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He wanted me to see the concern on his face instead of the annoyance/anger I anticipated and projected.

Oh Debbye, Debbye,

He really does care. I do not believe the good T's could do this job without caring. He wanted you to see and know that you were misperceiving his response.

Once I went in with a hat and sunglasses and did not want to take them off, he laughed in a gentle sort of way then took them off of me. We both laughed. His reason was the same as your T. He wanted to see me and he wanted to make sure I was seeing him. He said it keeps things real- it keeps things honest.
That was over a year ago, but I know that what your T says is the truth.
I, in the past have felt just as you did, over trauma issues. He knows that what you are doing and feeling is part of why you see him, so he is not disapointed. You will get the connection back on your next visit.
Be gentle with yourself.

Mayo

Oh- i am SURE your T doesnt hate you for this..Dont beat up yourself for this, the eye-contact is indeed hard sometimes, and your T are probably sure, why you didnt manage to see him directly in the eyes.. Espescially if you felt (in session) that he was upset and agry at you- there`s nothing more natural then looking down and away. When you ready and feel safe enough, and able to trust your T`s goodwill and care for you, this will solve itself. No hurry. Just go gently with youself, until next session. Maybe you`ll manage to tell him, some of the things you just wrote here? At least then, your T will have the chance to "correct" your fears that he is dissapointed at you.. That must be so hard to feel like. Hang in there- and keep writing if it helps a little, to get different inputs - rather than those self-critics- inputs you are giving yourself right now.

(((((((Debbye))))))) I'm sorry you had such a painful session today. Especially since what you talked about was so difficult...and it sounds like you took a huge risk and revealed something that made you very vulnerable...you worked so hard...and yet, you left feeling that you failed somehow.

FWIW I do the same thing, looking down, when I feel vulnerable. For example, today when I was with my T, I got VERY familiar with the corner of the pillow on her couch. Today it was the pillow, last week it was the corner of the carpet...you get the idea. Actually a lot of people avoid eye contact when they feel vulnerable or afraid. Eye contact is a VERY intimate thing. And did you know that there are only two situations in which people naturally (ideally, anyway) make prolonged eye contact? One is when we are a baby with our mother...and the other is during sex. So, the point I'm making is, we can only make direct eye contact to the degree in which we feel SAFE. And if you had just revealed something really scary (which it sounds like you very courageously did) then it makes total sense that you would look anywhere but your T's eyes. So how you behaved makes total sense and IMO you did not fail whatsoever.

There is no way I can be sure of how your T feels about your not making eye contact with him. But let me ask you this. How would you feel if a little girl came to you and told you something that she was ashamed of, embarrassed about, or otherwise afraid to tell you...she's standing there, head down, hands behind her back, toe kind of tracing a line in the dirt...she's telling you something that makes her very vulnerable, but she won't look up at you...how would you feel toward her? Would you "hate" her? Or, rather, would you feel a great amount of compassion toward her, and want to reassure her? Personally I'd want to scoop her up in my arms and give her a great big hug. But that's me.

I have a feeling this is how your T feels toward you. Compassionate, I mean (I don't know what his hug policy is). Again I am sorry you feel so bad, like you failed...especially right after doing something that was actually very brave because it was so scary. So I just want to say, Good Job. And I hope you get the reassurance you need when you go back next week...or even before that, from the folks here...and if you feel like taking the risk to call him and ask (if his contact policy allows for that).

Hugs,
SG

Debbye I'm sorry this happened to you. FWIW, I am struggling over this with my newT. I NEVER had a problem of eye contact with old T and would encourage everyone back then to try it because you get SO much back from looking into Ts eyes. I loved looking at my oldT, I guess because he made me feel safe and I saw so much empathy, kindness and gentleness there. It was so healing for me to see that. Occassionally I did look away from him when I was trying to focus on remembering something but usually we had excellent eye contact.

I am having a really hard time with newT maybe because I'm not feeling safe anywhere after what happened to me with oldT. It's so hard but he is insistent on my looking at him and has called me on it a few times. Today I kinda confronted him on it and told him that I was not feeling safe enough to look at him so much. He said he wants me to look at him so I don't miss what he is feeling and how much he is actively involved in what we are discussing. He also told me that I look away when he tries to tell me something nice about myself... I look down as if to say "I don't believe a word of what you are saying" and he wants me to take his words in and believe them. I tried a little harder today to look at him and at one point I "thought" I saw him tear up a bit when I was so upset over oldT. That was a good kind of connecting moment as I have really been wrestling with trying to connect to anyone these days.

So I can see your Ts point about the eye contact but if you are not ready (like I have not been these past weeks) it just makes you feel worse (as I told newT today) because in my case, I felt like I was failing at something he wanted me to do. I am very familiar with his shoes and study them each week but today I noticed his pink shirt and that meant I was really looking at him not the shoes.

I think it's a slow process and it varies with the subject matter. I have, like Mayo, sat in my oldT's office with my sunglasses on and when he asked me to take them off I told him I was too messy (from crying) and he told me messy was okay and even good in therapy. At the end I did take them off to see him better...I was missing him. Another time I was so upset I asked him for a blanket to put over my head so he could not see me and he said he would still be able to see me even with the blanket, that I could not hide from him. I didn't really want to hide but the shame was somewhat overwhelming. I think it felt reassuring that I could not disappear from him and that he didn't WANT me to disappear.

Maybe you could try to look at him for quick short periods and slowly increase the time. Maybe once you feel safer it will become easier and you will get so much more from your sessions. I think the non-verbals, the body language is really important too and we can miss so much of that.

