Halo,
I think you have entered the heart of your healing. There is such incredible loss and pain surrounding what we didn't get as children from our parents (and sometimes about what we did get) and when we were children we had NO ability or capacity to feel that pain let alone know how to handle it. And so we buried it incredibly deep and went on a life long quest to get what we didn't get. But there are some things which once missed are impossible to get. So our Ts can provide a secure attachment, a dependable other who can teach us how to handle our feelings, and provide an accurate reflection so that we can learn that so much of what we think about ourselves are lies. But there are two things they provide which I believe to be the most important. They hold the boundaries so that we are forced to face the truth that therapy is NOT enough, that no matter how hard we try and how much our Ts care for us, we cannot get now what we didn't get then. And when we come to that realization as you have now, they provide a safe, caring place for us to grieve. For it is in that grieving that our loss is healed and we recover ourselves, our feelings and our vitality so that we can live a fully engaged life instead of being forever in pursuit of that which we cannot have.

It takes an unspeakable amount of courage to come to where you are. My T once told me that facing this grief was probably the hardest thing I would ever do. But there is a real relief in putting down the impossible and turning to deal with what you can.

And you're right about the transference. There are times where it will feel very strong again, but you'll continue to feel a lessening of the intensity because you won't need it as much. I'm not sure about the borderline as its not my diagnosis, but I will say that getting to where you are now and the grieving I did after have help me to have a much clearer view of who I am and what reality is, and how to be more compassionate with myself. So when the bad thoughts, the desert experiences, come back, I can stave them off so much more quickly and move past them because I now recognize them for what they are. And I was finally able to know that I was truly secure with my T, that the connection was there no matter what I did or how far or how long we were apart. Having that to rest on makes everything else much easier to deal with.

You should be very proud of yourself, you have persevered in the face of so much pain and abuse to come out whole on the other side.

(((((((Halo))))))))

AG

Thank you for your reply AG, I want you to know that I cherish every work you have written. I have always been soothed by your posts, even when it is not what I wanted to hear lol.

Do you mean that there is a lot of grief to come? Is that to be expected to happen from this point? And you are so right, I can face it now, it can't physically harm me ever again and I take great strength from knowing that the adult me is going to protect all the parts of me fiercely! My mother and sisters have caused me so much pain and anguish and I am so much stronger by going this process that they have absolutely no chance to hurt me ever again.

So I do think I am ready to face the grief. I have spent so many years running from the grief and pain and deluding myself that all was ok.

Dear Halo and AG,
Thank you for your insightful and healing posts. Halo- I am on a journey similar to yours, and also dealing with transference issues. What i recently learned is that my T is trying to love me and support me in a way that my parents never did,never could. Initally that angered me- not sure why though, but in my efforts in reaching the little girl within, I've discovered that healing has started for the sexual abuse age 4-5, maybe 6,(from a neighbor) but I hadn't yet dealt with the anger she felt later after coming to an understanding that this was wrong. (also hospitalization issues- without supportive parents- contribute to anger)Recently I too have returned to exploring and trying to hold and comport the angry child (age7-8). I also found myself being harsh and mean to my T during this process.After letting me know the affect of my mean words, he assured me that we are in this together and he is there for me as long as I need him, (He is cutting back on his practice to do other things)
I guess what i am trying to say is that feeling safe enough to explore thes dark holes with someone else (here or with your T) makes the process a little less scary. It is as if someone is holding my hand as I deal with the hurt. There is power in knowing that you are not alone. My T can only do so much, (and it is a great deal) but I am also learning the power of prayer, and beginning to feel God's presence and God's love. Resting in his love is bringing me comfort and peace.
Halo- thank you for your post.
AG- once again I love hearing your wise words of wisdom.
I wish you both love and comfort on your journeys toward healing.

Thanks so much Helle, I'm so glad to hear that what I wrote helped you. And I'm very glad to hear that you are drawing closer to God, I believe ultimately He is the source of all our healing. And I really have no explanation why the presence of a loving other to hear you and understand is so very healing but that is where the healing takes place. It is through connection I think that the healing flows.

