Well I’ve done it again, two posts on the trot. Sorry, I seem to go in phases where I have nothing to say and suddenly I’ve got so much going on in my head it needs more than one post.
I know you guys seem old hands at this therapy business, so maybe what I want to talk about is something that you’ve all long ago gone past, left behind. But maybe you can still remember, let me know if it was the same for you.
I’ve been with a new therapist for just over 5 months now, and the last few sessions have been pretty pivotal in my now believing that finally I might just be able to get the help I’ve been looking for from therapy for years.
I’ve been able to get angry at my therapist, really angry, and for the first time in my life that’s not only been ok, but the very person at whom I’m angry has gone out of his way to understand what I’m angry about - I’ve experienced myself finally as having my feelings (me) respected, and had my anger listened to and heard. I don’t think I’m even aware myself yet of just how amazing that experience has been.
But the thing I’m thinking about right now is that suddenly (having finally had the experience of expressing my feelings as being more than ok) I want to keep on expressing - everything. I want to say what I really think express what I really feel about EVERYTHING, in the here and now, all the time. I don’t want anymore to have to keep making an effort to remember things, I don’t want anymore to have to keep on trying to understand the reasons for how I feel, to understand what’s going on in me that’s wrong that needs ‘fixing’ I don’t want to CHANGE anything I just want to express and express and express on and on and on let it all out keep letting it all out be genuine authentic really ME.
It’s as if I’ve accidentally lifted the lid on the box in which I’ve had to stuff away how I really feel, what I really think, who I really am, and a really scary ‘bad’ feeling has actually managed to get out and that’s been so GOOD I now want to dismantle the box altogether and let the rest of it all come out.
Of course the only reason it’s been so good is that I’ve had a good therapist validate and respect those angry feelings, and I know that I can’t go around in the real world doing what I’ve been allowed to in therapy. So really I have to shove it all back in the box and wait until therapy sessions to open the lid again. But that’s what’s getting me now, that the whole point of therapy is to undo, resolve, fix, change, understand, and I don’t want to do that right now, I just want to let out how I feel and damn the having to understand what it all means or reveals about me and how it’s all wrong and needs fixing.
I’m tired of having to understand everything about me all the time, right now I just want to react to things the way I spontaneously react without having to pick over every feeling and thought trying to work out what it all reveals about me and what I’m supposed to change in order to ‘get better’. I just want to feel what I do feel right now. And keep on expressing those feelings. And keep on having them respected and validated.
I feel really stuck. Wanting to get out all the blocked up and stuffed away feelings and thoughts, and knowing at the same time that I’m supposed to be watching them, trying to understand how and why and pinpointing what needs to change. Arrggghhh!!!!
Original Post
It sounds like you are at the point in therapy that I would like to get to! Most of my sessions so far are spent intellectualizing and explaining...behind which is the assumption that now I don't have to get messy and actually feel it, because now I've got it all figured out. 
Every so often I start to feel something...and then I jump back out into explanations, rationalizations, many of which focus on other people. So personally I think your ability and willingness to just "let it all hang out" is terrific!
