Yesterday I had what I think will be the last session with the C.

I am going to try and write it up, as I will probably be pondering what went so wrong between us for quite a long time. I am aware as I sit here after another 'only four hours sleep' of a night, that I am going to be bleeding about this for a long time, it is not going to heal easily, getting over this totally fracturing of a therapeutic relationship.

I went in rather rushed, as I had taught a really chilling out yoga class and then had to make my kids lunch and then dash so was carrying a travel mug of tea into the session with me which along with the banana I ate on the way and a rice cake, was my lunch. But I got there and I tried to work out what would be helpful to say.

I said how the phone calls and the sessions being sorted for the next three weeks helped me feel like I was standing on solid ground. I also then said that I did not feel I needed phone calls this week as I am going to Wales and will be distracted enough I hope, to not need that level of support and that I did not want to ask for her time if I did not truly need it.

I had been warned by at least two people, not to try and get her to see how it has been for me, that she is NOT going to see, as she just can't. But I just could not seem to help myself, it just came spilling out. I could not leave it alone. I again asked why she had not fought my corner and she again patiently replied that she is not a private therapist and that she cannot and does not have the power to choose what to do. That my doctor had said that he thought it was not a good situation and she agreed that I needed so much more than a session a week, as my state and condition was such that I required more and so she advised that I go to secondary services which would give me more time and more support. So again I pointed out that this is not actually the case, that secondary services cannot provide more, as we have found out. And she said that she had not known that. I said she acted unprofessionally in passing me on to something that did not exist. She got angry and defensive at that. She felt that was unreasonable of me to say so. But from my point of view, she reacted on that Friday, decided that that kind of “blow' was going to happen regularly and that “ It seems that your current belief is that if you can get all the holding and visible demonstrations of caring from me, on an open-ended basis and to the degree, intensity and for the length of time you want, then this is going to make all the difference. I am simply not able to meet those needs for such availability and time”. So she made her view based on that belief. (She said the next session after the termination letter that she cannot give me 24/7 care, so she obviously had exaggerated the extent of my distress in her head.)

I again said she had seriously misjudged me, that just because I blew once, because for six whole weeks she had not been listening to me, she decided that I would blow 24/7 and therefore 'for my own good' she should pass me on. I said again, that the timing was appalling. That I was beginning to turn around and that because of her care on the Friday I believed she did truly care and on the Monday I began to mirror that and care for myself, but within two hours of that happening she had sent the termination email.

I still feel that she got angry and reacted after that Friday. She denies this. She insists she is doing and has always done what is genuinely in my best interests. She cannot seem to admit that she is still annoyed and irritated.

She brought up again “why did you 'up the anti', your own expression, on that Friday?” (something really really annoys her about that, from that moment on she has not been able to like me.) I asked her if she had never in her life, upped the anti because no one was hearing her? Because that is what it felt like to me that I was going through the worst time of year for me, that I was disclosing things I had never disclosed that had me feeing vulnerable and exsposed, that I had lost my attachment figure of kindness as most of the previous six sessions were full of anger and conflict, that I was touching the most core pain – and still she was not hearing me. Most people I know admit to finding a way to bring the pain to the surface sometime in their life. It is not THAT abnormal.
So I genuinely tried to answer that. “I have such strong barriers, protection barriers up to prevent other people and myself knowing that deep inner core pain, that I had to force it through by allowing it to deliberately build and break through. I wanted you to know it, see it, hear it, I wanted to trust you with that, and you did hear it and you did care. That meant a lot to me. You did. You think I manipulated you and it was a sham, it was not. I was 90% in pain and distress and 10% pushing it through to make it visible. I do admit that if that had been a teaching day it would not have happened.”

But also as I explain this to her, I feel unsafe and I do not feel safe from her reactions to anything I tell her at this level. She is judging me for it, not hearing my pain around it. She cannot seem to help herself.

That 10% is the bit that I feel she cannot bear. That to her, was wrong. It has violated some code that I did not know about. It made me beyond her ability to care and truly be there for me. Who has pushed her in her own life or 'upped the anti' that she then put those feelings of 'this is too much, this is beyond what I can accept' on to me?
Also I emailed her and I told her, I even headed it with 'This is important.”
I was being honest and I was as worried about what was going on as she was. I was not hiding it. Bizarrely if I had hidden it, I would still be working with her.

She protested that she did not feel I was manipulating her, that she could indeed hear my genuine distress, and that she asked me on that Friday what to do and talked me through it. I think still she was out of her depth on that day and classified it as a far more serious incident, in her head, that it actually was for me. And that has been the cause of all this trouble.

And I also wonder if in a way I knew that and tried to explain that it was not as bad as it seemed to de- escalate it myself. Anyway, now it does not matter because no matter how much I protest that I am not that bad, she sees me as 'that bad' and is sticking to it. And she truly has me in a “that bad” box, a very tight box, and no matter what I say or do, she is going to keep me in her tight box. She cannot do otherwise, otherwise she would have to question herself and other motives in her for what she did.

And again I asked why she could not have fought for me. And she AGAIN went back to saying she thought I knew that we were terminating at Christmas anyway.( god – to me that is so untrue – so utterly untrue and I think she just dare not admit that we had never ever EVER said any such thing).
She does NOT get the fact that I attached to her, (stupid me) and my needing to be near her, think of her, trust her, was my “proximity seeking” behaviour and that she WAS my secure base and attachment figure. When I have been feeling fearful or stressed I have had this biological drive in me to feel near her, imagine her, soothe myself. This is a natural drive which humans have in order that we survive as babies. We are driven to our caregivers. unfortunately mine was playing out as a 49 yr old to a woman who was decidedly uncomfortable with it and did not actually want it happening at all. Once the small baby part of me came into my conscious mind, I was having to deal with and feel the emotions and needs of that small baby part. Duh.


If she had understood that, if she had, then she would have had the sensitivity NOT to send such a termination email which so severely re traumatized me that I have been on coping mechanisms since. She cannot even HEAR that. She does not UNDERSTAND that. She is oblivious of that. To her, that is me being a pain. It is not something she wants to know and it is certainly not something she wants to hear. She would deny this. The pain I feel around how she terminated with me, just when I was most attached to her, is beyond her understanding or empathy. She just goes into denial and defensive justification mode. People were right, she just CANNOT hear. No matter how hard I try to tell her, how many times I say it was CRAP timing. It hurt me more than all her good work had done. It undid all my trust and feeling of safety and belief in her. For me, it was like she threw it all back in my face. All of it.

I explained about how I had been transferring the guru, the bully, the false therapist, the boy, my father, all of them onto her when I got angry and the anger was just pouring out of me and she took it so personally. I said that I thought she had counter transference going on, that she was seeing me and reacting to me as someone from her own past and that she was not admitting to that. I did not feel that she was seeing me as me anymore.

I also asked her again whether she truly wanted to continue working with me and she protested again that she was committed to working with me and wanted to keep working with me until Christmas as she had said. I just don't believe her. I just don't. In a room full of anger and irritation and annoyance and frustration, not of acceptance or kindness or understanding, - how can I feel that she truly WANTS to keep working with me when she has such strong negative emotions towards me that she keeps denying.

When i said that I do not feel safe now in this room to say how I feel, she did not hear that I do not feel safe NOW, so she started to say things like “did you not feel safe when you disclosed the stuff around the boy” (OW! OW! do NOT bring up things I have not been able to talk about, that I could only let you read about, not even speak about myself, do NOT bring up sensitive issues just to fight your own corner! I was really terrified then that she might bring up even more sensitive stuff, stuff she knew would floor me completely and leave me unable to speak or even walk upright out of that room.)

She kept on; “did you not feel safe when you told me about the things you found hard, when we sat on the floor and did that kind of work together? Was that a lie? Was that untrue? Tell me, as I am now confused – I thought you felt safe then?” She was angry and challenging and not in a mindful place, she was feeling on the attack. And she took offence at that, that I should say that I do not feel safe with her.
I replied, “ I did feel safe then but I do not feel safe now, when I tell you things now, you use them against me. You use them to back up your own view and arguments. I do not feel safe even telling you this. I am not safe here in this moment. That is my truth.”

