Incognito:

I can definitely relate to this:

"I think my childhood has won and I can't speak."

I wonder if at times we do need to just 'be' with the Therapist and not have to say anything. Even if we are struggling to find the words or bring an issue up, we are still there.

Sometimes when I go to my appt. and can't talk...I will say something like, 'Is it okay just for me to be?' As I just read that...I thought when I said it, I meant it towards the Therapist...but I am saying that to myself, as well.

I know what it is like to be stuck and frustrated. Sometimes, the question is, "What's the point?" I think someone once told me on this forum that we just have to keep showing up.

I may be off the mark a little bit...but sometimes when we can't talk about something...we are not intentionally being resistant...our bodies are giving us an indication of what we can handle and what we can't. It is important to listen to those cues.

It must be comforting and reassuring to know that you have a Therapist where trust is established to the degree that it has been.

I hope things improve for you.

T.

What about writing down some keys words, not sentences or phrases just one word points. I am also like you, have difficulty in using my voice. I find that if I have something I want to talk about, it all comes rushing into my head and in a muddle, then I can't even write it down because it is coming so fast, but just some key words might help, just a thought.

Hello there Incognito. I’m sorry you’re struggling with connecting in therapy. I totally get how you must have been feeling about the puzzle and I think he’s right, there’s a lot of stuff behind that situation that sounds big.

I can’t really relate to the not talking though (rolling my eyes here because if there’s one thing I don’t have an issue with, it’s not talking enough. In fact I’m the other extreme, I talk TOO much, and end up saying nothing.)

Hm actually that puts both of us in the same boat. Neither of us are managing to convey what we want to be heard. Don’t beat yourself up about not being able to talk, it won’t be the fact of not getting the words out that’s the issue, but the feelings that are preventing you from expressing what you need to.

Funny how your T said it was the details and stories of your life that is the basis of therapy. My new P said something similar to me the other day, that she hardly knows anything about me, not what I like nor what I do nor what my hopes dreams and goals are. I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at that too and thinking, well why haven’t you bloody asked me then? When you’ve only got an hour at a time and there are other more pressing issues on my mind, gaily talking about my real world life does not make it onto the list of things to talk about!

But I do see what she meant, just as I see what your T means. I had a previous T who made the same sort of comment, he wondered what my day to day life was like so I made myself write out a typical day and went in and told him about it. You would not believe how fraught and frightening and awful that was, SO MANY rubbish feelings came up in the telling. I think I posted about it somewhere here.

So the point of all that is, maybe you could think about switching tack and giving the daily routine/stories of your life thing a go. That might be where the feelings you need to deal with are lurking?

Hugs to you (((( Incognito ))))

LL

Sorry talking is so hard, cogsy. I know how hard it is sometimes just to spit things out. There are times when I've just had to accept that I wasn't ready to say certain things and I would have to wait on it until I was.

Related to details of everyday life though, you may be interested to hear that the famous Irvin Yalom has said one thing he does with every one of his clients is to have them describe a typical day in their life. He says it gives him information that he can't get any other way. I thought about that some, and realized I would have a hard time honestly describing my day in detail because there are parts of it I'd probably feel shame about, like they were too personal to tell. But I found it really interesting that he said that.

TAS, what's the point is what goes through my mind constantly. I have improved in many ways and therapy is so difficult and it seems to me I rarely feel okay in the room with my therapist. My relationship in my real life have been getting better and better and funnily enough I find it easier to talk in real life situations that used to give me a lot of anxiety. So therapy has worked but maybe it isn't going to keep working or maybe it will never get any easier which is horrifying to me.

scars, I do write things down but then I just sit there and fight myself to read them. Nothing seems worth saying at that point.

LL and BLT, just to clarify I don't think my T was saying I could only talk about my "real" life. I think he was saying that I needed to talk about details and stories about what I was talking about. So life stories are important but in the case of the puzzle I can say that I am hurt that he was going to pack it away and I hate myself for caring so much about so small a thing. Then he tells me why he thinks it is so important. Then I think he wants to hear more about how I feel or what I think the puzzle means or what I would like to do with it and so quickly flip into everything is hopeless. I don't know how to admit some of the things I think about because I am so ashamed of myself. I freeze up because I am sure he knows what I want to say but he says he doesn't. Sometimes I feel like a toddler having a tantrum and I am taking out a lifetime of anger on my T.

