I'm so sorry LL for your obvious pain and anguish over this T. I'm not sure I'm the one to respond to you because I have my own ax to grind over Ts and therapy in general. It has hurt me so badly and my family too. BUT I will say this for my T... when I decided to change seats from his saggy couch to the french chair he never said a word, just swiveled his chair around to face me in my new spot. Towards the end of the session I asked him if he was going to remark on my new seat and he smiled, sort of amused and asked me if the couch was "too low" for me. I then smiled back (well first because I love when he smiles at me and I can't resist smiling back at him) because he was a tiny bit right but really it was because I wanted to sit closer to him and I hated having the table between us and that is what I told him. I said I didn't want anything including a table between us. He totally understood and told me I was very brave for telling him that. We never spoke of it again and I loved my new seat.

I have no idea what therapeutic reason there could be for sitting in a certain spot in the room. What rubbish that is! He should have been eager to discuss the change with you or accepted your explanation for it. Therapy is about the patient not the T and how HE is feeling about things. I have noticed that some Ts are more concerned about themselves and a large majority of them should be banned from the profession. My own T should never see adult patients, he needs to stick to kids and avoid any female with depression/anxiety.

Okay sorry back to you... first of I thought Psychoanalytical Ts did not talk much at all so this seems odd to me that he talks so much and does not probe into your feelings and ask pointed questions. One of my new Ts (T4) is like this. He is smart but does not say too much and asks very good questions. I have no connection to him though...no eye contact. LL I know you have been to see a lot of Ts (I have seen 5 so far) and I know how frustrating and hopeless it seems when you cannot connect and then you think you find a good one only to realize that he is not Mr. Right T for you. I don't think this has anything to do with you it's just the luck of the draw that you have not found someone for your needs. I know you are overseas from me and I wonder if Ts there practice differently than in the states.

I want to assure you that you have done nothing wrong at all and yes you are suppose to be there to learn to get your needs met to ask for what you need and to do the talking yourself. I would have to agree with you that what you discuss in your post are red flags to me. If I have learned ONE thing it is not to try to make a T into what they are not. I tried that... to make my T an attachment/trauma T and we know what happened with that.

So I would say to calm yourself as you have only been doing what you are supposed to be doing in therapy but talk to us here, collect your thoughts take your time in putting together a new plan... whether to try again with this guy or look around again for the T you need for YOU to help YOU.

I don't know if I'm much help but being on the search myself I certainly understand the fear and frustration and the hopeless feelings.

I'll be back later as the family are calling...

hugs to you and hang in there.
TN

Hi LL,

First of all, I’m so sorry, it sounds like your heart is in such a knot over this. That seriously sucks.

Personally, from what you’ve said, I like your therapist- he reminds me a lot of my own. Obviously I might feel differently if I sat in a session with him, but from what you described he sounds like someone I would like. He seems to hold strong and appropriate boundaries, take the time needed to build a strong relationship, and not jump in too deep before that happens- all things that my T did.

quote:

He starts going on about my making him feel compelled to be who I want him to be and he can’t do that he has to be who he is and it wouldn’t be any good if he responded to me in the way I’m wanting anyway (meaning ‘giving in’ to what I’m asking for - man I thought the whole point of therapy was to be able to ask for what you need and take it from there, not to be told I’m wrong for needing it in the first place.)

I think this is totally appropriate and reasonable of your T. There are needs that can be met in the limitations of the therapeutic relationship, and then there are needs that should be dealt with by displaying firm boundaries by the therapist- and that is exactly what your T did. He didn’t tell you that you’re wrong for doing that- just explained that he won’t be able to satisfy that need because he can’t fit into your description of what a T should do.

quote:

It’s like I’ve been holding onto a fantasy image of what a good T is and does, and each session I’ve been saying to myself, oh it will be ok he will be able to help me eventually, I just have to try and trust him and each session I’ve had to realize that he isn’t doing any of the things I’ve read about and heard about, that I’ve been acting AS IF he is helping me, as if he’s interested, concerned, empathic - and he’s none of those things.