I was trying so hard but what was so sad was that is was all so pointless as whatever I said, she could not hear, would not hear.

She said that she thought that last week we had a break through, that I had stopped this raging and anger. She did not understand why it had gone back. Neither did I, except that I was still objecting to being labelled by her as having too complex issues, as being too much for her, as being a more severe mental health problem. etc etc. (HOW does she NOT understand that I trusted her and grew to love her and let her in to my most vulnerable pains and hidden shames, and when she turns around and dismisses me like that, it traumatizes me. How can she NOT understand that? )

She just gets exasperated at that and almost cries out at me “ I cannot give you what you said you needed, more time, more interim support.” I said that one session a week was probably all I needed since i turned around, since that awful Friday, that I had only blown once in 16 months, and that if that termination letter had not come we might have worked well and mostly finished the work by Christmas, that I did not think there was that much to go. I objected to the way she and my doctor made that decision – to pass me on – to non existent mental health with she said “provide the additional time, support and back-up which is available to those working in secondary services,” but turns out not to be true. No one asked me. No, I was discounted in the decision making. I was obviously not worth asking, my opinion did not matter. I think that added to my anger.

I truly heard that she thinks :
I work with 8 week session or 12 or 16. you got over a year. I cannot do more and you cannot hear that.” But I counter : “ you did do more, you did a year, I do not understand how you do not understand that I experienced you moving that boundary for me before and then deciding NOT to shift it again.” She says she was over ruled, by my doctor, but he made the decision based on what she said. She THEN said “ and your need for 30 minute phonecalls.” God, I thought we had BEEN through this. That I asked for 10 minute phone calls and I kept reminding her of the time and SHE allowed the phone calls to go to 30 minutes. She is the one keeping the boundaries here. And she breaks her boundaries and blames ME! Again! She does not see how unethical that is, breaking her own boundaries and blaming the client. Sigh. She just HAS to blame me. She just does not get that.

At this point SHE said with great exasperation, sweeping her hands down her skirt in a gesture of finality and getting rid of something: “ I think that this should be our last session, there is no point in continuing.” It was said in anger and frustration and irritation and annoyance and it was not said kindly or as a kind suggestion. I felt hit. Of course. I felt kicked actually. I could not speak for several moments and had my face buried in my arm. It felt like a knife had plunged into my heart and was taking the breath out of me. I visualised Jenny being there and holding my hand and I tried to breathe. I knew then I was in danger. I knew then that Jenny was right, that going back to this C was damaging to me, was actually re traumatizing me – but I had not believed it. I had not believed that my attempts to make this C acknowledge what pain she had caused in what she had done, was going to cause me so much more pain.

She said she wanted to tell me what her overview of the whole work we had been doing together was/is. Was that okay by me? I said yes, but I really wanted to say no as I could tell that she was ready to fire something at me that she really felt I needed to know and which would hurt me very much indeed. I was already hurting right in the hole where my heart centre is meant to be and I should have said no, but – of course – I could not say no. I wish I could say no.

So she started tentatively – saying many times that this was only her opinion and that it may not be right. – (but she did have to say it didn't she, she just could not resist saying it, even though she must have some inkling that I am so wide open and hurting right now, but no, it was more important for her to say it, than to think of the consequences on me.)

She said that she looks back and we have looked at the issues of India, the bullying, my father, the boy, my core pain, and they all tie up and are interlinked for me. And that somewhere I learnt how to get care and kindness, i learnt ways to do that. I became very good at that, very skilled at that. And that that is what I want most. Over and over again I have said to her: “I want you to care”, this is paramount to me. “You are wanting care. That is what you do. You find ways to get it. You are very good at that. You have found many ways to get good at that.”

I heard this as : you manipulate people to give you care and that is all that you do, want care and find ways to get care. I said that. And I said that I have not been in therapy for 15 years, there are vast chunks of my life where I am giving and working and not in this state. I felt deeply judged and deeply misjudged.

But she said she did not mean to judge me, she was just saying that I was very good at it, that I had learnt many ways to be very good at getting care.

I look at my life and see so much emptiness of not caring and wonder if I was that good at it, why did I not have a life full of feeling cared for? And if I was so good at it, why was I still doing it? And if this was true, how do I mend it? And if this is a problem, why is it there?

But that was her assessment of me.

Yes, it hurt. Yes, it still hurts. Because, like the bully, I have to take it in and see if it is true and if it is, work with what they say. Face it.

I feel judged, though. It IS a judgement.

She also said that all the methods, all the therapies agree that with attachment issues, you contain the client to the sessions, you keep it contained just within session and no time out of sessions. I said that I knew of people who were given more stepping stones, who got through the dependent stage which is so unbearable by being allowed to lean on their therapist with phone calls and emails. She raised her eyebrows at that one. She hates it when I don't take her word for gospel.

What do we do with me? I have this raging screaming hurt part inside and a set of neural pathways screaming for care and kindness and feeling utterly unloved and abandoned and so this C abandons me and judges me for wanting her so desperately to care. I see my life as being so fiercely protective of the part of me that feels so uncared for , hiding it, and only letting this C see it and know it because I grew to trust and love her, and she throws all that back at me: “Look at you! This is what is wrong with you! I cannot resist telling you even though it may damage you terribly now to hear it!”

Oh god. And then, I tried, oh foolish me, to TELL her how much this was hurting me but even as I told her, I was aware of her eyes just distancing herself, not wanting to know, fearing my pain somehow. Like it might pull her in if she really heard. I tried to say. I said 'my heart feels like it is breaking, I know there is very little point in telling you this, but it does. I feel so hurting. This is hurting so much.” so she said that if we do meet again maybe we could work on what that pain is and look at it. Ouch. She meant well by that, but has no idea that I would feel dissected by her now, not lovingly and kindly heard or met in my pain.

Oh god.

At least she said “ I do not think I am helpful to you anymore. I do not think I CAN help you anymore.” At least she admitted that. She also said that she had been caring and there for me and really fought for me and that she has done everything she could for me and that was not enough for me. She implied that the problem is mine. I said that it takes two to make a mess such as this. It is so easy for her to see it as the client being difficult or unreachable or resistant or whatever – it takes all the scrutiny off her.

My heart feels truly broken. I am physically aching with a pain that is beyond knowing really and there is nothing I can do. I hold this pain in my gentlest holding and wonder why oh why there is something so wrong with me that I feel this. It keeps me awake, it wakes me when I do sleep, it hurts like a sharp knife in my heart and I am blamed for it and shamed for it, and turned away from because of it. It is a terrible thing. I have lived with it hidden, hidden as much as i could hide it but of course it has leaked out in my life and now I am judged for it and shamed for it again.
I do not know what to do with me and I am losing hope. It seems very bleak. I was hoping for a satisfactory ending, but that is just not going to happen here. Just not.
It has stirred up the worst pains and it has just left me to be in that. With no support and no care, except Jenny and the frantic attempts to find a private therapist and for me to find ways of working to pay for that. I am even thnking of going back to working for the bully in order to earn money fast enough to pay for private therapy. What a fiasco.
I have never felt so taken apart, so dismantled, so opened up, and then so judged and attacked and criticised and found wanting, lacking, inadequate and not good enough. It feels like she got hold of the littlest part of me at last and ripped her to tiny shreds. With her teeth.

How do I see me? (What, my opinion might be worth something? Shock horror!)