Halo, you are too gracious to thank me for event the stuff you don't want to hear. And in my experience when I hit this point is when the real work of grieving began. But I am aware that everyone's healing path is different so it's not an absolute that it will happen. But once I starting letting myself realize the loss, we uncovered a lot of emotional memories and realizations that I need to mourn. I spent a lot of time crying and just being sad. But it had such a different quality. There is such a difference between despair (which is what I felt as a child) and this grief I was experiencing as an adult. My T asked me what the difference was and I said that grief includes hope. That after the sadness, you will heal and things will get better. It was still scary to go towards because I still felt that if I allowed myself to feel the grief it would go on forever. It didn't, but I will admit it was pretty intense. But on the other side of the grief I experienced a level of connection and acceptance that was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. The truth is, that despite how painful it could be at times, I KNEW it was going to be ok. In some ways, my mourning was an indication to myself that I finally believed in my worth because what was done to me was worth mourning. I actually wrote a poem about it which I include below:

Endgame
Multiple layers of defense
Emotions wielded as armor
Anger to keep my distance
Jealousy to withhold my trust
Desire to focus elsewhere
To provide any other reason for pain, for longing,
for unrequited needs
Fear threading through, warp and weft
Being scared to look, to know, to acknowledge
The ever present fear of annihilation
All dashed impotently against a refusal to defend, give way or leave
A stillness held throughout the fury of a tempest
Loving patience, trusting silence
Until the storm was spent and fear drained away
Now safe, I stand naked before my grief
The sadness at my core exposed at last
My feelings, mine, my fitting mourning
Freed to course through me
But no longer alone, I stand fast
The grief flows past, while I and another remain

And I agree that you're ready. You're knowledge of both your worth and your ability that now you can protect and take care of yourself in a way that wasn't possible then is all that you need. If it's true for you, if you need to grieve now, please come and talk about it. I found it difficult to express while it was going on and sometimes felt foolish for having such intense, overwhelming feelings for losses that happened so long ago, but there was nothing foolish about it. You deserve to be heard.

AG

Hi All

Inner Child / Grieving / Self Nurturing
I saw my T today and I talked to her about both my inner child who keeps crying out for nuturing (especially since I keep loving and nurturing my two kids). My T says I need to learn to love and nuture myself and to acknowledge and grieve for what I didn't get from my mum that I needed as a child.)

My T also said it is very healthy, normal and important for all adults (even ones who had "good enough" parenting )to nuture themselves - to be kind to themselves - to take care of themselves. I still find it hard to do though.

Transference
I finally gave my T today a copy of "In Session" to read. I am feeling really needy with her at the moment. We talked about the whole infant need for dependency and attachment. She said this is very normal (given my upbringing). BUT she also went on to say that I should keep in mind that all children / teenagers /adults dip in and out their entire lives about their feelings regarding dependency and attachment (ie: It's not something we tick off the list as infants when it's successfully given to us by our carers but it's something that resurfaces at times throughout our lives when we are experiencing / learning something new - especially when that something new is hard).

She described babies/toddlers who cry when their mum leaves the room, she described preschoolers who are happy and independent one day at kinder dropo off but clingy the next, she described teenagers who want / need their mum and then next second they are heading out with their friends exclaiming that "mum doesn't know anything"! My T also said that some adults will ring their parent / aunt /best friend when they need connection. I don't think I am articulating this well but for the first time I kind of got that transference wasn't a weird creepy psychology thing but more of a thing that occurs on an ongoing basis (ie: something that you dip in and out of depending on where you are at in life). The intensity to which you feel it depends upon what is going on in your life but that I am to know that it is healthy and normal for adults to have support and be looked after some of the time too. Again, I don't think I have articulated this very well. Does anyone out there get what I mean????!!!!!

Really Feeling / Being Present in Sessions / Dissociation
One final thing my T & I talked about today is that I am very good at intellectulising therapy but that I find it REALLY HARD to sit and feel my real feelings in front of her. Also, I am only becoming aware that I tune out (dissociate) during our sessions (and in my life!). I'm not even aware I'm doing it but from what I have read, it means my body goes into over load and shuts down temporarily as a protective mechanism. Like today, I finally plucked up the courage to ask my T if she thinks about me outside of our sessions and I heard "yes" - and then I was gone. I only know I was gone b/c the when I was fully aware again my T was talking and I said to her "I'm sorry I've just been nodding my head in agreement with what you are saying but I have no idea of what you have just said for the past 5 minutes". My T back tracked through our conversation and thinks that my question and her answer triggered me into feeling overloaded. So I am going to try and work on being more present in my sessions and my T is going to try and be attuned as to when I am there and when I'm not.

Cheers!
I'm OK

Hi
I'm OK, You don't know how helpful it is for me to read your post and realise I am not the only one that zones out in sessions. I don't do it so much at other times cos I am careful with my conversations, but it happens a lot in sesions and I sometimes think I must be mad. I can't talk to others about it cos I think they would be really shocked and probably not understand. I'm aware of just sitting frozen and silent for what feels like eternity not knowing how to respond or even not sure of where I am. I too am expert at intellectualising everything, but feelings scare me and when we talk about them that's when it happens. Any ideas as to how to be more present would be good.

AG I loved your poem, so beautifully put and so true.