I think this is key here, and very self-aware. It does sound like to me that you’ve heard and read a lot and interpreted in your head what you believe a good therapist should act like. But the fact is that no one can ever live up to our expectations. You can’t force people to behave how you picture them in your head. Maybe it would work to go in with a completely clear and open mind about what therapy is, and then adapt from there?

quote:

What’s making it so horribly scary is that I’ve gone through SO many Ts looking for the ‘right’ one

This does sound scary and you have every right to feel this way. The feeling like you’re screaming for help and no one will respond is terrifying. I’ve been there once with a P, and I can’t imagine the pain of feeling that over and over again.

I can’t tell you what you should do in terms of staying with him/looking for a new T because personally I would stay with him. But we are two different people, and only you can know if he’s right for you. Your T reminds me a lot of mine and how I felt with him in the beginning. I’m so incredibly happy I stayed with him despite really not wanting to, because I completely understand why he seemed so cold in the beginning now.

-Mac

Dear LL,

I'm in a rush but I just saw this and I want to give you a big hug. I'm SO sorry this is feeling this way for you. I want to come back and write more soon but in the meantime I hope you can look around you and see you are safe in your body and your environment - there is BIG stuff going on in your head but you are safe.

I believe you can get through this. It feels absolutely terrible, I know. But I believe these feelings have been haunting you forever, and you are strong, and you can get through them, make sense of them, feel them and let them subside. They won't tear you apart, I really believe that. You are stronger than you know, and safer than you know too.

I'm thinking of you.

Love,
Jones.

quote:

...a smile, a kind word, a nod, some warmth in his tone...it was so negative looking, no warmth, no kindness, no compassion

LL,

We seem to be in a similar boat at least in terms of feeling like our various protests are not being heard, and being met by what you describe above.

I feel the same way you do...I'm not looking for a big bear hug or a bunch of empty "hang in there" pats on the back or positive thinking platitudes. Instead, I think we're both looking for a palpable sense of kindness, empathy, encouragement and hope. It doesn't even have to be overt. These things can be communicated in a million subtle but profound ways, and I think they are important in therapy. So, you aren't doing anything wrong as far as I'm concerned.

I don't know what advice to give you, but maybe it'd be worth it to try a consult with a T who's got more of a humanistic approach? Just a thought. Keep in informed.

Russ

((((LL)))),

This is going to be short and sweet.

1) It's NOT you.
2) It's just a chair. What the heck difference does it make where you sit (to him...not to you). You should sit where you darn well feel comfortable sitting (short of in the T seat). Seriously, total BS there.
3) Your gut instincts are there for a reason and I don't think they are leading you wrong this time.
4) You deserve everything that you've been after in this exhaustive T search. I still believe you will find it and I hope and pray that you can find the strength to dig deep once again and find the T that is right for you.

LL, girl, trust your gut!! i relate to every word you say, and we are just so blasted used to taking the blame (as NO ONE ELSE SPEAKS UP!!) that it just repeats and repeats.

i have not really 'landed' myself, and i know how hard it is to be in limbo t wise, but, i just have to believe someone can be kinder than this louse. really, LL, that is just not right.

y'no?

the t's that get defensive when questioned are not good. they should use our anger and input as something to be explored. and, WE DON'T GO TO THERAPY COZ WE'VE GOT ALL THE TOOLS!!

y'no?

i know how shaken up you are, and the prospect of starting over, and i would encourage you to give this time, but, i think your instincts are right on, and i just encourage you to interview a few, or more, on the phone, research somewhat (on here is good) different modes of therapy, and even that psychology today (usa) has a directory. there are many directories, depending on the mode you go for and the size town you live in...pa institute, jungian, dbt, whatever.

i wish i could hug and encourage you and help with the black pain, it is so black when you are in between these people, and so scary to feel like you don't have a handrail. but, post here, get support here, stay in touch with everyone and breathe, sweetheart, ok?

the stories on here about crappy t's are just so sad, but, the good ones encourage me most of the time that something will help. and in my book, that is TOO SOON to try 'antics' to uncover your anger to 'work on'...the guy was downright defensive...not worth it in my (limited and warped) book. some may differ, and recall, i am on number four...so, i tend to cut bait if it starts to stink...

and good on ya for being a bit ballsy, girl!! xxoo jill

Wow, that’s really interesting UV! Very funny to think about what it would be like if my T acted like me.... lol. But it would be totally effective! I would become very sick of myself too!

