Ms. Control,
Right now I want to scream in her face and tell her how much she hurts me. It is so difficult for me to express positive feelings to T and she just ignores it. I shouldn't expect a different reaction. I shouldn't expect anything from anybody! I found her through my insurance. I am trying to book with T2 today but the office doesn't open til 10 and I have a feeling I won't be able to get in until next week.

T1 knows I am trying amazingly hard to separate this transference crap and make it different in my head but she has no clue. Or rather she doesn't want to have a clue. I am crazy to keep going back to get kicked in the face again and again and again. I thought I would try to work this transference through thinking it might help in future relationships but I am just about ready to give up forming new relationships at all. She hurts me over and over again. The original source of my abuse is dead, I think I think I need to kill T in my heart and in my head. She doesn't give a F^ck and her indifference to me infuriates and saddens me and reinforces to me that I cannot trust her with my feelings.

can you help me. this post was supposed to go to the say anything thread which I clicked on but instead it went here. this has happened twice and I do not know what I am doing wrong. I went to say anything thread and then clicked on "new" and then "discussion". anyone who can help. I would appreciate it. Thank you

On the right hand side of the screen, at both the bottom and top of a given thread, there will be a reply button - use that. Selecting New and Discussion will start a new thread. If you ever have a spot to fill in for 'subject' that means you are starting a new thread, a reply will not allow you to change the topic title.

I am sorry things are difficult with your T - transference sucks and I've been there, too! My therapy is intense right now (sorta) but I think I will need regular "maintenance" at points to help me stay stabilized. There are some issues that require life long support through Meds or therapy - bipolar/multiple episodic depression, or schizophrenia are examples of some of them. It's like some people break a leg and it heals and they don't need anything unless it breaks again. Diabetes for example requires life long hormonal support and/or lifestyle maintenance - and it will be better and worse at times. I'm not sure if that helps at all. I do hear your pain and frustration with your T!

Thank you catalyst. Just tried to book an appt with T2 but he is on vacation til the 18th and going to T1 will yeild me no relief so it looks like I am on my own. I feel so alone and so bad I just want to disappear!

Hi gg... so sorry you get no validation or discussion of feelings from your T1. What is her training and background? What modality does she use in therapy?

It is quite common for CBT T's to avoid or ignore feelings in session and to avoid the realtionship between T and client. They are not trained for it and do not understand it. As my T says "they become CBT T's for a reason". Unfortunately you are paying the price. Some people are just not comfortable in the intimate discussion of T/Client relationships and this is an extrememly important part of healing from trauma. I'm not saying EVERY CBT T is this way but most of them are.

What your T1 is doing is depriving you of what you have already been deprived of in childhood and in fact is causing a re-enactment of that very situation. This is not good for you. How can depriving someone of what they need and have already been deprived of.. help them heal?

I think you should ask your T1 that very question and please let me know how she answers. I think she is doing more harm than good for you and I'm sorry you are in such pain over this.

I also believe that if this T2 is more nurturing and validating and helpful in what you need then T1 will become less and less relevant to your life and you will eventually just not care about her or need her any longer. In this way you can transition to a better therapy situation.

Just my opinion
TN

Hi TN,

I just EXPLODED on her on the phone and I really don't care. I told her she treats me exactly the way my mother did and that I am tired of being ignored and having my feelings being brushed under the carpet all the time. I told if I killed myself she wouldn't even care. She offered me a session tonight, but that I needed to let her know so she reschedule some things which automatically made me hop into thinking that I don't want to go because I don't want to put her out of her way at my expense. I wouldn't want to do that, would I. I have learned that I will never ever ever ever share any of my positive feelings for a T to a T. I actually am considering discontinuing therapy with T1 and T2 all together. Some days I feel like I will never heal. Some days I feel like I am well on my way to healing. Today I just want to knock myself and sleep so I don't feel anything.

I am not exactly sure what her training and background is. Unfortunately my insurance is limited on providers so I have taken what I can get, and it doesn't seem worth it anymore.

