Hi icognito,
It's good to hear from you although I'm sorry you're having such a hard time. I think you're in the midst of what my T calls "the bind." It's what makes healing from this stuff so hellish. When the source of our pain comes from the very persons who are supposed to comfort us we are left in an impossible dilemma. We're biologically hardwired to move towards connection when we're scared or hurt or angry. But when moving toward connection got us hurt we learned we had to stay away. Which is intolerable because we can't survive on our own. Our early relationships form an unconscious template for how we relate. As you move closer to your T, your amygdala (which is responsible for keeping you alive) looks at your template and tells you loudly and overwhelmingly that you're doing something dangerous and YOU HAVE TO MOVE AWAY. Then your cortex comes up with a very sophisticated reason (I can't bear to watch my T be hurt) for you to justify moving away. But the truth is that although it FEELS like you're in danger, you are actually safer in moving towards your T. But it's unbelievably difficult and scarey to keep going closer despite those fears. Because you will quite creatively and constantly look for an excuse to move away to remove yourself from the "danger." I did it for a straight two years.

You are not hurting your T, you are not responsible for his emotions. He chooses to be there for you, and part of his freely choosen responsibility is that he will provide to have his needs met elsewhere so that in his relationship with you, only your needs will matter. He has the resources and ability to handle any emotions that occur in dealing with you, so it's really ok for you to just worry about you.

Do something for me. Think about a close friend of yours coming to you with something painful and feeling hurt or sad about what they're going through. Would you want them to go away and not tell you because it's hurting you? There's no difference in the situation with your T other than the fact that your feelings are telling you that you're doing something wrong. But in this case, your feelings aren't an accurate reflection of reality.

Have you talked to your T about feeling this way? It might help you to hear his perspective on it.

AG

Hi Incognito (I still like more-cognito, if you remember!)

I'm so glad you've decided to post... I've seen you lurking and wondered how you've been doing but didn't want to pry.

quote:

A couple of months ago, I was talking about my childhood and when I looked at T he looked so sad and he looked like he cared about me. It bothered me so much. I have only been able to refer to it by email. I hate that he is hurt by caring about me. It makes it intolerable. I don't want him to care about me and I certainly don't want him hurt by my stories.

First of all, I'm so sorry to hear that you are hurting so much. It must be so confusing to want to run to your t but away at the same time. Unfortunately, I know that confusion too. I also know that there isn't much I can tell you that will help.

However, there is something I noticed in the above quote that I wanted to point out to you. There is a difference between your t being sad about something that happened to you and being hurt. They are not synonomous. Sadness is just sadness and it is not something you can inflict on someone who has good boundaries. Like AG said, he is empathetic but this relationship is set up the way it is so that his feelings don't get in the way.

The other thing I'd like to say is that this is transference... you are applying to your t a pattern that developed long ago. It's NECESSARY to go against the grain here so that you don't continue to prepare for and fight in a battle that is no longer going on. He is safe to go to. Your body tells you he's not because the people who were supposed to be safe for you before weren't. But like my t said, you developed this way of operating out of a need to survive... and it served you very well then. It wasn't bad that you learned to operate this way because in the end, you DID SURVIVE that awful situation. But you don't need to operated out of survival anymore. You are an adult now and can learn- and deserve- more from life.

It's scary but this is where a strong inner voice has to come in and talk to your younger, terrified self. It has to say, "lil incognito, I know you're scared and it is okay to be scared. But the only way for us not to always be scared is if we can talk to t about how we're feeling. He has shown us that he cares and that we can trust him. We haven't felt safe before but maybe this is how we start to feel it, by taking this next step with t. What we're doing right now isn't really helping us to stay safe, it's just closing us off from relationships all together-- we deserve more than that."

I know that's a lot and really hard to do... and who knows, maybe irrelevant to you... but I have to try to have this kind of inner dialogue with myself when I feel stuck or feel myself fleeing. I know my flight response is me reacting to something that happened long ago, something internally ingrained... so when I feel like i need to run like hell, I TRY to use that as my cue to take an inner inventory of how I'm feeling and what have triggered what. Sometimes the dialogue comes after the fact because in the moment, I'm too busy FLEEING, but that's okay for me right now. I can feel myself not staying in flight mode quite as long and moving through the process more smoothly (almost) each time.

Well, I hope this helps and if not, I hope it at least provided a good distraction from some of the pain you're feeling. I hope you keep posting as we truly are interested in you. And btw, I HARDLY think you are long winded... you are allowed to have a voice, you know.

-CT