In response to what you (UV) said that you don’t feel like he’s building a relationship with her-

Personally, when I look at the situation I think he is definitely working towards a relationship. I remember my T not talking very much at all for the first maybe 3 to 4 months or maybe longer... more like 5?? I dont know. He would respond to me, but it was always with something intellectual (like LL said). And then I would cut him off when he would say something like that because that wasn’t what I wanted to hear at all. He doesn’t do that anymore though. Basically he said that it takes about that time to even start the therapeutic relationship… he wanted to get to know me as a real human being, not just some client- So he could truly understand my world… something like that. Your (LL) T might not be doing this, it’s just my experience.
-Mac

quote:

Originally posted by Russ:

quote:

...a smile, a kind word, a nod, some warmth in his tone...it was so negative looking, no warmth, no kindness, no compassion

I think we're both looking for a palpable sense of kindness, empathy, encouragement and hope. It doesn't even have to be overt.

Russ

How on earth have either of you stuck with therapy this long without this?!? I wouldn't have come back after the first session. A little kindness is NOT too much to ask, imo.

And LL, changing chairs is perfectly reasonable.

I know everyone has different needs and preferences, and maybe his approach works for some. I personally prefer some warm fuzzies if I'm going to put myself through therapy hell. Good luck with whatever you decide.

LL,

I am so sorry for the depth of pain you're suffering right now. You've gotten some great responses (they're all great and super supportive). I'm not able to say much right now, but I just wanted to throw in my opinion about this. And it is just that, my opinion, so feel free to totally disregard it.

You have every right to feel the way you do. It is not your fault that your time with this T has felt so disruptive. I just think that maybe there's a level of incompatibility between you and your T that is something that would take a long time to work through (and a lot of patience and extreme levels of tolerance), which just may not be what you can handle. I believe there's tons of people who wouldn't be able to do that, myself included.

I have two opinions when it comes to this T. First, I see his seemingly cold and abrupt demeanor as an acquired taste that would only work for some clients. This is the case for any therapist, no matter how they treat their clients. LL, I think it's possible that you may have convinced yourself that this T was the right one for you because of how much you fear that your troubles in finding a T are exclusively resulting from problems in you. I can only guess...only you can know for sure.

The second thing I think about your T is that he has handled this poorly. I think he may indeed be sticking to his style of therapy in how he confronted you, but he neglected to take into account your perception of his reactions and the possible negative toll that it would take. It seems as if, in this latest session, he was trying to force his approach onto you in the hopes that some proverbial light bulb would go on. It seems to me like he reacted way too strongly when you pushed a little on his boundaries, although you didn't know until you pushed where exactly those boundaries were. Another fault on him, in my opinion, because if you didn't know where the boundaries were, it seems very inappropriate for him to react so defensively.

Anyway, I know there was more I wanted to say, but my brain stopped working. Please take care of yourself, LL.

Many, many hugs,
Kashley

(((((Lamplighter)))))

I don't have much to say... and I can't read all of this right now - just breaks my heart. I'm so super glad you shared.

I do think this guy is - well, he has some serious issues. sounds immautre in his skills or something. It's just not right. I'm so proud of you for seeing what's going on and for how you handled him and that you posted about it here - keep posting (as long as it is helpful to you). please know totally here for you.

The is one part I really want to respond to (and please just ignore this if my words are totally out of sync or off the map)

I can tell you that I have been there - searched through so many T's it was sickening. I litterally had called or contacted just about everyone in the phone book within reasonable driving distance - and none of them would work or even try. Then I found my old ex-t. She was great at first, I attached, and deeply, and then it started to go downhill - and then, much like you, I realized this wasn't helping this was making me worse and I was so scared out of my mind because I thought she was th elast T on the planet and that even if there was another T out there, I could never handle trying to look for one.

Somehow... I actually eneded up better off than I could have imagined. 9 months later I have seen great T's, I have two steady T's who have helped me learn what didn't work before, and now am doing much slower and much better work with them than I ever thought possible with anyone.

I know this is so painfiully scary to be facing the possibility that this is not the right guy. I know it's almost impossible to believe that it could get better or that anyone else can help. But if it comes to that, if you need to look for someone else - I really do believe you will find someone who is much better...

please know you are not alone. I believe in you. you are amazingly strong and courageous and things might seem so dark right now.

