quote:

So I don’t know if it is just me being fearful and expecting to lose what I have with her or is there something she needs to work on?

Heya, JM. This sounds really frustrating - particularly since you before haven't been able to get what you need from your T in terms of reassurance or apologies.

And calling a T on technique would be hard, I think.

That's what I can't determine though. Is it her or me?

Let me go even further; In July 2007 I was hospitlaized for acute gall bladder attack, I was in and out of the hosp all weekend until they finally admitted me early Monday morning. My husband was out of town and trying to get a flight back home and they wanted to do surgey on me right away, but I kept putting it off hoping I'd be ok (as I had been many other times) Then they decided to run a nuclear test to see how large the stones were and if they would be able to drop back out of the duct. The test showed I had 2-2" stones stuck in my duct and they weren't going anywhere and I was getting sicker by the minute. They agreed to put off surgery until my husband was able to be there Wednesday night. Meanwhile I called my T to tell her I was not going to make our appointment and she came to the hospital to see me and she gave me a long healing hug before she left. Is this not warm enough for me? After all she had to re-arrange her appointments with other clients and drive a half hour each way to to see me.

Then there is the recording she made for me before she left on vacation for three weeks this October. When I listen to it I hear the love and warmth generously resonating from her.

And of course the time she looked me in the eye and promised "she would never leave me. That would never happen." I felt the warmth then and vowed I'd never question it again.

So what happens in between? I should know better, but I just can't get it. Is there something wrong with me?

I've done a little thinking this afternoon, and I wonder if there is such a thing as a person who is unable to feel loved. I can hear it and experience it enough to know that it exists, but I am usually in such denial over it that I can't feel it most of the time and it often comes as a surprise when I feel it again. "Oh yeah that's right I am loved." next day its gone again. I understand there is a negative belief system to contend with but what will it actually take to undermine all of it before I exasperate everyone around me? I seriously wonder if there is a disorder or something.

I was with a friend briefly this afternoon and she was so puzzled because I mentioned this to her and she put it this way, "It baffles me that YOU of all people could feel unloved. You have a great sense of humor, you are warm and kind and people are drawn to you." It felt as though she was talking about someone else.

Can't say if it's a "disorder" or not, JM, but I really think I hear what you're saying. Despite evidence to the contrary, you're saying that you can't quite believe that you're lovable; that because of this you worry that, because you ask for reassurance all the time, you'll drive people away (because you feel like you're fundamentally unloveable and they're just looking for an 'excuse' anyway).

And that even when you do feel like, later on you can't hold onto the feeling or the belief that you're loved. It's like love peekaboo: if you can't see it, it isn't there.

Is that what it's like?

Yes, very nicely put Wynne. Although I think people, including my T, give it their best shot. But I'm just too much work. I've never had anyone call me high-maintenance or anything. I doubt that any of my friends feel that way even. But I DO.

Just Me,
I've experienced the same thing with my T. There have been times when he has felt frustrated, angry, impatient and cold. But I asked him once a long time ago how you could determine what were your feelings and what is reality and he told me you couldn't you have to ask. When you're feeling like that do you ask your T if that's how she's feeling? I went through it in my appointment today; at one point, my T just sounded really frustrated to me but when I thought about what he was actually saying it didn't fit. So I asked if he was feeling frustrated and he told me he wasn't but did it feel like he was. And I told him it did, but I suspected it was coming from me so I asked. He told me it was a good think I asked but that he really wasn't feeling that way.

It's not that you can't feel love, it's that you can't trust being loved. For good reason. When you suffer the lack of care, security and attachment that you did as a child, your view of reality, encoded on such a deep level, it isn't even conscious is that you must be unloveable because the people who are necessary to your survival aren't loving you and its TOO threatening to have them be wrong, so you decide its you. So when someone loves you now, you can feel it but then you go away and you start checking what you know to be true against that internal meter and it comes up as "FALSE" because it doesn't fit with what you know to be "True" although it's not true at all. You are loveable. The lie is that you didn't deserve love. You really do and you really are loveable. Hell, I haven't even met you in person and its obvious to me that you're quite lovable. And don't you dare say I feel that way because I haven't met you, because I swear I'll take out the HTML slapper!!

THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU! YOU JUST WEREN'T GIVEN WHAT YOU NEEDED AND DESERVED!

AG

PS Sorry about the screaming.

This is corny but it is like driving a car with a broken fuel gauge. The gauge is telling you that you are always on empty or near empty but reality is somewhere else. Can you but faith in what you know is true despite everything being bombarded with feelings that are telling you something else is true? I seriously had to do this to finally internalize that I actually mattered to my T. I didn't feel like it could even be possible but I "had" to believe it in order to keep going. It took a lot of mental effort to tell myself one thing when all of my feelings told me something else but eventually I was able to internalize it. Now I can feel it.