Busy day for me on shrinklady T. I can't talk to you in person and say these things and they need to be said, so I will say them to people who understand my pain. I have difficulty with the one-sidedness of the relationship (even though you tell me this is not a relationship). Maybe from your perspective this is not a relationship but from my perspective it is a relationship and it is a very significant one. I know I am just another patient to you. I know that I am one of many but the "relationship" I have built with you means something to me for whatever reason. I am trying so hard to work this transference through. I have gone so far as to hire another T to help me work through my "relationship" with you and what it is bringing up for me.

and just what exactly is it bringing up for me? Right now it is bringing up pain so deep and so raw I can barely stand it. I just want to curl up in a ball and detach from the world. I want someone to hold on to. I don't even need someone to understand right now. I just need someone to hold me while I cry. I need to know someone is with me emotionally.

When you told in our last session that therapy with you was for maintenence to get me through day to day functioning it made me feel like you aren't there to listen to how I feel. That I have to keep my feelings for T2. I don't need someone to check in regarding my food intake, my social activities, my sleep cycle and all the close ended bullshit you ask me about every week. You know, I let you in T. I try to let you in but I feel like you don't know what is inside me. I feel like you don't want to know me. I am not a human being just to be maintained. I have a great team medically watching over my food intake, my sleep cycle, my PRN med useage. I don't need you for those things. I need you to be attuned to me and you just are not. And once again the scenario plays out that a woman that I want to love, I cannot love, a woman's nurturing, attention, caring and warmth I cannot have because you are the wrong woman to give those things to or want those things from.

when I told you I was wanting to experience those feelings and feel safe experiencing those feelings with you and that I have feelings of warmth and affection and love for you and you didn't respond it really really effing hurt. I feel like I have look at therapy like a business transaction. Trying to differentiate what is transference and what is real, without any feed back or at least acknowledment of taking a risk to open up enough to you tell you that I love you and not feeling heard just crushed me. No matter what I do, I will never be good enough, I will never be heard by you. You choose not make yourself emotionally available. Just like mom.

GG I'm so glad you told her exactly how you feel. It is so painful, all you're dealing with. I also struggle to believe my T 'cares'.

I hope you do go see her. Even consider printing off your posts and telling her - that part I know is really hard and you would need to risk becoming even more vulnerable. Harder yet, the little girl in you who NEEDS to feel loved and cared for, would also need to realise telling her all of this still will not result in her caring for you like you NEED; BUT some of yr needs can be met by sharing this with your T. Hopefully you'd get validation for your feelings. And to feel 'heard' - even if the outcome doesn't result in a big hug and her holding you close.

You're not alone in feeling this way, and your feelings are very valid.

And working through them is important, and as the wise ones who have been there before us tell us - It WILL get better

I'm where you are at the moment in that LOGICALLY I know no T or all the therapy in the world, won't and can't make up for what I missed out on growing up. EMOTIONALLY however - the mere thought that 'you will never ever get that' is still too much for me to contemplate -it doesn't feel survivable. I really think a huge part of me still goes to therapy with the distant emotional hope SOMEHOW my T WILL give me what I've missed out on; that it's only a matter of expressing my need and it will magically be met

I'm only in the very early stages of working through the transference and fuck it's HARD. That I cannot call my T inbetween sessions - even when I feel my whole world is falling apart - leaves me feeling she doesn't give a shit.

I know it's just boundaries, and limitations on what she can do (only works where I see her once a week), but emotionally it feels like she just doesn't give a flying fuck - I'm only her problem one hour a week.

As I said, that's EMOTIONALLY - logically, I know it's probably not true. But trying to convince a little girl who is in so much pain within me, too hung to understand the 'logic' - and I am right where you are.

Take care GG - and please do consider going to see her - take your posts if you can - it might help her understand - even if she can't respond in the exact way your inner wee girl needs.

Safe hugs if wanted.

You're doing great, hard and important work in healing going through this hell - you can keep going.

