doing? Thank you for your very thoughtful reply. I am in awe of how you are able to keep such clear thinking while you are going through such turmoil. And I know you don't think youa re being clear, but you are and your post really helped me.

quote:

It’s all very well saying go ahead and feel those feelings, don’t try and squash and control them, or indeed, rationalize them away, but I so get why it’s unbearable because no matter how angry you are or how much you express that anger it’s not going to change the fact that your T is leaving, it’s not going to make her change her mind and stay.

Yes. It feels like if I have a fit, it better produce some results. It is such a helpless and powerless feeling to realize I have absolutely no control over the situation.

quote:

The outcome, which is where I think change occurs, is that having her, the object of your anger, accept and validate it, will allow you to get in touch with and express the unmet needs that are causing the pain underneath of what she’s doing to you, and being able to express that to her and her accepting it without judgement I think, is going to let you both experience her positively again (resolving the splitting you are talking about), allow the anger to just disappear (because you won’t feel like it’s wrong or destructive or unacceptable anymore, and it’s served its purpose) and let you start grieving properly while the object of your grief is still there to support you with it.

This is what I am working towards. Thank you for putting words to it for me. My fear that it will blow up if I allow the anger is so strong and I know not founded as I am not a violent person.

I will write more later. Have to get to an appt.

Thank you.

I'm back.
I saw my T yesterday. We talked about the things that were getting in the way of me expressing anger at her. I told her about the child part feeling panic at the disconnect from anger directed at her. She asked if I realized that even when I was angry at her she still felt conneced to me, that my feelings toward her won't change how she feels about me. I realized that another big part of it is I squash my anger before she can. My fear of her invalidating it or explaining her "side" or reasons for whatever she has done to hurt me is a big part of it, so I rationalize it before I have to hear her do it. I can hear myself doing it. I was able to tell her about it. She told me getting through the anger by feeling it and not pushing it away is what will likely help me move through the grief process. It sounded like she thinks I will be stuck where I am until then. She actually said that untill I do it, "this" is what she believes we will be doing in my sessions.

The child part was able to tell her about feeling hurt and powerless and that she wants T all to herself, but still not much anger. I also told her at one point that her smile in response to something I said was making me mad.

So.....working on it. I really can't believe how difficult these patterns are to change.

Thank you again for your support. I appreciate it so much!

Seablue,

I'm sorry that I didn't see this thread before now! I think you are doing a great job in talking to your T about how hard the anger is for you to express and about the split it causes. I really think that is the first step in being able to express your anger toward her. LL had some really good statements that you quoted up there. I totally agree with what she said.

Anyway, I'm sorry this is so hard. (((hugs)))

Seablue - that is amazing. I have had to (just that once) spend a session angry at T and try to communicate within it, not let that anger turn inward or shut me down. It crashed me so hard. It is an extremely challenging thing to do. You're being very courageous and I'm SO glad your T is showing you that your anger won't destroy or alter her. I have never had anyone in my life that was safe to be angry at before. It's a very confusing way to relate to someone when it is so foreign. You are doing amazing, hard work here. I'm so sorry that you are having to do it...no one wants to have to live through these sort of things to learn to grieve. ((((((SB))))))

((((Seablue)))))

How many sessions do you have left? Not being one who is able to get angry, I am really the last one to give advice here. All I can think of is the Kubler-Ross 5 stages of grief and I can only remember 3 stages: denial, anger and acceptance. I agree with the others that the anger belongs on T, not towards some childhood figure. She IS the one who is leaving, afterall. Your T sounds really really amazing but how are you supposed to get unstuck? I don't like her comments about until you get unstuck, you're going to be spending your sessions doing what you're doing. What else should you be doing? It's as if she has some yardstick and is measuring your grieving process by that yardstick. And, if you don't do it right, will she withdraw her love? Will it not be the most perfect ending that she envisions? Will she not be able to give you what she wants to give you or help you in a way that she wants to help you? Which is all very well and good but on the other hand, you are who you are and if you are stuck, it's because it's the only thing you know. And, she should be able to help you get unstuck, not by telling you you are stuck but in some other skillful therapeutic way. Sorry if I am ranting. I just don't want you to feel as if you are doing anything wrong or put pressure on yourself to do anything other than what you know how to do. It's her job to help you get where you need to be.

((((HUGS)))))

Liese

quote:

I don't like her comments about until you get unstuck, you're going to be spending your sessions doing what you're doing.

Liese - The way I interpreted this comment was that until that anger can come out without SB squashing it or rationalizing it first, her sessions with T will likely focus on this particular topic and getting unstuck...not because SB is doing anything wrong, but because the only path out of this pain is through the anger. And SB's coping mechanisms seem to be trying to go around it or under it or over it or any other way but through, just like many of ours. However, it's like a sort of labyrinth where any path except the big, scary one that makes you walk through fire just takes you back to the beginning of the maze. That's the way I interpreted the comment. Not that her T is judging SB or that SB is doing anything wrong (she is doing hard work and I'm hoping T is acknowledging that). It's more that T recognizes that unless it is experienced without being restrained, belittled, judged or otherwise internally mitigated in an attempt to lessen the very real pain and justifiable anger at being hurt, it cannot be diminished to the point where acceptance can occur. That is just my guess...

Thanks for the interpretation, Yaku. I went back and reread Seablue's post and do see that her T is very accepting of her anger and actually wants her to get angry and that until she does, they will just be "talking" about it. It's as if she's giving seablue permission to be angry at her. It's just me who would feel a certain pressure to perform and then of course, feel like a failure when I couldn't pull off the requisite anger.

Liese

If it helps, when my T says those sort of things, I'm always saying, Jeez, what a loser...I can't even do THAT right.." although I'm usually aware that the message is probably coming from me, not T. So, you're not alone.

Thanks STRM!!

yaku, Thank you for the nice things you said and for validating my efforts.

Liese, Thank you for your support. And believe me, I am struggling with feeling like a failure in this and part of me is angry at my T for saying what she said, but I also know that yaku is right that I am projecting...it's not coming from my T.

I expected to have some time this afternoon to be alone and *feel*.....but.....the school nurse called and I had to pick-up a child early. I *did* beat the hell out of my punching bag tonight though...felt soooo good.

((((SB)))) I totally would have felt judged and angry too. It's so hard when we know intellectually that T doesn't mean something a certain way, but we can't help but FEEL that they are lying or manipulating or unconsciously suggesting our worthlessness. It's confusing and painful. And, again, if she hurt you, then anger is the appropriate response. You can choose what to do with the anger, but it's OK to feel it. I'm sorry that you didn't have time to set aside for your feelings though. I also, if capable, need to set aside specific times to feel. I take a long time to shut them off again (sometimes fail), so I can't just open the tap whenever.