In your first post you said your T was making you feel like you are not fixable. That is not true! just saying that to remind you - you willl get better, this will get better...

oh lamplighter... I'm so sorry for what you are going through and how scary and hard this is. hang in there and know we are with you, ok?

many hugs and good thoughts being sent your way,
~jane

quote:

So I’m now drowning in a really really black fear - it’s so clear to me that this guy is NOT the good T I’ve been telling myself he is and where does that leave me? Totally isolated alone and even more alienated and screwed up than ever. Unfixable. Totally unfixable. He really makes me feel like all my needs and wants and thoughts and feelings are all something wrong with me, that not only am I wrong to want/need what I do, but that if I try and tell someone how what they are doing is making me feel, I’m not only wrong but that it’s my fault for making them react that way in the first place. It’s more than just invalidation, more than negation and denial, it’s also saying that I’m MAKING the other negate and invalidate me. That there’s something so wrong with my feelings and needs and wants that not only am I wrong but I’m making other people act badly by having them. I can’t begin to describe how utterly terrifying and scary and awful and groundshiftingly bad this is.

Oh, dear, dear LL. Like so many others here I just want to take care of you and help you feel okay. Your distress is very, very powerful and clear - we hear it, and yes, as Jane says, we are with you.

You are getting lots of different responses here to the situation and perhaps it's confusing to hear that variety of strong responses.

I don't want to add to your confusion or self-negation. Nor do I want in any way to invalidate what you are feeling here.

But I also want to be really honest with you about how this seems to me. It is hard because I know you feel like your whole sense of self, your connection to reality is at stake here.

But what if it weren't? What if you were going to be okay, whether or not this T is right for you, and regardless of what he thinks? What if you had a safe T waiting for you as a back-up if this exploration doesn't work out? What if your healing was already in process, and was happening through all your thinking and feeling and experiencing of these emotions? What if your healing journey is happening regardless, and is something you are going to engage in and progress with whether or not you settle with the 'right' T?

I believe that all of these things - which may be true - could fundamentally alter the quality of what you are experiencing now. I don't even think you have to wholeheartedly believe in them for them for these ideas to alter the quality of that experience. But what happens if you let yourself consider them?

I also believe - absolutely believe - that what you are experiencing *right now* is NOT some accidental unpleasant detour off the true journey of your healing. I believe this IS very much part of your journey. I have seen this fear and blackness loom for you before. It is terrible. It is absolutely not your fault. But I also believe you are in the right place. You are doing the right things, LL.

I can't say that I know whether this T is right for you or not. But I don't think you need to pull out at all costs. I don't think you need to run away from these feelings at all costs. I think these feelings are yours to feel, and that they will not destroy you. I believe you are very likely safe, dear LL.

This is a difficult question to ask, and I'll understand if you don't want to answer it, but what is it that you are most scared of in these feelings? The word that comes up over and over is 'wrong' - what would it mean if you were wrong? Do you think that it means that you wouldn't have the right to exist? Or the right to be loved? Or is it something else?

Thinking of you. Wishing we could just sit quietly together in gentle companionship.

Love,
Jones

LL

I am so sorry, just read your post but have to dash to work so will reply later but wanted to say I am so sorry for your hurt and can understand your pains and confusion. You were only being true to yourself and your feelings - that is never the wrong thing to do in session. Please do not take the blame for something that should not rest with you.

Sending you some peace and hugs,

starfish

Dear Lamplighter.

I am glad to see how much responses you have got here by now, i just woke up and read your poster. It aches to read. I can tell and undersantd that you are in deep desperate, black place right now.. that i am deeply sorry for.

I have to admit that i am very confusd albout wht to mean about your T. He OBVOIUSLY causes you plenty with guilty feelings, -that you do "wrong", behave childich etc. And most of all- i think is the sadest part- you dont think/feel your T cares about you, nor is interested in you. Well..thats kind of alfa omega for a T to make his patients feel heard, seen, spescial and so on. You have the right to feel hurtet by this lack. Every right LL.

As much as i would want to tell you that you are wrong about your T though- that he DOES care about you and so on- i also have a gut-feeling that you are so self-aware and smart to know what the truth is here. I DO BELIEVE IN YOUR INSTINCTS! and i do believe that you havent really created a fantasy image of a T- that cant exists. Of course there are plenty with T`s out there whom would have loved to have you as their Patient- AND WHOM WILL CARE, BE INTERESTED IN YOU, WANT TO GET TO KNOW YOU AND WANT TO HELP YOU. those T exicts. and its just reallt a T`s job. I dont agree that this is all on you- that you make your T "look incapable" and not good enough. You feelings are valuable info, in this case, your are hurt, and there is a reson for that. Dont punish yourself for having critical good sense.