Ps) I'd also like to add - for the big stuff you really need her to know and respond too, perhaps consider EMAIL instead of txt - txts can and do get lost / never arrive - email is more reliable.

And if you can be clear if you would like her to reply, add that too. Sometimes out Ts think we need to vent and don't expect a reply - the other issue is, there is only so much that can be said via txt or email.

My T has always said she can only ever give a very short reply via email - she usually acknowledges how I'm feeling, and says we will talk about it on Friday.

Getting too much into therapy work over email or txt isn't helpful because so much can be misunderstood - no tone, no facial expressions.

Email and txt aren't 'warm' in the same way face to face is.

For those reasons, it might very well be that if she had replied, it wouldn't have felt ok given the lack of tone, and very unlikely she would have been ale to address your very real pain in a few sentences via txt (which YOU might not have received even if she did reply)

Does that make sense?

Hi ElizaJ,

T will not communicate via email. And I totally agree with the text thing. She usually does reply, just not in a time frame I can work with emotionally. Waiting 24 to 48 hours or sometimes not getting a reply back at all is very difficult to do especially when my inner 5 year old is on an emotional shit storm. She doesn't want me text her either. I have been trying hard to work on that. It is just so hard when I am in a transference related emotional meltdown to talk to my friends or my husband because they don't get it. They don't understand the therapy dynamics and how severely a person can be triggered. I can't talk about it because it all sounds ridiculous. Sometimes, I even feel like it is ridiculous.

quote:

It is just so hard when I am in a transference related emotional meltdown to talk to my friends or my husband because they don't get it. They don't understand the therapy dynamics and how severely a person can be triggered. I can't talk about it because it all sounds ridiculous.

And this is why God created support groups.

GG, it really sounds like you need to find a new T - one that will accept and honor your feelings. Seriously, it makes a world of difference. I don't know what your insurance provides, but I highly recommend seeing if they can put you with a T who specializes in treating trauma clients.

So, I went tonight. I told her what triggered me off. Don't really feel anything except emotionally drained from crying most of the day. For now it is just a hot soak in the bathtub, a warm cup of TV and graciously accepting the silence of sleep.

One thing I can say is that I honestly never ever realized how deeply my trauma from my childhood has really and truly hurt my very soul. I feel like I am placing a band-aide on a gaping wound that will never heal. How do you heal from what my poor little girl inside went through. HOW DID SHE SURVIVE!

safe hugs if ok GG

very braves and VITAL you went. yes it sucks, yes its hard and its NOT FAIR.

i hope you can keep talking to your T about the transference - and boundaries - cos if she has asked you NOT to txt and you still are, that's not too good for the working relationship…. and as she has already told you -= she won't reply or can't for days at a time, it makes sense she didn't answer your txt (why would she ever, if she doesn't' want you to be toting her?).

I know its hard, very v try hard, being alone in-between sessions. i am like that too. Thankfully i can email my T, but its limited - and takes a day or two to get a reply, AND no guarantee there will be a reply.

our Ts aren't trying to deliberately hurt us or 'make us suffer' although it can feel like that (we transfer not only the longing feelings, but also the anger and hate feelings for them 'not being enough' - like our parents weren't).

it is a very very hard, raw, and very painful road, coming to completely accept that we did not get what we needed growing up, and we can't EVER get it. Not from our Ts, not form our partners, not from anyone.

if you are like me, logically i 'get that' but emotionally - it feels too painful to survive.

sounds like you have some great self cares planned - hot soak in the bathtub, warm cup of tea.

I'm there with you on the struggle and the feeling its a bandaid on a massive abscess wound that needs surgery! thats how it feels when my T replies to my email.

part of the work we have to do, is working on excepting the limitations of your Ts, and coming to a place where the care they provide is 'good enough' - at the very least, it will be non judgmental, sensitive, kind, empathetic, consistent, ethical, and with a goal of 'do no harm' - BUT within a strong boundary and professional framework.

ps) you have talked to your T about all this haven't you? i.e. the transference? doss she know the extent of your feelings - have you TOLD her BLUNTLY, or just hinted around it all?