Add me to the group that zones out. I do this often in therapy, especially whenever my T starts talking about something that feels threatening or unsafe to me. Then I miss out on what he said because I'm off floating somewhere else. To his credit, he is starting to be much more aware of me when I do this and he calls me on it and brings me back. But I still dissociate fairly often. I also intellectualize all the time. It's a defense mechanism that keeps us in our left brains and away from our feelings. I have always done this and only now I can understand why I do this. Most times it just feels safer in my left brain.

TN

totally. . . hear the words but no idea what they mean. So glad I am not on my own with this. Thanks for sharing.

Hi All,
It totally makes sense that you're "zoning" out in sessions. Disassociation is a defense mechnism that is often employed by children who experience long term trauma or neglect in their childhood. The experience is overwhelming, the emotions so intense and the resources non-existant to deal with what is going on. So we "go away". In it's most severe state we stop taking in external stimuli. But the experiences get stored away sometimes only in our bodies and emotional memories, and are part of what drives us to behave the way we do, often unconsciously.

Therapy is an attempt to bring these unconscious motivations and buried feelings to the surface so that we can process them and integrate them so that we are no longer driven by them. But your initial experiences taught you that it's really dangerous to go near them. The last time you were near them, it almost destroyed you. So, when it comes up again, your brain goes for the tried and true and essentially chooses not to be present.

Such an important part of the work is what you're all doing. The first, and hardest step, is becoming conscious of the fact that you're doing it, that you're leaving. This allows you to concentrate and be a little more present. As you do that and good things happen instead of bad, it reduces the fear by an infintesimal amount, allowing you to be that much more present. Repeat this enough times and you'll find that you don't need to leave anymore.

I know it feels crazy-making in the present and somehow a kind of character flaw that you're not listening but know that it was a survival mechanism that made total sense when you learned it, and was even healthy in a way because you're here to talk about it. You just don't need it anymore and it's getting in the way, so working to unlearn it is a good thing to do. And you learn that by being with your therapist and letting them teach you it's safe to be present.

And please don't minimize whatever it was that first taught you to do this. One of the most difficult sessions I ever had with either of my therapists was remembering the moment when I "choose" to go away to the gray place. My therapist later told me that he watched me experience as much fear as a human being could and still live.

AG

Hi all. Sorry to have been away. I've been lurking and trying to deal with stuff from my sessions. However, I'm OK's quote below really spells out an issue for me:

quote:

My T says I need to learn to love and nuture myself and to acknowledge and grieve for what I didn't get from my mum that I needed as a child.)

I'm really toiling with how I feel towards my now deceased mother and the fallout from her role in my childhood. I just feel so angry towards her at times but also guilty for feeling so. After all, perhaps she was right and I deserved it. My T said she thought my mother had some narcissist tendencies and backed off for a bit about her a few sessions ago but has just warned me she wants to go back to it. Damn, I thought we'd finished with it and could ignore it.
Another problem I'm having is admitting to my T in some way that I trust my T; at least up to a point. I don't want to show her that I feel I can rely on or trust her. I managed to disclose some stuff which was actually really hard but when she asked me how I then felt having done so, I brushed it off. To do otherwise feels like a 'T wins, I lose' point-scoring situation confirming that I'm weak and dependent and she's clever for having wheedled something important out of me. Why do I do that? Why am I so ungenerous to her? Is this a battle between not wanting to admit there's some transference stuff happening and wanting to hear some words of comfort (whatever they may be, I'm not sure what the right words would be) versus self-protection by not showing how stuff really affects me.
I'm sorry this probably doesn't make much sense. Apologies for intruding into the thread.

Welcome back, Magpie. You're not intruding and you make a lot of sense. I was struck by that word 'ungenerous' because this is how I often feel towards my T. I just want to fight her and evade her. But I want her to fight back or chase me, I don't want her to go away or just ignore it.

Thanks Jones. I think I can phrase the problem a little better. I'm beginning to trust my T but I don't yet trust her with the knowledge that I'm beginning to trust her. God, what knots we get ourselves into.
But I certainly don't want her to go away. This feels like the first time I have had somebody's undivided attention, even if it is only for an hour. I just wish I could afford more than once a fortnight.

Hi all,
AG thank you for expressing why we zone out so clearly. My T has also said similar but somehow it is clearer coming from someone who has been there themselves - and I know she hasn't . Perhaps we need to kinder to ourselves when it happens and trust that by persevering in this processs it will gradualy stop. Does anyone get any warning because I don't seem to, can even find I have fallen asleep or done things I don't remember.

Magpie, I do tell my T I trust her - I thinks it helps me and her to know but it still feels hard to do, like you are handing over something very precious. I think my T knows that, and somehow that seems to help.