I see me as someone who has had a raging pain, a need to be cared for, since I was burnt at six months old and then in hospital for surgery until I was four years old. And this was in the days when mothers were not allowed to stay with their children. I think that I have felt that desperate raging screaming need for care inside me but not known what it was, just felt it as an unbearable need that would surface from time to time, especially when I was vulnerable. It made me go back to people who were hurting me as their hurting of me made me vulnerable which made the deep need for care surface in me again and so I would go back for the smallest crumb of care which they might offer me.
I look at my life and see how much I fought and worked on hiding that need, to myself and to others. How being in a role of care giver hid it very well and I nearly believed it myself, that it was no longer there.
I was and am still deeply ashamed of it, which is why I find it so painful to have it pointed out so starkly.
when I felt that need in my late teens and early twenties, I felt out of control and tried to get some control by getting my life in order, being academic and being attractive, losing weight and then finding I was anorexic and I dare not put on weight because it brought the tearing need for care back.
I occasionally found it leaked out from the age of about 15 onwards, and I then did or said something inappropriate that I felt ashamed of and confused about. I felt there was something wrong with me but that if I could just bury it deep enough it would not be there anymore and then I would be okay.
My therapists are the only people who were able to uncover that need, but it took such trust from my side to let that happen. Because, I feared, like this C has done, that they would run from it, criticise me for it, shame me for it, and point it out to me as a failing and a mental illness.
Alan (GoodFinder) has run from it, this C has held it up in the air and dangled it in front of me as a flaw and problem in me that needs mental health services and Alex (FalseFinder), well he manipulated that need in me for his care, for his own ends. The Bully (trickster) saw it and knew it and flung it back in my face and belittled me for it. Sigh.
Jenny (FirstFinder)saw it, and knows it and does give me advice on it, but it is done so kindly that I can hear. She does not say things because she is angry or annoyed at me and cannot help herself even though it will hurt me, she tends to pause and think whether it will be helpful to me or not. The C thought she was doing that, but she was not, often she just could not help herself saying things.

So now that I know this about myself, what do I do about it? Hide it again? I think not. If I come close to another therapist, it will resurface in all its gory, agonizing need and torment. I wish there was a way through it that did not require feeling its pain and living with it moment by moment with the sleeplessness and trauma symptoms pounding through my body.

I wish there was a kind and gentle way to heal this.
I wish someone had the wisdom to guide me through this respectfully.

Phoned my old T and she is so helpful. she says part of the problem is that this C offered stuff and then withdrew it, and is kind of punishing me. The comment on my blog would make sense if I was not in a situation where she started with offering and then withdrawing, as it feels like the care is being withdrawn.If you want to withdraw support you negotiate with the client.

She also said that one way to work through this deep attachment pain and the need around it is to find a therapist who won't be distracted by my colourful trauma history and tell this T that they MUST not let me have contact with them AT ALL between sessions, no matter how hard I beg and plead and push and have Crisis. And remind Me that I told them to do that, and they are doing it because they care. that might work.
sigh

She also said something quite radical. She said that if I could work on this for two solid days with a good T, then I could work through it and just need some mopping up sessions.

wow. that is quite a thought.

wonder if she might be offering!!

anyway, I feel I am slightly talking to myself here, not sure anyone is reading any of this, but it helps me to write it all and at least I am anonymous.

Hi Sheychen,

Just got out of bed and am reading through ... it's a lot and i don't want to miss anything .... I know it's painful but it's all good stuff .... really helpful ... thanks for sharing with us

Hi Sheychen,

I am really very sorry that you are experiencing all this pain with your C . Your old T sounds like she really understands you and you seem to have a good relationship with her…is there any way that you could continue working with her at all? Sorry if you have already explained this and I have missed it.

Your sessions with C sound like they are following in the same pattern of you expressing your hurt and feeling unheard and her saying she cares but she can’t offer you what you need. Each time you go and see her you are investing a little bit more of yourself, which in turn leaves you feeling more hurt and abandoned when it doesn’t work out…it sounds like the relationship is longer beneficial to your healing.

I know you are deeply attached to her which is why you want this to work so much...it's really hard stuff...but I do believe that you can work through the attachment you feel for her with a T who has more experience and an understanding of what it is like to feel attached – no it is not so simple as to deal with it in one session as your C says...it hurts sooo much ….I really feel she doesn’t understand at all and I am really feeling for you for not being understood. You deserve to be working with a T who is more experienced not only with attachment but also at being able to work with you at a deeper level to help you and your littles to work through all the trauma that you have so sadly experienced.

I know a private T would cost a lot of money but they are also able to offer the kind of support that just isn’t available via the doctors and you have the choice of finding one who you feel is right for you and able to offer what you need. You will have much more control.

((((((Sheychen)))))) Sending you lots of hugs as you work through what would be best for you.

Butterfly

quote:

She also said that all the methods, all the therapies agree that with attachment issues, you contain the client to the sessions, you keep it contained just within session and no time out of sessions.

Hi Sheychen,
I’d like your C to have a talk with my T as he has said many times that his contact policy is based on his understanding that when you are an attachment figure for your client, you can never know when those attachment needs will rise up and so it’s very important to allow the client access to you. Not that there aren’t boundaries to that connection, but the connection is available.

I am sorry for the pain you continue to be in, and I do think that it would be a good idea to just let go with your C as any further sessions seem to be just causing more pain.

Sheychen, I noticed something in your post that I want to point out to you, but I know it might be very difficult to hear right now. So I want to be very clear about a few things up front before I say it. I definitely think your C was out of her depth and did not have the abilities or capacities she needed to cope with your trauma history. Most egregriously, her consistent failure to hold her own internal boundaries and then insist on making your responsible for her failure was so wrong and the complete opposite of what I believe she should have been modeling for you. And those lacks on her part, led to her re-traumatizing you. I think it is clear that despite your strong feelings for her, she is not capable of giving you what you need to heal and you need to find someone else to work with. I am in no way blaming you for how this turned out. OK? I find your feelings very understandable because I have felt so many of them.

But knowing that you need to go on and work with another T to heal is what makes me want to point something out. That you spend a lot of time either deciding how your C feels despite what she says or not believing her when she tells you how she feels. I went through your post and clipped out the parts that I think support this view.

quote:

I still feel that she got angry and reacted after that Friday. She denies this. She insists she is doing and has always done what is genuinely in my best interests. She cannot seem to admit that she is still annoyed and irritated.

quote:

She is judging me for it, not hearing my pain around it. She cannot seem to help herself.

quote:

That 10% is the bit that I feel she cannot bear. That to her, was wrong. It has violated some code that I did not know about. It made me beyond her ability to care and truly be there for me. Who has pushed her in her own life or 'upped the anti' that she then put those feelings of 'this is too much, this is beyond what I can accept' on to me?

quote:

She protested that she did not feel I was manipulating her ...

quote:

Anyway, now it does not matter because no matter how much I protest that I am not that bad, she sees me as 'that bad' and is sticking to it. And she truly has me in a “that bad” box, a very tight box, and no matter what I say or do, she is going to keep me in her tight box. She cannot do otherwise, otherwise she would have to question herself and other motives in her for what she did.

quote:

And again I asked why she could not have fought for me. And she AGAIN went back to saying she thought I knew that we were terminating at Christmas anyway.( god – to me that is so untrue – so utterly untrue and I think she just dare not admit that we had never ever EVER said any such thing).

quote:

I also asked her again whether she truly wanted to continue working with me and she protested again that she was committed to working with me and wanted to keep working with me until Christmas as she had said. I just don't believe her. I just don't. In a room full of anger and irritation and annoyance and frustration, not of acceptance or kindness or understanding, - how can I feel that she truly WANTS to keep working with me when she has such strong negative emotions towards me that she keeps denying.

quote:

And she took offence at that, that I should say that I do not feel safe with her.

quote:

I heard this as : you manipulate people to give you care and that is all that you do, want care and find ways to get care. I said that. And I said that I have not been in therapy for 15 years, there are vast chunks of my life where I am giving and working and not in this state. I felt deeply judged and deeply misjudged.

But she said she did not mean to judge me, she was just saying that I was very good at it, that I had learnt many ways to be very good at getting care.

One of the first things that my husband and I had to deal with in couples’ therapy was that we were both making huge assumptions about how the other person was feeling without checking in to see if we were correct and at other times, we would flat out NOT believe what the other person was saying about how they felt. It took a long time, but I had to learn to recognize that no matter how strong my feelings were, they might not be the TRUTH. That my husband really would know better than I how HE felt. I remember asking my T one time, well then how do I learn if my feelings are an accurate reflection of the truth? And he told me, you have to ask. So one of the things that became central to my therapy was going back time and again to my therapist and asking him, are you angry? are you frustrated? do you want me to go away? That part was terrifying but what was really difficult was believing his answers despite how I was feeling.