((((((COGS)))))

I needed to read your blog to get a handle on your last couple of sessions before I replied.

quote:

I’m screaming inside but I am saying nothing.

That sounds brutal. It sounds like you want to make a connection but you don't know how. You want to reach out but you can't. It's like being trapped inside yourself.

quote:

He said it would be good to talk about that pain and what it feels like to have to leave and how it resonates with the end of therapy completely and then he sat there. I felt sad because that does describe how I feel like all this pain gets stirred up in therapy and then I am left alone to endure it. I don’t know what else I should have said but I am left with the feeling that M was saying “we could really do good therapy if you would do ???” but he won’t tell me what I have to do.

This struck me, Cogs, because I used to be in such pain at the end of each session. T and I finally decided after reading some Kathly Steele that I was stuck in the despair phase of separation. He worked hard to help me feel connected when we couldn't be together. Maybe this is where the puzzle comes into play for you and why it bothered you so much. The fact that he could pack it up as if you didn't exist anymore, well that would really bother me too.

It's interesting that he compared it to the end of therapy completely. To me, the end of therapy represents a lot of things but I wonder if your T was trying to make a connection to "loss".

I don't know if this is similar to what you are going through but, aside from the separation issues, the end of the sessions were difficult to me because the end felt like a loss. It was just a temporary loss. But it was a loss. My T is the only one I can talk to about "me", he's the only person who doesn't "need" something from me, he's not a burden. And, so, while there are difficult things about the sessions themselves, I'm getting all this good stuff from him that I don't get anywhere else.

What made it worse was that I couldn't express that to my T because I didn't think he felt the same way. How do you tell someone, I'm going to miss you when you don't think they are going to miss them?

Well, we did eventually talk about how the end of each session felt like a loss. And, somehow, magically, that seemed to help, just by verbalizing it.

quote:

I don’t think I can talk about my life because I can’t question him on what he is thinking or how he is reacting to me even when there isn’t a lot going on much less if I started to get into some of my more complicated issues.

Why can't you question him about what he is thinking? What is wrong with saying, "it's important to me that I know what you are thinking, if you are judging me. I NEED this in order to open up to you."

Cogs, your T is a nice guy. I think he'd respect that you need his feedback if you asked.

Please come back and tell me your thoughts. I'd love to know if this makes any sense to you whatsoever.

Liese,

Your thoughts make a lot of sense. In one sense I dread therapy and my sessions because I find it so difficult to know what to talk about. When I'm dealing with certain issues then my sessions have been incredible so I know that I trust my T. He listens to me, he doesn't appear to judge me. He showed me that I was in a lot of pain, that I had a lot of reason for the pain, and I deserved a life where I didn't carry the pain around like a thousand pound weight. So leaving a session is painful even if I haven't been saying much because I might have something I need to talk about when I leave and I won't be able to. It is a loss every session and eventually I won't see him again.

I don't talk much about the feelings of loss because I know that nothing can be done. He can't be there for me all the time. I hate how one-sided it is. He doesn't miss me and even worse I'm afraid that he dreads the days he has to have a session with me. We've touched on some of my feelings. I have two sessions and week and I usually email him the evening after my session and he responds the next day so that I am in contact with him 4 days a week usually. I've told him I feel the urge to contact him everyday even though I'm afraid I'm pissing him off. I sometimes refer to his incognito-free days.

In some ways I think he knows how I feel about him and accepts it but I can't say it. It feels really important that I say it because I am afraid he doesn't know and if he finds out it will be too much or he'll withdraw (kind of like I had no idea you felt like that so I'm going to take a big step back). So when I'm not in his office I am determined to tell him because it isn't fair he doesn't know and then I freeze up over and over again.

Now that a day has passed since my session and I reread the email I sent him after it I realized that I've said almost everything in it before. I feel like a toddler having a tantrum going "you don't understand me"; "therapy doesn't work"; "it's hopeless" even when I don't really believe it or his actions or the circumstances don't support those ideas anymore because it is safer to keep saying those things.

sorry this got so long but I've been thinking a lot in the last 36 hours.

(((COGS)))

quote:

I don't talk much about the feelings of loss because I know that nothing can be done. He can't be there for me all the time.

Sometimes I find talking about it helps even if nothing can be done about it. Good luck.