Does this make any sense? I guess it was part willpower and part desperation that made me challenge the negative feelings every time they popped up with thinking about what the evidence told me was really the truth.

I wish there was a diagnosis and cure for feeling like you can't be loved or accept love. I don't think there is any easy way. Darn!

Hi JM, yes, I've run into folks who cannot feel loved. They can't take love in. It isn't that they will never feel love it's that it's been too scary to feel loved in the past. When they did feel loved, they got hurt so much, they blocked it to protect themselves.

Sometimes it relates to the possibility that they get triggered when they start to feel how someone cares about them. You see, this is in contrast to how they love themselves. The gap is too big (between how someone else loves them and how little they love themselves) and so it's just easier to not feel loved.

I'm personally familiar with this one. Best way I've found--and I'm not fully there yet--is to feel the love of those who care about you in little bits. It might even be an idea to try this with your T...kinda like practicing.

Shrinklady

Thank you Shrinklady for your comments.

I can really relate.

[QUOTE] You see, this is in contrast to how they love themselves. The gap is too big (between how someone else loves them and how little they love themselves) and so it's just easier to not feel loved. [QUOTE]

My T and I are are just venturing into this we me. I don't think I have felt love for a very very long time. As soon as my T started to bring out loving feelings in meI panicked and shut down. Closed myself off. I brought this up yesterday with T, it was a very emotional session. Your comments do resonate with me.
I know I have to start liking myself first before I can feel the love others our giving me. Easier said than done.

Kats

Shrinklady,
I agree with Kats. A lot of what you said resonates with me oddly enough. I've had some revelations occur overnight that I hadn't expected to need to deal with, but I wonder if I've questioned and tested my T's strength and genuiness of her care in order to feel safe enough to go where I'm going now. I called her this morning to tell her what came up and she was 100% there, and warm and genuine as I know her to be. I see her tomorrow and I already dread having to leave her office.

Kat,
On one hand I love the feelings of comradery and being understood here by people who have went through similar struggles as I did, but on the other hand I hate to think of the hurt that such great people have suffered because of it. The gap is like a large abyss.

I not bipolar. But i gots lotsa other issues. I often be angry with me T just cuz I so much want things how I want them. I'm no good with change or if things not go how I expecting they to go. Like last night her say her phoning at 7:30pm so I ready at 7:25pm. But her didn't until 7:50. I told her I were patient for 20 minutes! But I also got angry cuz I thought her forgot to phone me. I asked her to phone when I home and not just leaves a message. I ask lots of her huh. But her say it's ok cuz her loves me still. Though i not sure I deserve it. Cuz I done lots bad really. And I figure if people knewed the lots bad I did, or even part of it, them not would love me or even like me. I trying to not think I"m evil. And then I try to think what smarts I have (cuz really I know I'm intelligent, even though maybe you not can tell by me writing and things). Robin wrote out once about how she is creative and stuff like in a little book. Anyhow, I rambling huh. HAHA.

Samy

Samy,
I know what it feels like to think that if someone gets to know you better, they won't love you anymore and they'll leave. And I know how real that fear can feel, but I really don't believe its true. We've all done bad stuff and I have a strong feeling that a lot of the stuff that you refer to doing wasn't really your choice anyway, but I'm also a firm believer in forgiveness and grace. We're all human and we all need some. You are NOT evil. And you're very loveable.

It makes me sad when you talk about yourself that way. But it sounds like you have a wonderful T which makes me happy.

AG

I have been thinking more about what Shrinklady said above. It is so true. When you get hurt by your primary attachment figures and close family members _so much_ love comes to “mean hurt” so you learn to block it out. I know 100% that I built an internal wall and I built it on purpose so no one could hurt me anymore. And that gap, which seems more like a gaping abyss that contains all the reminders of the flaming pain and hurt feelings we've experienced, sometimes creates an illusion that it is forever unattainable even when others demonstrate that it isn’t.

So I am going to take in what I can as you suggested Shrinklady, and hopefully… eventually… I will be able to accept all there is to feel. To experience it (or practice it) with my T is a very safe place to do that and she has demonstrated that she is not going to give up on me. I sort of think of it this way: When someone has been seriously ill and has not been able to eat solid foods for a long period of time, they have to slowly be introduced back into the diet; or the same way that we don’t feed an infant meat and potatoes. They can’t handle that because they can’t digest it properly. So it takes time. We all love sunshine, but to be in a very dark room where someone suddenly flings open the blinds can be extremely uncomfortable and blinding. So maybe gradual is good for some things. Not to mention that learning to love and be loved is a gradual process in the first place even when learned in infancy.

Thanks for sharing Shrinklady.

JM