I made an emergency call to him one night, and he called back but was pretty short and got me off the phone as quickly as possible. I had a bit of a meltdown and ended up writing him a very LONG email. I went staight to him experiencing “compassion fatigue” and asking if maybe we needed to take a break so we wouldn’t destroy the relationship. But I also asked if my perception was correct, that I couldn’t always trust myself. I got a great answer. He told me that he WAS rushed and he understood how that could come across as irritated, but that he wasn’t irritated at all. And that it was always good to check my perceptions with him, especially if I thought something was wrong. He managed to tell me I was wrong, but could trust myself all at the same time. And he made it perfectly clear that he understood exactly where these strong fears were coming from.

This is one of the things that makes attachment injuries such a hell to heal from. Even when the T is doing everything they need to, providing consistent care and clear boundaries, we often perceive a lot of negative things coming from them. My Ts ability to remain non-defensive about my feelings and be open to discussing them was a big part of me healing. That is the part that I think is missing from your C. Non-defensive is not her strong suite, nor is she very good at holding boundaries. But when you find a T who does have those skills is when you then have to deal with your own stuff, and I know for me that meant that no matter how much my T cared, or how warm and available he was, there were times when I could not see it nor trust it. And what was worse, were the times I could feel it, but have to deal with the fact that it still wasn’t enough. And from what I saw in your post, I think this is an area that you also struggle in.

Please don’t lose hope, Sheychen, as your experience with Jenny proved, there are good, caring therapists out there who understand these injuries and know what to do to help you heal from them. That can see in you a worthwhile, strong, resilient person who managed to survive all that you did and is struggling to leave behind beliefs and behaviors that while allowing you to survive have outgrown their usefulness.

AG

AG - as always your posts are chock full of good stuff that helps all of us .... your T sounds amazing .... but so do you ... you had the courage to go back and ask and keep asking .... that's the hard part for me .... I never realized how deep my attachment issues were until I read all this stuff and it is very informative ... so thank you to all of you!

I just wanted to comment on Sheychen's C ... it does in fact sound like she's limited and it sounds like you're trying to get blood from a stone .... It's so hard to start over .... I see myself acknowledge that all the time .... I'm having some difficulty now starting over in some arenas but I'm acknowledging that I'm having difficulty and allowing that room ... but also acknowledging that it would benefit me in the long run if I can learn how to form new relationships .... and to let go of old ones when they come to a natural or unnatural end .... there's so much emotional pain out there ... not just within us but within the people we are interacting with all the time and our emotional pain is clashing with their emotional pain ....

It's just quite possible that your C is experiencing her own emotional pain that she hasn't dealt with and this is the reason she can't connect with your emotional pain .... It may not be that she doesn't want to help you ... she just can't help you .... and it would be to your benefit to find someone who can help it ....

Hey guys ... can I ask a question? I'm thinking that I have these attachment issues from childhood but the trauma didn't happen until I was 18 or 19 .... so how do the two interact???? I always feel this need/pain connection ... whenever I feel like I need someone, I run .... is that from the trauma or the attachment issues??? Or both????

And by the way, my T never called me even though I asked him to in my letter ... I will go to my appointment on monday .... if nothing else to see what I can learn .... I'm curious to know why he hasn't called and have come up with several explanations that he might offer me .... 2 that I would trust (one being he didn't get the letter ... the other being that he got it but didn't open it and decided to open it when I am in session with him) ... the other scenerios .. that he was too busy, etc .... I would have a harder time trusting ... I also think even if he did save opening the letter for when we are together, that i would feel a bit put out that he didn't call to say, I got your letter but it's my policy to open them when you come in for your session and read them together.... so I'm not exactly sure how I would feel about that one either .... I was frozen with fear all day yesterday waiting for him to call .... what an asshole, huh?

But my point being, that he has to know that even if my letter WAS NOT filled with venom and had all good things in it, which it did, that I would be waiting for a response .... and I very specifically asked for a phone call in my letter ... but besides that, he has to know that if someone writes a letter they'd expect a response and by not responding he is causing emotional pain ... and it seems to me that responding would be the considerate thing to do ....
He always calls between 10 and 10:30 and now it's 10:37 ... and he's off tomorrow for the weekend so now I know he won't call today and I will have to wait to see him on Monday ... so at least I can let go of it and move on with my life today .... and for the weekend ... Halloween is coming!!! One of my favorite holidays! Happy Halloween everyone!

Thank you - again the support here is wonderful.
I emailed the C and asked her if she is still willing to work with me on this attachment pain if I contracted with her to NOT have any contact except sessions and I got my support in between from elsewhere. I am only doing this, because I have not found another therapist. And yes, I do wonder AG if what I think she is feeling is not at all what she is feeling. She seems to think this. My Ex T thinks we are actually at some kind of break through point if we could only come to some amicable way forward, it might not be for too long. But we have hurt each other so much it may not be repairable.
If I had someone else to work with - I would have moved by now. I DID wonder if my ex T who lives 5 hours away, would work with me for a bit, but she is not a 'T' anymore, she is retired, but she is such a maverick that she just might do it for me. We already do phone calls and she might just might sort out a way we could work intensively for a few days. She is good at that, that is the way we used to work. And I tell you , she knows me inside out. She is a worthy adversary, she is strong and she is capable and she is canny. I think my toddler definately met her match with her before when we worked together and I feel so SAFE with her.
so that idea is floating a bit. I suspect that either my C will say she just CANNOT keep going with me, or that we shall have ANOTHER awful session next week and HAVE to end OR
big 'or'
next Wedsnesday we meet and we turn it around.

Anyone willing to place bets on that?

Also I have the psychologist ringing me on Friday 5th to hear what I have decided about working with him.I am scared of working with him as he is not necessarily trained enough in psychotherapy.

Oh well, I am going off to Wales for the weekend and hoping to get some space and clarity and perspective from there. I really appreciate your support. I was a bit thrown by that very blunt comment on my blog that I posted above somewhere, but who ever wrote that does not understand that my C and I have some complicated threads going,and her withdrawing support which WAS there, has definately complicated matters. That blog comment was just not understanding the depth of the pain I carry and the fact that I need help through this, but yes, I need to learn to care for me, find that inside me.
got to dash, might post more later, thanks butterfly, Ag and Liese, glad you are finding it helpful to you Liese, and Butterfly and Ag - thanks for your insights too.

HI Sheychen ... you sound terrific!!! Have a great weekend!

Hey Sheychen,
I was the one that said - you need to find a T that is more clever than you. (actually, I said smarter than you. Here in the states, sometimes clever has negative connotations) Someone who is rock solid with boundries. Someone consistant in there love.

When I first started with me T, I told him right up front- I need someone stronger, smarter than me, and I did not think he was the one. He assured me that was. And he is.
I only know one T. So I did not know how the whole therapy thing worked, so I was bold in the beginning, nice- but bold. You can do that with your next T.
Have a relaxing time in Wales- be good to all the parts of you!!!
Mayo

I am intending to finish with her on Wednesday - by giving her a note thanking her for what help she did give me. I feel like my heart bleeds just thinking about ending, and of course the smallest part of me cannot BELIEVE I am going to end - I would not wish this pain and this despair on anyone. I had a really painful weekend, at a sort of therapy weekend where I was just triggered and eventually just shut down - but had to stay for another day becauseother participants drove me there. I felt so lonely in the group, feeling my own physical hurting and not able to know what to do with it, whilst they just continued with their own processing. It was horrible.

Oh Sheychen .... so sorry to hear it ...

Sheychen, I am so very sorry for your pain.
My words sound empty and hollow - even to me, but what more can I, can we do. I will pray that you find the help you need and the answers you seek- to comfort you in your sorrow. Whether you believe in prayer or not, does not matter, I do- and so I will pray for you.

