Thanks Monte, Liese, Kashley and Beebs for your responses. Sorry I'm so long at replying. I have been really struggling with all of this and some moments feel like ending with my T, and others like I should just go in there and tell her *everything* that is bugging me about this whole "relationship". Sigh...
And while she may say that is what she *wants* me to do, I feel like it's a big slap in the face to her and like I'm the bad guy, even though some of it is her fault.
Monte,
I know you understand my struggle here. Like you, I just want to get out of this pain and not have this emotional ball and chain with me at every turn. I feel like I have truly got my back against the wall and nowhere to go but forward in a very direct and deliberate way with my T. I believe she knows she is the latest 'victim' of my attachment issues, and knows it comes from emotional deprivation in my life, from childhood, and now in my marriage and truly in *all* relationships in my current life. I am supposed to be working on asking for what I need, expressing my feelings instead of keeping them to myself and then feeling resentment, and similar things. Then I am to journal about my successes in doing so. I don't really know how to do any of this with people, and feel stuck in that assignment. It is what I was supposed to have done ages ago, but then didn't and got off-track on this attachment stuff. She thinks the attachment is my way (to an extent) of avoiding the other stuff I *need* to be focusing on. She understands why I am attached to her. She wants me to talk about it, but I have so much fear it is maddening.
Yes, seeing her weekly would be helpful. Perhaps in the fall when my kids are all in school all day and I can go in on a cancellation she might have, it might work out that she could do that with me again. I really should ask her. Again, I lack the courage.
I debate with myself over the emailing. I got into such trouble with my PT neighbor with emailing him. It is what ultimately ruined my relationship with him because I had such a need for connection with him that he didn't understand or know about, and when he answered me with really brief responses I got angry and shot off some of that anger to him in email. Of course I *know* my T is different, and so is the relationship, but I guess I really fear screwing things up with her, and becoming very dependent on her responses. I feel like I might be setting myself up for more heartache and disappointment, if you know what I mean. But I completely understand what you're saying about the connection being SO important to maintain. I too feel like I have two Ts; the one in real life, and the one in my head. And no, there is no real congruence in the two of them. Perhaps I need to explain it that way to my T so she can understand the need for connection on my off weeks. When she was calling me to check in for those months, it was very helpful. But she just falls off the wagon and forgets me, and I can't summon the courage to do what she asked me to and call her up and gently remind her that she forgot me. That would be super humiliating. So she put the onus on me to do the calling if I need to talk to her about something. Well, of course I need to talk to her, even if I have no pressing issue. I just need the connection. Somehow (I think) she doesn't seem to really *get* that.
I had an awful dream about her the other morning. It had me very unsettled. I dreamed that I was staying in her office while my H was in hospital for some crazy condition, and while she was her usual self with me she was VERY different with this employee in the office. They went upstairs (which was just another open area up a few stairs from where I was in her office) and I overheard their conversation and my T was *totally* different than she is with me. She was cussing (which is rare in sessions, and then it's only mild stuff) and her personality was SO different she sounded like a completely different person with T's voice. It made me wonder how much of what I see in session is 'real' and not just some act.
I hate dreams like that. I have been tempted to call her and tell her I am struggling, but I feel like she'll expect some really big issue (which she probably won't), and I don't feel like what I'm dealing with warrants an emergency call to her while she is on vacation.
Thanks for your understanding, Monte. I know you really 'get' this stuff, and while I hate it for the both of us too, it is a comfort to not be alone in this.
Liese,
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I wasn't talking to him because I thought he was uneasy with my feelings. He thought I was uneasy talking about my feelings and so he was not pushing me as hard as he should have. And we got stuck too.
This is exactly how things are with my T, I think. Problem is, I have outright told my T (in writing, which she read out loud to me) that I know I have made her uncomfortable with my issues, and she DID NOT even contradict that for me. So I feel like I am right; I do make her uncomfortable. Maybe not, but I think she would have told me that she's not uncomfortable with it if she really wasn't.
That's why I struggle SO MUCH with talking about my feelings with her. I expect that she would disqualify something for me if it wasn't true, but she doesn't.
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I think the answer here is to try to talk to your T about your obsessiveness about her. Maybe she can help you erase any shame and disgust you feel about yourself.
I think I will write her a letter about this obesessiveness and read it to her. She once handed me her OCD workbook (when I was 'ending' with her a few months ago) because she said that the obsessive component is troublesome to her. She was hoping that the suggestions in the chapter on Pure Obesession (different than typical OCD) would be helpful for me in relieving some of the obsessiveness. That was kind of an eye opener for me to have her think I have some form of OCD, and she was trying to propose that I see a T in the office there that does OCD work with patients. I came back with her workbook and told her it didn't have any ideas that I felt would help me, because frankly (and I didn't tell her this, but should have) OCD and this attachment obsession really don't have much in common, IMO.
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The obsessiveness just comes down to unmet emotional needs. And I guess they can be unmet for a variety of reasons. But, the reason they are currently unmet is not your fault. For me, whenever I've popped my "T" bubble and realized that my obsessiveness really isn't about him but the things in life that I want and how far I am from having those, the weight of that acknowledgement sometimes is too huge and painful to bear.
I'm with you on this. I realize that this is really a huge part of it. And yes, when reality hits it is VERY huge and almost unbearable.