This is a bit risky to say, bear over with me, but FWIW: i have very VERY high ideals and i had for sure created a "dream therapist" on my inner screen. Which i hold onto- and still hold onto. I met 3 T`s whom i felt all of them was crappy, and not good enough. I felt somehow superior to them- and like you; not heard. But i kept going on searching for the (dream T, i KNEW must excist somewhere) right T, (navigated after my "dream T") aksed for advice in this searching (so i wouldnot end up with a T i would think could help me, again). So my point: I did found my current T. Finally. And we have talked ALOT about my demands and the feeling i had that few T`s would be "good enough"/ smart enough/ caring enough/ proffesional enough" and so on... What striked me- as i told my T about all this- (in a self-judging tone) was that my T saw all this as positive things.
AND THATS WHY I TELL YOU THIS LL:- I WONDER IF YOU ARE SIMILAR TO SOME OF THIS. That plenty of you reactions to bad T`s only reveals your strong, sensitive ability to actually SEE their short-commings.
I dont think your critisism of the T`s should be seen at as a lack within you. Its about your qualities as well. It can be a express of your personality, in a much more postitive sense: You might be determined, have strong claims, you are ambitious, strong-willed, self-secure about what you want, and NOT want, strong instincts and critical sense. IF so: its only nutural that you do have a critical-self-aware voice, that both is directed inwards and to your T. Those are connected. Your gift for self-reflection can also be an express for your high self-ideals that you also puts on your T. Your T will sense this, and if he feels inferior to you, this will threaten him. But if he can see this as gifts instead, and not threaten, this are "gifts" in therapy and will enrich the process.

I might be way off here, but i wanted to try to put your (very sad, selv-critical) voice on hold- and show you that plenty of this are good "gifts" when you are searching for the right T. I have big thoughts about your ability to find and seek what you long for. I trust you instincts, and i think its sad that you feel you cant do that anymore. Search for what you want and need, its good and healthy needs.

When it comes to this very case, and about you maube quitting- you have to navigate and walk through this, trusting your own gut-feelings LL. i have honestly no idea whether your T is the right one, or not. I cant tell. But you can.
But i know you want desperatly some advices: I would say, dont give up yet, give your T some more time. Tell your T that you dont feel heard, tell him you consider to quit because you feel so hopeless. Let him have the chance to understand this. IF he still dont seem to take any interest in all this, and you still dont feel heard and seen, it might be the very case that you are a few stepts ahead of him (both in mature ways and intellectual ways) For there is no doubt that you know what well what therapy is about, and what demands are legitimate!!

I wish so much that your T will show himself worthy enough your trust, and that he will (not feel threatened by your strong appearance?) be able to connect with you, and gives you the feeling of being heard.
I understand it su*** feeling that he cant help you LL. Its terrible when we feel giving up ourselfs and our T`s.
But dont give up LL. I see two possible scenarios here: 1, You will quit. Your T isnt good enough. IF so, there will be others that can fill the role and be your great T. for sure. 2, You give this some more time, and your T and you will find a way to work together and he will be the one that makes you feel better and help you. (propably not always the way you want to be helped though..)
Which of this there will be , is really up to you (and your T).

LL- i am sorry if this was ramblings, i really have tried to offor you my best here,(but i still lack enlish-skills to be fully capable to express my self) in the very limited knowligde i have about your T. I care about you, and i want you to know that, and that you are definitly have no reasons to give up, either what the outcome will be. Trust yourself, your instincts, and navigation-skills. But dont let the pain therapy causes, blind you neither.

((((LL)))) *sending you plenty hope.*

quote:

Originally posted by Jones:
What if your healing was already in process, and was happening through all your thinking and feeling and experiencing of these emotions? What if your healing journey is happening regardless, and is something you are going to engage in and progress with whether or not you settle with the 'right' T?

This is a great point. I do believe there is a lot of stuff that happens in our minds "behind the scenes" and below our level of awareness. As awful as this experience is, maybe - just maybe - there's some real healing going on below the surface that is entirely of your own doing and nothing to do with any therapist.