Mayo

thank you Mayo for your prayers and for your kindness Liese, I shall be okay. I am learning so much in this process and I am not the first person to have major dissonance with their T when they get to the real core issues.
I just find that I keep thinking 'Maybe I can keep going with her?" it is like a part of me just cannot accept what I am intending to do.

Found this in a book I read today
"There are two fundamental difficulties in the therapeutic treatment of emotional trauma clients.
The first is what we could call 'collision of objectives' which means those goals usually accepted as valid in therapy (understanding one's own problems, 'healing oneself, undertaking constructive changes in one's life etc) are not the client's priority aims. Initially the client does not want to heal himself; to one extent, she is proud of the symptomatology she presents, as it is witness to the atrocities that she has gone through in life. What she is looking for in the therapeutic bond is exactly this witness function; someone who sees and disagrees with the injustices that were committed against her. And she also wants (it is here that the therapeutic job becomes much more complicated) the therapist to compensate her for everything she has gone through; she wants to be gratified for her immediate needs, be taken care of and comforted. And even more, she wants an intense and special relationship to feel important. Apparently, these clients' implicit speech is always: :" I cannot get better unless you, the therapist, demonstrated that you care about me personally."

From Emotional Survival:Childhood Pain Lived in the Adult Drama. by Rosa Cukier.

Wow that is heavy, Sheychen .... Can I ask you why it's not uncommon to have dissonance with your T when you reach your core issues? And what are people talking about what they talk about core issues?

I just have to say that even though my session yesterday with my T was brutal, I am finding comfort in his boundaries ... in the fact that I don't have to look for them ... I know where they are ... and they are very tight .... It would cause me so much anxiety to have a T who didn't seem to have boundaries and let me keep needing him and reaching out in different ways .... looking for that line ..... that to me, would be brutal .....

From my own experience, when I have got to the core issues, my own volatile suppressed feelings come up in waves and strongly. These can really fly around the therapy room and are often aimed - at the poor therapist. My own therapist likes to see herself as a good kind stable person and I throw such anger at her and she gets defensive and then i feel unsafe and we have dissonance.

Core issues? For me they are usually not the presenting issue, the ones that bring us to therapy in the first place, but the ones that take some times, sometimes years, to uncover, the ones that are the foundation of why we respond or react the way that we do, why we have formed the way we have. for example, I have been through major traumas in my life, sexual assaults and rape in my 20's and physical abuse from my father as a kid, and sexual abuse and rape as an 8 yr old, and also sexual abuse in my 30's from a therapist, and all those issues fascinate therapists who see them as really meaty issues to get stuck into looking at, but ACTUALLY the major trauma in my life that created the way I responded/reacted to all those later ones, was that I was badly burnt at a small baby and was in hospital til I was about four having operations. The worst was when I was 3 3/4. I remember that one really clearly and how i reacted, i closed down emotionally and turned away from my care givers. So that is a core issue for me and that is what I did from then on, when vulnerable.

Does that make sense?

Yes, it is brutal for me that my C does not keep firm boundaries, she waives them a bit out of kindness and then she changes her mind and firms them up in an over the top way and none of this is negotiated, she just implements it, so I of course feel punished, like it was my fault and I am being punished for them being waivered or wobbled, when actually, SHE wobbled them and then panics. It leaves me angry with her and feeling uncared for - cos what was there is taken away.

It is very unprofessional. and it causes me grief to say the least. the worst is when she blames me outright for her own boundary issues.

I see her today, my C, and I am taking in an 'ending letter' which I am sort of intending to give her, depending on what happens in the first half hour or less. I don;t want her ENDING on me today, so I feel a bit prepared this way.
there is also the possibility we might put all this ending anger and stuff to one side and work on the issue of the three year old turning away from care and closing down emotionally.

I should leave this C, but I am so heart enmeshed with her, it is frantic if I try to really do it. i have been awake from 4am this morning and don't see her to til 1pm. I shall be tired out by the time I get there as I am working this morning. Sigh. I would like to ask for you to wish me luck but I think I need far more than luck.

I feel slightly sick but there is an underlying relief.
I went in there for the session today, with my ending letter and thank you card in my bag ready to hand over. I just let it unfold.
what unfolded was good in that it confirmed that ending is the right thing to do.


NewFinder quietly told me why she does not feel continuing is a good idea. All the reasons that I thought she did not want to continue with me, came out. I was right. She is just not up to being able to handle what I am going through. At least that is confirmed.


She said that did not want me coming into the room angry one day and not angry the next and not knowing which one it will be and sometimes 'you are even angry before you get IN the room!" (Shock horror, how awful of me.) Also she said the therapeutic relationship requires respect. So I said ' are you saying I do not respect you?"
"no that is not what I am saying" and so several seconds went by until I finally deduced that she meant she did not respect ME. Goodness. I have not had a therapist not respect me before, as I work hard, I admit my failings, I struggle through pain and I work hard at changing and using my resources to help me. I just looked at her and realized that all the time I have been hoping and trying to see that she is BETTER than she is. She also said that she did not WANT to work with me anymore and did not think she could help me anymore. She also felt that the therapeutic rupture/fracture could not be mended. I heard all that and just handed over my ending letter. I said that since the termination email, I did not think the therapeutic relationship could be mended, as I was so disrespected, decisions were made about me without consulting me and with assumptions made about me that are neither accurate nor informed. I also said that I was passed on in that termination letter to a non existent secondary services "better care" because it would provide more care and more support which it does not and so I am now left with no support at all. I said that did not show that a duty of care had been fulfilled at all. I also asked her not to draw out the more hurt and hidden parts in another client and then terminate with them because the depth which came out was too much for her to handle. She said it was my choice - I chose to bring that out, that she did nothing to make it come out and I told her, with a soft voice and quite kindly, not to be so naive. I said that she worked to encourage me to trust her and reveal and I did and when that material was so painful and so full of anger and pain, she decided this was out of her remit. I asked her NOT to do that to another client. I also asked her to write out a contract with each client so that they know how long they have with her and not to leave it vague as it can be very damaging to end earlier than you thought.
She was actually defensive, she came out with some choice judgements of me and when I pointed out that they were actually judgements she denied it and when I pointed out that this lack of clear understanding between us has been part of the problem for the last two months, she said that she heard I was frustrated by not being able to hear her clearly.
At which point I gave up. She kept saying things back at me, like if I said " you often think you have said something, like the fact you insist you told me we would end by Christmas and actually you did not" and she would say, "you feel angry that you did not hear clearly what I said to you."
It is enough to drive anyone mad.


I feel relief to have got away. Several times this session I just looked at her, feeling incredibly calm and tried to see if I was projecting onto her and mishearing and you know, amazingly, my sense of her and what is going on, is ACCURATE. I was just denying it for so long.
She is as frustrated and resentful at being hurt by my anger as I thought. Her comments today confirmed that.
My god. What a fiasco of therapy.
I wanted to believe she had more depth than she has, more insight and breadth than she has, and I was trying hard not to see that I was working with someone who was a counsellor who could work on small issues and not someone who could handle depth. I think from the Friday that I really let my pain out to be seen, she has resented me. That crossed a line for her that has never been forgiven.
It is amazing how I was picking this all up for a whole month but projecting kind and caring counsellor on to her even though her words and actions were not backing that up.
Sigh.
Even though I was still prepared today to work through it, she was not, so I ended.
I said I have not ended before so I am not sure what to do but she suggested we have some session to work on things that are left. I said that I did not think working on things was a good idea anymore and that I did not want to draw out the painful ending process any more than was necessary. I suggested we meet next week just for an hour when we both said the good things about the last 16 months. It seemed a good idea at the time but it is going to be hard to do that after what I witnessed today.

quote:

It is amazing how I was picking this all up for a whole month but projecting kind and caring counsellor on to her even though her words and actions were not backing that up.

Sheychen, I feel for you .... and I do what you did up there in the quote ... I try to ignore the warning signals ... I have to get better at listening to those! Sometimes it's just good to know when it's over .... when it's really over ... no more guessing, could I have done this? could I have done that?