I do not think he thinks badly of you at all. I think he is trying to help you and wants the best for you. And Debbye, nothing you do in therapy is ever a waste of time. I hope that one day he will be able to help you feel safe enough to even stare at him! But please dont' be so hard on yourself. We certainly understand how difficult this is and we are here to support and help you.

Hugs to you
TN

debbye, this struck a note with me, as, growing up, my parents and i could never have eye contact. it is something that they could not maintain, and i felt too ashamed to pursue.

anyway, perhaps that is some of your thoughts?? shame??

y'no, i'm just poking my head in here, but, it is YOUR session, so don't feel he hates you for that. y'no?? go easy on yourself, and try a bit next time to get back to eye contact. but, i know it is hard. and too, i REALLY admire how he was trying to get that for you. he will be patient, but, he obviously wanted you to see his care and concern. to me, that says alot about him, AND his compassion towards you. so, give it time, don't hang your head low because of this element. you are trying, that is enough. it is hard, and he obviously recognized that for you, and was encouraging, not condemning. you will be ok, it will seem easier just venting it out here, and sometimes i just start out the session with what was hardest about the last time. makes it a bit more third person and objective. and gets the tension right on out in the open rather than ignoring the elephant in the room!!

good luck, jill

LOL, I’ve actually thought of going in with sunglasses on because it bothers me that my T’s so keen on eye contact, Mayo! I hope you’re right about next time. Does it make sense to say that when I talk to him about some bad thing that it makes me feel like he’s part of the bad thing? I couldn’t look at him even though I wanted to, it was the weirdest feeling.

Frog, too late, I already am beating myself up. I do feel safe with him, I’ve been seeing him for over three years. So I feel guilty I couldn’t look at him, I COULDN’T! I’m really frustrated.

When you (SG) said it was normal to look down/away that makes me feel a little better. I like what you said about the little girl, and I’m hoping to god that’s how my T felt about me today. Want to hear something funny – over the summer when I was connecting with him really good, we decided it felt like I was the baby and he was the mother (that really safe connection, how a mother doesn’t hate her baby for anything, ever). I think part of it today was the holiday break and then not meeting on my regular day so I probably should have said from the start that I needed help connecting, before I brought up the obsessive thoughts. I never initiate the connecting because I feel like he won’t want to. Most of the time it just happens, and sometimes he will notice I’m not “with” him and we’ll talk a few minutes about other times when we did connect and then I can.

TN, thanks for your note too, I know you are struggling. See, you do get it, why I feel horrible. And another thing like you, I have put my jacket over my head in sessions before too. It IS about shame!!!!! I feel like, why would you want me to look at you when I’m SO DISGUSTING and I’m thinking of bad things over and over?

And last, Jill, thanks for the idea to bring it up right away next time. I just feel horrible about it and I want him to know. I emailed him right after my original poster in this thread, and he wrote me back within 30 minutes! I apologized and said I was beating myself up and asked him why would he even want me to come back, and he wrote me that he “absolutely, positively, most definitely” wants me to come back. That made me feel wonderful/wanted/forgiven.

Thank you, everyone, for your help & listening to me! It felt so good seeing everyone's responses. Thanks!!!!! ~D.

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he wrote me that he “absolutely, positively, most definitely” wants me to come back.

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That was an awesome respons,- i am so glad your T wrote this, and hey 30 minuts is a quick respons... Creds to you for mailing him about it too.

Hey, Debbye sorry I have not commented so far, I have up to my neck in my own therapy stuff. but I did want to say how we all hide and cannot do eye contact when we are experiencing shame, I often curl up in a tight ball head down. I also bury my face in a cushion.
but I did used to look at my C (now ex C) when i wanted to know how she was taking something I was finding difficult to say, and it was a quick flash of a glance, and then back to looking at the floor.
We all do it
i loved the quick responce of your T - he does care, that is obvious.
I was wondering what your compulsive thoughts are, as I am going through the same at the moment, just revealed mine to my new t yesterday. sigh. really hard to do. And just had my P cancel our meeting today cos of snow. A relief.
thank you for posting. It is helpful to hear that other people have difficulty with eye contact sometimes.

Yuck, DF, if I had to use eye contact in my job, I would be canned after one day.

Sheychen - my thoughts aren't very nice, and hard to explain, but it's like "I want to die" morphs into "I need to die" and then for people I'm angry with for hurting me, I just have really vicious thoughts about them and it's so constant that I can't concentrate on anything else, and I feel like a really bad person. It did help to tell my T about it, and he said physically hurting someone isn't going to make them understand the pain I feel inside. There's something "not right" about people getting away with hurting other people. ~D.

Hi, Debbye...I don't think I've said hi, before now, and I just wanted to. It sounds like you have a really nice T there...I'm glad for you.

Oh, I can't imagine what you are going through, eye contact must be so hard. I'm sure your T understands...he sounds really nice.

Also those compulsive thoughts sound awful, but I'm sure T would never hate you for those either. He sounds like a really accepting T. You are no a bad person for having compulsive thoughts. If you are, than I am too, cause I ahve some of those kind of thoughts that are hard to get rid of too.

Anyway, I don't much that's helpful to add, but I wanted to at least say hi! When is your next session?

BB

Thanks, BB! It's nice to know I'm not the only one. My next session is Monday. I usually go on Wednesday but Thanksgiving threw off that schedule and right now I'm too scared to go nine days between sessions to get back to it. ~D.