Russ

LL - I have to tell you that while reading your post it reminded me of a shrink I had many years ago. He said nothing. Would just stare at me. Then he would ask a question I would answer it and there would be nothing again. Nothing! It was driving me crazy until I finally stopped going there. I was so uncomfortable and feeling scared that I left.

The chair and the way he responded to you, in my opinion, is just a crock of @#$%! I don't know how someone can do that crap.

I think you were very brave and right for confronting him. To hell with him I say! Seriously, if you are feeling this badly about him, then you must find another T. You can't try to work on things with someone who is causing you so much anxiety. I know it is hard to do, and that's what makes me so darn mad!
Thoughts are with you.

Smiley

Oh thankyou so much everyone for your wonderful replies. I threw myself into bed after posting what I said, my head was spinning so much trying to find a rational and positive way out of this hell, this morning it’s all a bit calmer - so long as I have a problem that I think I can work out, it lets me control the fear but boy do I feel as if the ground has shifted.

All of your replies have really helped - it’s SO good to get my fears out there and know that you guys not only sympathize but care that I’m in pain - that’s worth more than every T I’ve ever seen put together.

I’ve replied individually after this post - sorry AGAIN these are all massive posts.

Right now I’m feeling so defensive and hostile towards this T that I can’t see my being able to carry on with him. Not just because of how I’m feeling but because I know that he is not going to be any different. What surfaced in yesterday’s session was really just the culmination (and repetition) of everything that had gone before. It’s not like we’ve been having a positive time of it and suddenly there’s this rupture - it’s that there hasn’t been any kind of connection AT ALL in the first place.

What is doing me in more than anything is the fact that I’m shuttling between extremes - any dealings I’ve previously had with the psychoanalytic school have been worse than disastrous. It’s a kind of approach that is normally anathema to me - but as I’d spent so much time seeking out humanistic therapists, and found that they didn’t seem to work for me, I genuinely thought this colder more detached objective approach might well work after all. Suspended all my own doubts and fears about it and went full on into - adopting a ‘new’ image of how this approach could work and relying on that to help me interpret and deal with the coldness and detachment of this T.

I’m now sitting here thinking I should have known, I knew all along that I hated this dehumanizing approach, this style that allows a therapist to play god, to sit in the all knowing all superior position of emotionally uninvolved and critical power. Theoretically that should work, so long as the therapist takes into account the basic humanity of the client (we’re called ‘patients’ by the way). So maybe I’ve just got a bum T.

There are hundreds of red flags this guy has created, but I’ve gone along with it all because basically, I assume that I’m the one misinterpreting, loading my stuff onto the therapist, reacting from old paranoid patterns and being acutely defensive about everything. Now I can’t override the big warning bells clanging in my head. If for one moment he’d shown a sign of sympathy, understanding, or just plain empathy I’d be willing to accept it’s all my misinterpretation and it could be ‘worked through’. (By the way I do not consider it empathy when a T says ‘you are trying to make me feel as you do, you are trying to make me experience how you experience things.’ To me empathy is his feeling as I do and using it to help me, using it to convey to me that he gets how I feel, NOT simply dropping a comment like that as if all I’m doing is trying to make him suffer as I do - this whole intentionality thing gets right up my nose!)

But especially this last session I think I’m right to say that he’s got real problems relating to me in any other way than as ‘me - to blame’, ‘him - totally correct and infallible’. Red flags include: Never calling me by my name (perversely last session he did, in the context of effectively telling me off about something ‘Look Lamplighter you are ...’ (I don’t remember exactly what he said, just that I noted hallelujah he’s actually used my name for the first time ever). Extreme rigidity with boundaries. The clock episode typified that (on another thread), though in fact I discounted it as being just his having rigid boundaries and tough if I don’t like it at least he’s going to be consistent about it. But things like making me pay for every single session no matter what my reasons might be for missing them, including if I go on holiday(!!!!) (I don’t have to pay for HIS cancellations though, and his response about my having to pay for my holiday time ‘well you can take them when I do’). One session I saw that it was time to finish (that damned clock!) and got up to go (there was a natural lull in the conversation) and he said ‘sit down we haven’t finished yet there’s a minute to go’. I was so gobsmacked I could only laugh about it. I had to sit there for one extra minute until he said, now it’s time to finish. How pathetic (and in retrospect, indicative of his need to be in control of every aspect of the therapy). The fact that when I was trying to explain about how seeing the clock was very offputting to me, he said well go sit somewhere else in the room!!!!! And what happens when I do go sit somewhere else??? Hm that’s not just rigid boundaries, that’s being inconsistent with them, which tells me his boundaries shift in order to suit him. And I’d mentioned several times that it bothered me the light in my eyes because I couldn’t see him properly, (and it’s also uncomfortable when you have bright light shining into your eyes) so it wasn’t as if my wanting to sit elsewhere because of it was totally out of the blue.