Sheychen, Can I ask about rupture? Is it a necessary part of the therapeutic relationship?

Liese, no rupture is when things are going really bumpy and sometimes fall apart, much better if it doesn't happen. If it does, then sometimes it is a signal that things are going very deep and both client and therapist are finding it hard, but apparently it is often the point before real breakthrough. I have experienced that with other T's. Here it was just pure rupture, she got to the point where she actively disliked me. No way through if that is happening. And I look back and remember how insistent she was that she had unconditional love .... unconditional. well, it turned out there were an awful lot of conditions hiding in the wings.
someone really vulnerable would have been devastated by what happened today - the things she said about me and what she implied - but actually thankfully I can see that she really was not up to the job and that is TRULY HER problem and not mine.
Still feel queasy tonight though. Guess that is to be expected. I had grown to love and trust and believe in her over 16 months and then in two months it all shattered from her side. I shall find it very hard when I DO find a new T to believe that I can tell them ANYTHING and they won't run in horror and feel I am beyond the normal range of human experience. sigh.
But my old T feels I am an amazing caring and competent adult and very sane but carrying some huge emotional pain but she does NOT disrespect me for it, she admires me for how much I have grown and how I work so hard and am committed to learning what my difficulties are and what resources I can nurture in myself and how I can change some of my unhelpful patterns.

Sheychen .... It sounds like this woman shouldn't be a C ... but what do I know??? we just never know what issues some of these people come to the table with .... and the warning signals are there for a reason .... even if mine overreacts, it's still telling me that I'm uncomfortable ... maybe the danger isn't as bad as my body thinks it is ... but I do need to listen to it .....

I was wondering about the interaction between rupture and corrective emotional experience ..... ?????

Hiya,

From my perspective, I suspect rupture is a very necessary part of the therapeutic relationship.

Permanent perfect attunement is not a reality in human relationships.

We move in and out of synch with the people around us all the time. When we are robust inside, have good relationship skills and/or don't have a lot at stake in a relationship what happens is we get out of attunement, can notice it, and use our skills to get back into attunement with the other and ourselves - such as checking out our perceptions against reality, distinguishing new hurts from old hurts, communicating our feelings, hearing and accepting the communications of others, assessing danger, making choices to move closer or further away, letting go of hurt.

But when we have a really vulnerable sense of self, are not strong at some of those skills and/or we have lots and lots at stake, little ruptures quickly become big ruptures. And when we're living in that place, letting someone know us at all is a huge risk, because we don't know how to fix things when they go wrong. We only know that when things start to go wrong they get worse.

So I think a lot of therapy is about learning how to extend our skills at feeling, hurting, surviving and repairing the misattunements at higher levels of risk than we are used to. If our repair skills outstrip the risk, the ruptures are not catastrophic, might even be enjoyable as 'spark' in a relationship. If the risk outstrips our repair skills, the ruptures feel terrible - and can be traumatic when the T isn't capable of containing the situation and providing the missing repair skills.

2c, for what it's worth!

Jones

Dear Jones, I agree with you about rupture and I wrote to my now EX C - last thursday saying much the same:
"Dear C, I found a quote "staying put and resolving conflicts instead of moving on is often the most valuable therapeutic work you can do."
MY previous T of 20 yrs ago also said that she thinks I am at the turning point and that the build up to turning points are usually the time that things fall apart and therapists begin to feel they just cannot cope and clients feel it is all falling apart. but my previous T of 20 yrs ago thinks we are mostly through this bit, if we could both work forward from here, respecting each others strengths and weaknesses.
Just a thought, please tell me if you think it is a worth a try."

And I was ready to work through this, I thought it would be fruitful for us, I was open to this, but I walk in and SHE says no, she has had enough. SHE cannot cope with the pain she feels at the level of anger I brought in, (I have never touched anger before in all the therapy I have done - so it was quite some anger - I at last realized that no human has a right to do what they did to me - they should not have done that).

So in this case, Jones, the client, me was willing over and over to try and mend this therapeutic rupture but it was too much for the counsellor.

I think I objected to your implication in this:

quote:

If the risk outstrips our repair skills, the ruptures feel terrible - and can be traumatic when the T isn't capable of containing the situation and providing the missing repair skills.

My old therapist saw me as constantly trying to 'teach' the counsellor how to come through this, how not to take it personally - how to not slide on boundaries, how to allow anger and other strong feelings, how to acknowledge her weaknesses as I was doing of my own weaknesses. She did not like her weaknesses being pointed out.
You seem to be implying it fell apart because I did not have the repair skills. I hope I have misread you as that is quite a judgement and not what the numerous people who know the situation, think. I was ready until the very last moment to try again with her, believe in her and move forward together finding a way through and learning from it but she was stuck with her active dislike of me and her lack of respect for me (am I some paedohile or rapist or murderer? NO I am a survivor of CSA, childhood trauma and rape - and I got ANGRY - heinous crime! AND I hit terrible pain. this was not acceptable to he.) Another thing she did not like and was not okay by her, I wrote about it on my blog:
"You know one classic remark she made this last session is almost funny. She said with great indignation: " you would be okay one session and I would think S is doing okay again and then NEXT session you would come in angry and all upset. You were just unpredictable. It meant I NEVER knew what was going to happen! There seemed to be absolutely NO REASON for it!" And she was so animated and agitated and indignant saying that. I looked at her and thought " my god this woman does not seem to know what therapy is actually LIKE! That being in different emotions each session can be normal when things are really intense and painful. That small things can trigger and a lot can change in the week between sessions."
But for her that was one more of the unreasonable things that I did that she felt was not acceptable."

I just feel this woman has not done enough work on herself to see her own failings and recognize when she is reacting and getting defensive and angry and so she just would not work with me anymore, did not want to, did not want to look at moving through the immense feelings it was bringing up in her. I was looking FORWARD to mending things, moving through this, it would have been immensely rewarding. but no. The C herself did not have the repair skills.

DeepFried, thank you for your kindness - yes, it was helpful that at last the C admitted to what was going on for her, but she is still well defended. When I said ' so you are saying you are out of your depth," she said "No! I am well WITHIN My depth", Which I just was astonished by, because the fact that she can get all indignant that I get angry in therapy and she did not want to have to be a room with that anymore and then in same breath say she is IN her depth, was astonishing to me.

It was really toxic. It is a huge relief to have ended and I have two possible T's to have phone calls with at the weekend to see if they might have the depth of experience and necessary training and skills to not bail out on me. My ex T of 20 yrs ago thinks this C was truly damaging me. And the fact that I have not gone under with this shows that I am both strong and - ironically- am used to surviving abusive situations and keeping going and not going under. It is a skill I have needed on frequent occasions in my life LOL

MY last entry on my blog:
You know one classic remark she made this last session is almost funny. She said with great indignation: " you would be okay one session and I would think S is doing okay again and then NEXT session you would come in angry and all upset. You were just unpredictable. It meant I NEVER knew what was going to happen! There seemed to be absolutely NO REASON for it!" And she was so animated and agitated and indignant saying that. I looked at her and thought " my god this woman does not seem to know what therapy is actually LIKE! That being different emotions each session can be normal when things are really intense and painful. That small things can trigger and a lot can change in the week between sessions."
But for her that was one more of the unreasonable things that I did that she felt was not acceptable.

The last two things I said before I left the room were:
1. I had a dream at 4am that morning that I am in India again and the false guru is on top of me and I am just waiting for him to get off me and it has now being going on for some weeks and it almost feels normal, I just wait and breathe and know he will get off in about 20 minutes or so. As I lie there I see a movement at the window. the window has bars on it and I see NewFinder's face, looking in. She is seeing what is happening. She does not do anything, but I can see she is upset. It is upsetting her.
2. I tell NewFinder that the one thing I really regret is how when my anger erupted she took it personally and has felt hurt by it, so hurt that she cannot continue anymore. I said that I regret person to person, hurting another human being, hurting her though the words of anger that came spilling out.