Sorry you so closely relate to this stuff too. Thanks for your encouragement, Liese.
Kashley,
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Instead of saying what you are keeping from her is killing the relationship, she needs to look more at her approach and see if anything she is doing is leaving you *unable* to tell her what you need to say. It's different when it comes to other relationships, because those are more reciprocal. But the therapy relationship is different. Your T obviously recognizes the pattern, but she's not changing her approach to help you change yours, which is what needs to happen.
I agree with you a lot here. I am almost feeling like hoping that she will do something differently is a moot point. She is who she is and I can either accept that, or go elsewhere. That's kind of the message I'm getting, anyway.
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I'm really sorry if this is way too harsh. I just feel like you have tried so hard for so long.
Not too harh, K. I *have* tried hard for a long time now. It's getting beyond frustrating at times. Sometimes I feel like my T is doing this to push me into doing something different. Like BB said, to get ME to throw the wrench into the mix, not expect her to do it for me. I don't know. If I didn't feel the care I do from my T, I am sure I would have been out of there a long time ago. I think it's her care that keeps me coming back. It's a tough call. Thanks for your point of view on this.
Beebs,
I know you get this stuff, too. I'm sorry you're in such a bad place yourself.
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I do wonder if *we* are the ones that are supposed to throw a wrench in the normal pattern, and that if, against all odds we somehow manage to simply *force* ourselves to do that, there will be freedom and growth that will happen? Kind of like what Monte is forcing herself to do in her sessions. Not allowing her emotions to make all the decisions (i.e. run away- run away!) But making herself keep going back in there no matter what, and face it all. I agree with her that email might give things a push in your situation. When you've got painted into a corner, where speaking has become something that feels like such a huge deal now, it might be just the ticket out of that corner. The only thing is- will T be willing to address emails in session even if you don't initiate the convo? Mine didn't, so it just led to *more* unresolved stuff.
I sort of see your point here, that maybe with some Ts they see it as our responsibility to do the changing of the pattern ourselves. But then I also agree with Kashley to some extent, too. It's hard to say, isn't it? Monte is doing one heck of a fine job in pushing herself to grow by not allowing the emotions to run the show. I wish I had the courage she does.
But she has had a lot of painful experience that has brought her to this point. I think I have decided that I am tired of the pain and need to get past it SOONER than later. My T is not patient like Monte's T. She is a pusher of sorts. She calls herself "kick-butt", and in some ways, she is. Like, "here, let me kick you in the butt, MTF, and see how it feels!"
I also have to say that you made in important point about what my T will do with the email if I DO summon the courage to try that route. When I have made the painstaking effort to write her a letter and deliver it between sessions, she doesn't address it with me in session. I asked her about this I think last session, and she said it's because I said I didn't want to talk about it. And stupidly I just let it go. She said, "Would you like me to get it all out and go over it?" and I was so embarrassed and shocked that she had kept it all, and I just told her I was in a different place now that when I wrote all that stuff, which is true to some extent. I was thinking that if I wrote her something like I did that she would realize it needed to be discussed in person, and that I brought that material up because it was bothering me and needed some resolution. I guess we're definitely not on the same page with that stuff. Sort of like your T.
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He was *always* waiting for *me* to be the one to bridge the divide between us, even though he was at least partially responsible for creating that divide in the first place. How was I to know it was safe? How are you to know it is safe, now, MTF? However, I will say I wish I had consistently made the decision to *force* myself to say something to bridge that divide- anything. Because at some point it *does* just die, and then you have to walk away. I tried to walk across that divide after I had already given up the notion that my T would meet me, or come after me- and even doing that, it didn't really mean anything to me anymore, even though my T was now pleased with the way sessions were going- it just felt like one more abuse, one more time when I gave in on getting my needs met and carried it when I didn't feel capable. It lost it's power to affect me, I had already "died," in some sense.
One thing you don't need to be left with is the notion that therapy failing is entirely your fault. It takes two to make any relationship therapeutic or otherwise work or fail, it is never one-sided. But I do beleive that it is a therapeutic decision that your T is making, to ask you to be the one to take the first step. It is very true that if you choose not to, she will let the relationship die, MTF. Right or wrong of her, therapeutically- I have no idea, I'm no shrink. But she is leaving the responsibility with you, and you can't make her stop doing that, because she won't- since she really believes that this is in your best interest- most likely.
This really strikes me hard, BB. It is true, I think, that my T *will* let the relationship die if I don't do what she thinks is my part in this. And you are right to ask how do we know it is safe? I don't feel it is safe to try to bridge that divide. I don't know where that comes from exactly. I don't know if it's my T's past reactions to me, or if it comes from childhood stuff. I have tried to get answers and reactions from her, to get her perspective, point of view, feelings, ideas, etc., and have failed on many occasions to get *anything* that I needed from her for the huge effort I feel I have put into it. It is ever and always frustrating, to say the least.
I'm sorry for where you are at, BB. It is so distressing to put so much into a 'relationship' that is supposed to be therapeutic only to come out of it more damaged and hurt than when you started. I'm still trying to sort out for myself if that is where I am at also. And how do you really *know* for sure?
It's a VERY difficult decision. ((((Beebs))))
MTF