Even way back at the beginning I had my doubts about this rigid adherence to boundaries - it smacked of weakness not strength. I suspected he kept such rigid boundaries not out of therapeutic benefit to the ‘patient’ but in order to shore up his own need to be in control.

What the hell is it with me - I have huge control issues (mainly in terms of having to control MYSELF all the time) and I seem to end up with Ts that have big control issues of their own. They seem to be so quick to interpret my desperation to be heard and understood as my trying to control them - can’t they see what’s going on?

On thinking about it, it’s his reaction to my switching chairs which is the biggest sign for me that I can’t trust this guy to do his job properly, and certainly I can’t trust him not to damage me badly, which makes openness and honesty on my part a joke if I have to be SO defensive as to have to be on guard in order to pick him up on everything he says. And even if I do manage to pick him up on things, he just turns it back on me as if I’m making it up, as if it’s my stuff being ‘projected’ onto him. Wow that was a really big deal to me to switch chairs, all sorts of issues and things involved in it and he totally discounted me and my feelings and made it all about him. So no matter what kind of fantasy T I’ve conjured up in my head, the bottom line is that sessions should be about ME and what’s going on in me and what things mean to me - they should not be about my having to double guess and interpret and try and understand what things mean to HIM.

I have just left a message for a new T to see if I can get to see her - I’m also shuttling back to my position that men are hopeless at this emotional understanding thing and that after all a woman might be better. Back and forth back and forth. It’s all so circular and pointless.

I’m also seriously considering calling up surgery T to see if she can’t take me back. She said she would, but of course she may have no spaces now. It’s all so very very frightening.

If I were normal I’d just cancel this guy right now not even bother turning up on Thursday - save myself £71 and a four and a half hour drive there and back (for a measly 50 minutes.) But the thing that’s pulling the rug from under me is that I have no-one else. That what if any new T I do manage to see (and I’m fast running out of Ts to see I’ve seen so many over these last 14 months) isn’t going to be any good either, what are the chances that I’m miraculously going to find someone who gets what 17 other Ts haven’t understood? Zilch. I’m the common denominator here, and it’s almost impossible for me to continue hoping that it’s not something in me that’s irreparably broken. I daren’t even think like that it’s so frightening.

I’m in a very old very familiar place of feeling totally alienated, isolated, alone - no-on there to help me, no-one there who even wants to understand me or get inside my head with me and help me sort it out. I’d tried and tried all my life to be understood so desperate in fact, and that’s how come I end up in therapy - believing that a therapist at least is TRAINED to empathize and understand. Instead I feel judged, deceived, set up, caught in some gigantic conspiracy with its aim yet again to make me experience myself as faulty, bad, in the wrong, fucked, totally unacceptable and not ok - and right now it’s working. That’s exactly how I’m experiencing myself. Despite the rational words I’m typing here now. And only some of that is paranoia.

I think I’m going through a feeling of disbelief - that what I was experiencing last night is somehow just a nightmare, something I’ve fabricated and not real. But it is real, this guy is dangerous to me no matter how well intentioned he might be. The whole psycho approach of being totally unmoved and constantly trying to get you to see how you’re faulty, how it’s all something in you that’s causing all your problems, but without giving you any emotional support in trying to deal with it - that just keys straight into what I do to myself anyway - I’m always picking myself up on everything I say and do and think and feel, automatically seeing it as revealing something bad or wrong or ‘dysfunctional’ or unacceptable in me - to have a therapist take over doing the very thing that I’m trying to change is lethal, particularly when it’s done without any sympathy empathy or human understanding. I thought I’d explained all that to him. Not heard, not listened to, not understood.


LL

p.s. Just got a call back from potential new T and can see her next Wednesday (damn and blast it she’s away the week after so I won’t get a chance to see whether we can work together for some time, but at least I’ve got something to fall back on.)