I actually am quite amazed that she lost respect for me and actively dislikes me. I could feel that in my gut since the Crisis Friday - and at long last yesterday I had to trust my gut, as her dislike and indignation and anger were flung at me across the room for an hour and a half.

What happened to her unconditional love that she insisted she had, no matter what? If she feels this lack of respect and dislike for me because I let my inner pain break through to see if she cared, because I was so angry sometimes I could not hold it back and the words spilled out, what sort of feelings would she feel to a rapist or a murderer or a paedophile? I find it amazing that I am beyond the pale in her eyes for what I am like - when even I, with my shame and my guilt and self blame, can see that I don't really merit such extreme reactions.

I look back to see 'where it all went wrong' really. And for me it was a day in late May or early June when she went very still and said very quietly " I deeply care about you, I truly care about you and I want to help you with all my heart, you matter to me and I will stick by you no matter how rough it gets. It may get bumpy at times and I may mishear you at times but I am very steady and will not turn away." I heard those words and I let them in, deep inside and I then in the next few sessions experienced the frightened hurt child in me - come out. This is how this blog started - if you look back and read the prologue, it was about two sessions later that she held me and I at last felt the beginnings of defrosting the ice in my heart from way back when and let her kindness defrost me.

And that was when she saw a whole other part of me, and she could not handle it.

Also, the big turning point was Crisis Friday when she panicked and called out my GP to see me and he decided without asking me that I was to be referred to mental health instead of GP counselling.
For some reason when I admitted at the end of that day that I suspected that the child in me just threw a wobbly to get her attention, that I was not going to go around being that bad, it was just the child blowing up from being ignored for seven weeks, she NEVER forgave me for that and the feeling of dislike that I was picking up from her (and I was denying was true) started from then, a month ago.

That was beyond the pale for her.

Tragic.

My god, what HAS her supervisor been doing?

And also, I was willing to work through this awful and painful rupture, I felt that it had huge potential for growth and healing for both of us, but no, she did not want to repair it. SHE felt it was too ruptured, not me. SHE did not want to mend it.

Dear Sheychen,

My apologies for being insensitive to your situation - although this is your thread and I'm really conscious of what's going on with you, I responded in a rush, ducking in and out, and Liese's question got me thinking in the abstract about ruptures - I wasn't trying to comment obliquely on your situation. In the background of my comments is me thinking through my own relationship situations, more than anything.

But I should have taken the time to say what I DO think about your situation - which is that you have done this amazing thing to get to a place where you can see her limitations - and her limitations are shocking for a professional therapist, in my view. I think you have better repair skills than she does. I thoroughly admire the way you have been conscious of the different parts of you, given your littlest ones space and now have found this surge of clarity and strength to move away from this person who is dangerous to you. In saying that I mean no criticism at all that it took you time to do that. You had to feel your feelings, and they were the intensely powerful feelings of attachment that yes, SHE invited. I doubt very much it could have been rushed. I also agree that her comment about your 'unpredictability' is absolutely laughable - not funny, but laughable. I hope she says THAT to her supervisor - while also hoping against hope that her supervisor is not as limited as she is.

quote:

You seem to be implying it fell apart because I did not have the repair skills.

Hmm, I certainly don't mean this in the kind of judgemental way it has come across. I'm sorry I didn't take more time to ground my comments. I guess I'm saying all relationship difficulties can be seen as problems of repair, and where we keep running into difficulties, there's probably some lack in repair skills. Again, I was thinking more in the abstract and about myself than about you in particular. But seen in this light, perhaps this is the work of therapy, and when we seek someone's help with our relationship stuff we are hoping (with more or less urgency) that they can teach us the missing bits. So I guess it is my assumption that you are not so strong on some repair skills, and I know that to be true of myself too, and I assume it to be true of everyone else seeking out therapy for relational difficulties. I'm saying it's the therapist's JOB to teach the missing stuff - so if you *were* missing some stuff, that was the opportunity for therapy - the opportunity you actively sought out. And she let you down. Not at all because you didn't try, but because she is unskilled.

Sheychen, I hope this clarifies where I was coming from. Please let me know if you feel upset about what I wrote, and if there's more I need to say. I'm about to head out of town for three or four days, so if you don't hear back until it's only because I don't have net access.

I wish you very well with finding your balance and the next steps of the recovery you have worked so hard for. I mean it about the admiration.

Take care,
Jones

quote:

But when we have a really vulnerable sense of self, are not strong at some of those skills and/or we have lots and lots at stake, little ruptures quickly become big ruptures. And when we're living in that place, letting someone know us at all is a huge risk, because we don't know how to fix things when they go wrong. We only know that when things start to go wrong they get worse.

Quote from Jones.

Hey Sheychen, not hijacking your thread, but Jones entire reply is so important for me to hear- Thank you Jones-

Jones you describe exactly, exactly wht happened to me last night, and as I run away from him- he is the better repairer. I hear your words in my head, I hear his words in my head, but they have not yet touched my heart as I am the hurting child right now- walled off to protect myself.

Jones
thank you for your respectful and considered reply, it is hard talking via a forum, it is something we could have sorted so easily if talking, but I sincerely appreciate your comments. and yes, I see that you are mulling things over for yourself too.
I did really well trying to repair this, but actually stayed in this fractured therapy space too long as my smallest vulnerable self did not want to believe that my c was really so negative.
I think this forum is great.
sometime I read posts too fast and reply from where I am which is not where someone else is, and I think that I get myself in trouble. But wwe are all trying to help each other. Have a good trip out of town. I shall keep posting as I have to find a therapist who CAN handle me and respect me. sigh.

Sheychen

I also want to second how amazingingly strong you were to recognize what was going on for you and for her and keep them separate so you could see it was time to leave. I know it seems like it took a long time but these are huge overwhelming feelings and they take as long as they take. I hope you find a new T worthy of you soon.

Jones I hope you see this. Thank you so much for your comments about rupture and repair. They provide an incredibly useful framework for how I am in relationships, usually I make sure I don't have much at stake, with my T I have so much invested I'm paralyzed because I think I have a vulnerable sense of self and poor relationship skills. I hope therapy helps me learn how to extend my skills because right now it just feels like a bottomless pit of pain.

Hi Incognito .... So understand about the bottomless pit of pain .... I too think about that how it seems important in developing ourselves as individuals necessarily means that we are not always going to agree with those who are important to us ... and we have to learn how to do that, hopefully assertively and politely ... and learn how to get past it .... that it's not going to mean the end of the relationship .... and we have to learn that asserting ourselves sometimes might mean the end of the relationship if we find that what the other person believes in or is doing is so offensive to us as individuals and have the strength to move on (like sheychen just did) ....but hopefully, with the people who are most important to us .... it shouldn't mean the end of the relationship ... my T always trys to point out that everyone is caught up in their own shit most of the time so it's not that they are being deliberately insensitive .... and that I need to bring my needs to their attention .... of course, if they are being deliberately insensitive, that's a different story .... May we all find some peace today!

Sheychen,
I am sorry for how this turned out and all your pain but I am glad that you ended as it seemed clear that continuing to work with your C would only injure you further. I hope you are able to find someone who has the depth and experience to be able go with you into the more difficult places you need to go so you can heal.

AG

Today I woke up missing her and feeling I was so 'bad' - that is why she terminated with me and I deserved it all. I felt 'bad' and terrible and I got the consequences of how I behaved.
I acted out the rage of my three yr old and surprize surprise I got thrown out and she rejected me.
My adult also knows she was the wrong person for me, but it is still bad this morning.