Ts are not mind readers. iw could be great if they were, but they can only work with us with what we tell them…

i know for me, a lot of my pain has come down to MY expectations.

I've had this deeply seated, childlike belief, that if only i TELL a good T exactly who i feel, then it will magically morph into a loving, motherly relationship - that if only a T KLNOWS my pain, and how DEEP my pain is, then she will somehow bend the boundaries and give me what i NEED

have you had a frank - open, blunt, direct talk with your T about the support she can offer you and how?

you telephoned her - so she takes calls in-between sessions?

can you see, that she probably did not answer your tXT because she has told you she DOESNT WANT you to txt her?

i know my T cannot do calls inbewtween sessions, because she works at another full time job (i see her privately, where she just works one day). She doesn't take calls because she knows she cannot commit to that - it would be far more damaging for her to say i can call her, and then i come to rely on it, but find that she can't always talk to me, and can't response in a crisis situation.

it sounds ike your T doesn't want you txting because she knows she can't reply as soon as you need or want her too - and its proved time and time again, by how hurt and damaged and triggered you are when you break her guideline and do txt her - can you see she is likely trying to protect you from further pain, by saying don't txt her?

Dear ElizaJ

Absolutely I do see how the texting is harmful to me especially when I don't receive a reply in what I consider to be a timely fashion. Yes it is something I am working on. Sometimes I don't text her at all but when the transference is triggered it is like a monster takes over and I do it anyway. T and I are working on moderating that behavior. There are times when I am really good with it and have no contact at all between sessions. I have fallen short in the ability to handle and manage the intensity of emotions when triggered and I of course run around like a mad woman trying to seek relief from my emotional turmoil when it happens and I am triggered. I am learning that I set myself up for the disappointment though. She does accept phone calls but I don't call her hardly ever because honestly her tone of voice both in session and on the phone just sounds abrupt to me and that is a trigger too. T seems to look at almost everything as a problem to be solved and seems comfortable working within the problem solving framework. I don't see everything as a "problem" that need fixing. Sometimes just talking about my feelings and situations gives me the relief that I need and situations and emotions resolve themselves.

I have discussed the transference with T openly and honestly to the best of my ability. She does know that I am struggling with it and she knows that I am seeing another T to work on those issues. Working with T2 has helped me to speak a little more freely with T1 about it. For me it is extremely hard to talk about the transference to T1 because she is the "object" of the transference. Even though I know all this emotional garbage is "mommy drama" I feel such a great amount of shame talking about it with her because it all sounds so ridiculous even to myself. I write about it and then read my journal and I feel so ashamed after the intense emotions pass. I think maybe I just need to practice sitting with my intense emotion and keeping my mouth shut so I don't keep embarrassing myself over and over again. I have experienced minimal transference with other Ts before but never to this level. I have wonderful conversations in my head with T1 but the words never make it to my mouth because I pretty much shut down as soon as I am physically in front of her. That makes me frustrated with myself and the cycle continues.

I definitely feel for you GG. It is a hellish place to be in.

Would you consider writing it out and giving it to your T to read? I too have not been able to talk to her about it UNTIL I emailed her. I put in my email how much the therapeutic relationship reminds me of the relationship with my mother: how I will always care more about her than she does me; how if something happened to me she might be sad but not devastated like I would be if the reverse was true; and the biggest one - how there is a person at the other end of the relationship who COULD (ie has the ability to) love or care for me but won't (my mother because she used love to manipulate; my T because it's the boundaries of a T).

Once I was able to put it out there, it's been easier to talk it through.

I really REALLY relate to what I've seen others put on here - how our relationships with our Ts IS the therapy work.

