Can you talk to T about things without feeling terrible?

incognitoMember

I can't and I wish I could. Why does every session either have to be painful and confusing or repairing and reconnecting after painful and confusing sessions? Is there some way to do therapy without having to feel so stupid and worthless while discussing things? Does my T not feel like we are working hard enough unless I feeling terrible or trying to climb out of the hole I've been in? My T was the first person who was willing to see my pain and not blame me for it. He challenged me when I tried to minimize it or take responsibility for it or ignore it. It was and still is incredibly powerful and transforming for me. Unfortunately I think that all my T sees about me is my pain so even when I don't want to delve into it my T does.

Today was my first session of the new year. Just before the break we were starting to talk about some difficult things about our relationship and how I felt about him (a dream etc) but it seemed difficult to just jump back in to that conversation. I've felt okay during the break but there are a lot of things looming in my life. I find out if I am losing my job in the next 2-3 weeks (funding decision about the entire project not just me) and a pretty big medical test (not difficult just potentially life-altering results). I was glad I could enjoy the break and not obsess about things that I couldn't effect.

So I tell T I feel okay, not up or down. I am not worrying about things because I'm trying not to think about them yet but I'm not really happy. I'm not looking forward to things, life is just a series of things I have to get done. He says that is sad. He asks me if that feels different than usual and I'm not sure. I've never been one of those people who look forward to things. I usually worry things will go wrong. T asks me if I can look forward to spending time reading a good book (I'm a big reader). I say I don't look forward to it but I do it. I make time to read everyday and a lot of time during the holiday break. I say I don't mean that kind of day to day thing when I talk about not looking forward to things.

He says sometimes when you (in the all people sense T's use) have very busy schedules, you can start to feel like everything is something on a to do list. He says that you forget to feel grateful for doing things you enjoy. He also said something about feeling like you are stealing time from other things to do the things you like to do. He said he things part of it is not recognizing your time is your own. I start crying and he asks me why. I say because he makes it sound hopeless. He makes it sound like I just have a negative perspective and I'm unhappy because of how I think about things. He says perspective is not fixed, it can change. I say not really or not much. He agrees you can't change your perspective much. So I spend the rest of the session bawling and getting more and more upset. I mean what is the point if I can't change my perspective much. If I'm unhappy because of how I see things. Isn't that totally ignoring all the actual painful things that exist in my life? I mean I don't know about my job or my health, I am miserably, painfully overweight and I can't stop eating. My weight stops me from doing lots of things I would enjoy as well as making me feel terrible about myself. Is a small change of perspective really going to help much? Why work so hard for a small change in perspective? By the time I leave I'm in pieces and this was a session I was trying to stay calm and reconnect with him.

1/6/143:08 PM

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lieseMember

((((COGS))))

Your therapist needs to help you build up the positive so that you have some reserves to deal with these hard times. I've started to work with a trauma therapist every other week in addition to my T. We've only had 2 sessions and that's what she focused on in both sessions. To my surprise, what we worked on really worked for me out of session.

Here is a great quote from that article I quoted in the enactment thread:

quote:
What is privilege? Peggy MacIntosh (1990) described it as an “invisible backpack” of safety and positive experiences that is carried by each member of a dominant group. It cannot usually be taken off, and it is rarely noticed by the person who carries it. Rather, for most dominant group individuals, privilege is simply how life is, the description of “normal.” In many dominant cultures, the absence of privilege in the lives of target group members is explained as deriving from some real or imagined deficiencies (e.g., people are poor because they don’t work hard enough) in the target group, thus justifying the denial of privilege, and implying that privilege might be earned, when such is never the case.

Most individuals have some mixtures of privilege and disadvantage due to the mingling of dominant and target group status in their identities. Privilege creates ease, safety, and a sense of clarity (whether false or real) about what is happening in the interpersonal field. Having these can create resilience, or give access to resources that speed the healing process.

I don't think it's about perspective. It's about taking care of yourself. You have a lot to be worried about. You have a lot to grieve. You probably don't have a lot of emotional support - except for your T - and that is a double-edged sword for you.

COGS, It will get better.

1/6/147:05 PM

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closeddoorsMember

(((cogs))) i won't say much now, but on the surface i feel like he's minimizing things in order to avoid them. that can be confusing, i know it would be to me. (((hugs)))

1/6/148:00 PM

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incognitoMember

Liese,
thanks for the quote and the reference. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the paper. I often feel like other people have an instinctive and invisible set of rules or attitudes or skills that I am missing which makes things harder for me. I wish there was a way to build up the positives or a way that talking to my T didn't always leave me feeling so incredibly broken and damaged and less than.

Liese. I've been reading your threads about your T's lack of disclosure and thinking of you. I'm glad to hear you discussed your story about the gift and he told you something about his personal life.

CD, it probably sounds like he was minimizing my worries from what I wrote but I didn't have that feeling. After years I can wholeheartedly say I don't believe he would minimize my feelings. Instead I think I just react to almost anything we talk about with the awareness that there is something wrong with me, how I see things, what I believe, how I feel. I feel so small and broken when I'm talking to my T.

1/6/148:55 PM

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lieseMember

((((COGS))))

quote:
I often feel like other people have an instinctive and invisible set of rules or attitudes or skills that I am missing which makes things harder for me.

I've often felt like that too. In fact, used to complain to my therapist often that I was missing a piece of my brain. He finally told me that the piece I was missing was my voice. You have so much pain to deal with. It's really hard. Who would want to deal with all that pain?

1/7/146:05 AM

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lieseMember

((((COGS))))

You are not unhappy because of the way you see things. You are unhappy because you have had bad things happen to you with very little emotional support. The work isn't to change your perspective. The work is to either change the things you don't like about yourself and can change and to hopefully comes to terms with the rest. You never had the support in the past but you do now. You only had blame.

1/7/1411:18 AM

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