Dear Sheychen
I've followed your story for a while now. You are so brave, insightful and human. You may not feel it but you have probably leapt forward so far by taking control of this dreadful situation which is not of your making. I may not word this properly but your instincts and thinking are so healthy!! You will feel like shit some days 'cause this is so very hurtful but take a deep breath, then another, then another and give yourself a big pat on the back and be a little kinder to yourself 'cause you are still moving forward!! Probably not making much sense but hugely with you.
Many hugs
Morgs

quote:

Dear Sheychen
I've followed your story for a while now. You are so brave, insightful and human. You may not feel it but you have probably leapt forward so far by taking control of this dreadful situation which is not of your making. I may not word this properly but your instincts and thinking are so healthy!! You will feel like shit some days 'cause this is so very hurtful but take a deep breath, then another, then another and give yourself a big pat on the back and be a little kinder to yourself 'cause you are still moving forward!! Probably not making much sense but hugely with you.
Many hugs
Mo

thanks Morgs, I really need to hear that, I am so glad you posted. today is bad too, but yes, you are right, I AM moving forward though it feels like I am moving so back. I FEEL the pain so intensely. I loved her so much, well, all the different parts of me loved her so much, and she can just walk away without a single pang. It is cruel how these people can do this. I don't ever want to be like them.

Hi Sheychen .... So sorry to hear you are feeling bad today.... You really don't know if she is walking away without a single pang .... You don't know what she is feeling .... You only know what you are feeling .... I know exactly what you mean, though ... that's how I feel about this whole therapy process ... I am a tiny part of his life and he is such a huge part of my life .... and I know that when I leave, it will be really painful for me but not at all painful for him .... and it makes me so angry .... But really, who knows what your C's loss is/was??? You can't define it ... She won't share it with you .... But this was your loss .... And you loved .... and that is a beautiful thing ....

I was curious about something you wrote to TN ... something about it's good TN found someone she could rage against .... that you haven't found that yet .... or you haven't been able to do it .... but you also seemed to indicate that because TN did do this that she was further along in the process .... Just wondering what you meant by all that ...??? I do get the sense that my T is looking for anger out of me sometimes ... but I seem to do all the repair work on my own and decide it was his brilliant ploy to get me to see this or see that and I don't stay at the anger stage for very long ....and I've certainly never expressed it to him ... I am wondering why anger is so important to the process? Is it all part of individuation?? I wasn't sure why I have so many issues with transference but I finally found a good explanation on the internet - which was that transference issues are really bad when the family is highly enmeshed .... and that made sense to me ... I guess if I felt valued as a person, I would be able to risk being angry because my needs would be respected ..... but that wasn't the case in my family ....

I hope you don't mind me asking these questions... I value your compassion and your insight ... You are always so quick to say something healing to someone else .... and I know you are hurting today ....

If we look at everything on a bell curve .... and we say, okay, some people don't have a problem being completely self-centered even if it means that other people will hurt .... and then you have the other extreme ... people who can't bare to be even slightly self-centered because they don't want to hurt other people .... Maybe we are all at the far end of the bell curve .... the side that can't stand to be slightly self-centered because we know the pain of not getting our needs met at the expense of others getting theirs met all too well .... but it shouldn't be that the ones at one end get their needs met all the time while the others at the other extreme suffer .... there needs to be more of a balance .... our needs aren't always going to match up to our partners or our T's 100% of the time ... and if we take care of our needs, sometimes it might be at the expense of our T's .... Like my last T that I left .. I wanted to leave her sooner .... but she cried when I tried to leave her the first time and said she knows she's a better than average T, I felt bad for her and I knew maybe she'd feel like she failed if I left so I bought her a card that said above-average something .... and gave it to her ... and stayed longer than I wanted ... and she pushed me harder and faster than I could go .... and I would up developing panic attacks .... so I was taking care of her at the expense of me ....

Even this T ... as much as I like him ... and I really do like him .... I do think he would take it personally if I left .... and sometimes I've wanted to leave just to hurt him .... but I've resisted .... because I know that's not the way I want things to end .... and he is helping me ....

Sheychen,

I have followed along with a lot of your situation but could not bring myself to post because it has felt strikingly similar to the feelings and intensities going on in my own therapy right at the moment.

I apologize for not offering you support and am very sorry your therapy turned out this way. It is a terrible feeling to feel something in your gut but to struggle against it. (*sigh* sooo where I am right now) I have recently been reading "Shouldn't I Be Feeling Better By Now? Client Views of Therapy, Edited by Yvonne Bates" I wish I could say if it was helping or not, but it has been a good read, although also sad to see the ignorance of some of those in the therapy profession. (yeah, I'm a little angry and bitter)

I wish you more success in your future journeys and hope your pain does not have to continue as you seek to improve your life.

Thank you Liese and forlorn.
Liese, - I don't think TN is more or less along the path than me - but I do know that a T who can cope with the client's rage is a good T. that is all. And you don't HAVE to have anger, my problem is that I did not really HAVE anger, or a few times in my life I exploded and wondered "where the heck did THAT come from?" so the anger of September and October was a very very uncomfortable experience for me and I just could not UNDERSTAND or cognitively get a grip on it, it was pure ANGER. And it flew at my Counsellor like you would not believe.

I shall look at that book Forlorn. It is very kind of you to follow my painful thread, and I send you back my own care and kindness for your journey as you too seem to be in a difficult place.

I think I am at a new beginning - but with whom? That is the million dollar question. There are apparently attachment based psychotherapists, who work on that primarily over two years - and know it. And I think I need one of those. The main centre in England is the Bowlby centre in London and I don't know if I could get one near me - no where nr London.

I am going to take it slow and steady finding a new one. I shall interview many and work out who I feel comfortable with. Last time I did this, I worked with the T - a man - for two and half years - the first two with great success and then he sexually abused me. So - sigh - I feel trepidatious to say the least.

I have decided to re-shedule the 'saying the good things' session this Wednesday - to the following week as I have a big conference that starts that day and I would be pushed for time.

so will email her asking for a rain check.

thanks for your support, it really helps. It helps that people like TN have been through this, on my own without this forum - I would have thought I was the only one in the world whose T walked out on them when it got tough.

I still cannot believe she would not work with the rupture and come through it, when I would. I just feel she is smaller than I thought.

My smaller more vulnerable parts are still aghast, in shock, and wailing. Sigh.

Sheychen ... I didn't know about the sexual abuse from that T ... that must have been awful .... I give you so much credit for even thinking about trying again after all you've been through .... These therapists are only people and can only take us as far as they themselves have gone .... And you have to be careful .... we all do .... They are limited by their own growth, eduation, motivation, intelligence and insight ....(just like our parents, I guess) ... maybe we can take whatever we can from each one ... even the bad ... because we can all learn so much about human behavior and frailty ....

So you're going back to C ... for an only saying good things session? ..... I guess it could be a good thing ... It sounds awful though .... I might be too angry at her to make her feel good ..... Maybe you could just let her say good things to you .... I know I'm rotten ... you don't have to tell me ....

I actually just had to email her that I have to postphone this 'saying good things' session (the session was my idea, trying to make the best of a bad job)
but I have to be at a conference earlier than I expected so cannot make Weds. I have asked to meet with her the following week but may not - need more time to think about this.
I feel so deeply hurt by her, but I know that will fade in time.
She feels absolutely professional - from her point of view she is an 8 - 12 week session counsellor who sees people for current life issues or mild depression. I have major trauma and attachment issues which only surfaced once I started seeing her and she has ended with me because I am out of her remit. she feels she is well in order. HOW she did it, she will not look at. She will NOT let in any understanding of how utterly painful and shocking it has been for me. She just won't and can't. She just sighs or gets annoyed with me for being so upset about it. That from my point of view we were working til the end, and from her point of view she could terminate when ever she felt she was out of her depth and then tell me she was in her depth.
urgh

anyway, I don't want to start getting annoyed again.

I have already written to her an email saying what I appreciated and I have also given her a letter saying thank you and being magnanimous and gracious about how she has helped me. I was hoping she would give ME an affirming session - but I am not sure she is up to that.

sigh.

and yes, sexual abuse from a T is devastating. I got him struck off and all my money back. I was in such a state after that, and I never got another T til this latest C. Sigh.

They are all fallible - it is just that I seem to bring out their worst side.

My ex T of 1988-9 never hurt me intentionally and never really did anything too wrong - she just loved me back to as much wholeness as I could manage at the time.

Just hope and pray I find someone who can handle me, I find myself warning them all