Are you able to share here what you have managed to tell her? I guess I'm thinking that although it might really truly feel like you've told her enough about it that she 'should' know exactly what you're feeling and thinking, it might be that it hasn't been as clear as it needs to be (in order for her to respond more sensitively)

I guess the other key thing is - deep down, what is your hope / expectation, as to her response? What IS it you'd like from her?

And - if possible - if you take the emotion out of it (if you can even temporarily) view it like an outsider -is what you'd like from her realistic?

For me, I've realised I'd LIKE to be able to phone her I. The times it is really really really hard - the times I struggle really bad with thoughts of suicide or sell harm. Anything less feels like rejection, abandonment and like she doesn't give a shit

BUT - that probably ISNT TRUE. The reality is - she cannot commit to calls, not even in a crisis - for the reasons I've outlined above. While it might FEEL like rejection and abandonment, the reality is the opposite - if she said I can call her if I really really really need to - ie in a huge crisis - how absolutely DEVASTATING would it be if for whatever reason she was unable to take my call that time?

I do suspect it's that way with your T - she can't respond to txts in a suitable timeframe when you are in crisis - knowing she CAN't meet your desperate need, she has put the boundary there To protect you from further harm.

I'm sure you've got a good list of things to do to distract / get through the hard times - would it help to list them here, to reinforce it to the wee girl inside that is hurting so much?

For me, I fins using PRN meds helps when nothing else does - is this am option for you? It can help with the intense anxiety, and at least being it down to a manageable level.

ElizaJ,

Wow, it sounds like we are at about the same place transference wise. I expressed the same exact thing to my T about her being yet another woman who is choosing not to care about me or love me just like my mother did. I know intellectually it is not her JOB to love or care about me and I also do know intellectually that T does in fact care and that she does demonstrate loving behavior. My difficulty lies in the fact that T states that T says we do not have a "relationship". I understand that from her perspective we do not have a relationship, but from my point of view the relationship even though it is professional in nature is still a relationship of some sort. I have been seeing her for three years and I don't know what else to call it if it is not a relationship even if it is just a therapuetic relationship. I find it difficult to talk to someone who thinks a relationship does not exist even if the relationship is in my own my mind. I guess I feel like she negates the importance and the significance of the therapeutic "relationship" in general and what it is bringing up for me.

I feel similar to how you described in terms of if a T just understood my pain they may bend the boundaries, but I also know intellectually that is not the case. I guess I have to just keep talking realistically to myself about what therapy is not and what my therapists role in my life is NOT. It is a hard one to sift through emotionally. I have to learn that I cannot and should not count on her to be there, and accept that that is ok. It is a hard one to deal with but hopefully as I work with the transference with T2 some of the emotional responses will become less intense and I will be able to fight it off on my own.

I hope you can work through it with your second T NOT so you can then 'fight it on your own' but so you can Talk to T1 about it

Have you talked to her about your feelings about her not calling it a relationship? I'm only guessing here, but from an outsiders perspective it might very well be she is setting that boundary there because if she DID refer to it as a 'relationship' (therapeutic or otherwise) the young hurting girl within you might (out of sheer and very real, desperation) cling to it even more? (Which would only hurt you even more in the long term).

I don't know if you are familiar with AGs blog 'tales of a boundary ninja' but if you haven't checked it out, I recommended you do. She has some freaking AWESOME notes on there, which I think will really help you see this from a more neutral standpoint (don't ow if I out that right). I found. It particularly helpful reading her note about 'why it seems your T doesn't care but they do' (can't remember the exact wording sorry). Mashed explains isn't amazingly, how the boundaries put in place by our Ts are to PROTECT US, even though it seems to only hurt us.

I can't explain it anywhere near as freaking awesomely as she does - her blog is the only account of transference i have EVER read that explains it all in a very easy to understand, NON-SHAMING way. It really helped me feel less alone and much less of a 'freak'!!!!!!

http://boundaryninjatales.com/...uel-but-really-isnt/

Hope it's ok to re post it here???

Thanks so much for the link ElizaJ. I am definately checking it out. And thank you for your feedback and support too.