TN thank you so much for coming onto forum and posting to me - in the middle of what you’re going through, I really appreciate it. Can’t help feeling it’s so much worse for you - in my case I never got any sense of his caring or empathy or even humanness in the first place, and the fear I’m going through now is of coming up against a totally cold and almost hostile entity who is only going to end up destroying me - so I can run for the hills before I make the mistake of entrusting too much of me to him.

You’re so right about the fact that he should have been eager to discuss it with me, that’s the least I would have expected seeing as how it was such a sudden move. But unlike with your T - there was not only no acceptance of my doing it, there was also no curiousity as to why I wanted to switch, no validation one way or the other of my reasons and feelings about it despite that I tried to explain it. Yet again unheard.

For what it’s worth TN, I totally agree with you about there being an awful lot of Ts who shouldn’t be practising. And I say that based on extensive experience of many different Ts. I’m inclined to think that most of them get away with it because most people who go into therapy are doing it for the first time, and don’t really have much idea about what therapy is all about - so the T can get away with making a lot of mistakes and generally being incompetent and the clients don’t KNOW. I suspect there’s a lot of clients out there who either haven’t been particularly helped by therapy, or have got themselves into a better place through their own efforts, rather than thanks to their Ts. It’s when therapy starts messing with deeper issues of emotional abuse and trauma that Ts weaknesses do the damage.

Thank you for telling me it’s not me, that it really could be just the luck of the draw - I so need to hear that, I’m so so scared that my own fears are right, that it’s me that I somehow make these Ts not help me, that really they are helping me and I’m somehow wrongly experiencing it as their not helping me. It’s so terrifying not being able to rely on my own perceptions about these things.

You’ve also put your finger right on what was bothering me about this guy - like you I believed that psychoanalysts didn’t do much talking, and that when they did speak it was to ask pertinent and revealing questions, and to make interpretations of what client is telling them. So yeah, why the hell is he talking so much, why isn’t he asking any questions and why am I not getting potential interpretations of what I’m saying? I don’t think it’s because I have some false fantasy image of what this type of T should be like, my expectations are based on what I’ve read and heard about this style of therapy. Your T4 sounds great - maybe to start off you don’t need a connection, especially after feeling so burned by your T, maybe trust and a connection might come in time? For what it’s worth TN I am still very very angry at your T for the way he’s treated you, and if I’m still angry, then the way you’re feeling must be horrendous.

Thank you too for assuring me that I’ve done nothing wrong - it helps allay the baying voices in my head to hear that. And yes if it’s one thing I have learned from your horrific experience, it’s that if a T doesn’t do the things we need them to do off their own bat, then trying to get them to act or respond in a different way is just going to backfire. Original training/personality will always take over. That’s what happened with the T I saw for six months over Christmas - I kept pushing, he kept trying to do what I was asking for and in the end he pulled the plug - said he couldn’t help me and wouldn’t be my T again.

TN what you’ve said has been very helpful. I want to wish you lots of luck in finding a new T (and I’m glad to hear that you’re still willing to see a T) let’s both of us hope that all this crap and pain and fear is going to lead us to a place where real healing can take place.

Hugs to you (((( TN ))))

LL

Maclove, thanks for taking the time to reply to me. Have to say I felt very defensive when first reading your post and felt like arguing with you about nearly every point! From what I’ve read about your T, he doesn’t sound at all like mine (he sounds more like the T I have pictured in my head of what a good T ought to be like).

I totally agree with your comment about my wanting T to respond in a way that is not natural or normal for him and that expecting him to act differently is a recipe for disaster (I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s wrong though, because as far as I’m concerned that’s all part of my set up, WHO I AM, and that’s all I can bring, I can’t make myself into something he expects me to be either.

But the real issue is not that he ‘won’t do what I demand’ but that he is saying I AM MAKING him feel compelled to do what I want. I don’t agree with that at all. I can’t MAKE anyone do or feel or think anything - he can feel it, but he cannot blame me for MAKING him feel it. And that’s what’s going so wrong here - instead of addressing what’s going on, instead of looking into why I want him to be different, what it means to me, helping me to understand what’s going on in me and how what I do makes him perceive me in this way - he’s making a blanket statement of the ‘no correspondence will be entered into’ type that whatever is going on in him is entirely my doing, of my making, and worse, it’s something wrong that I shouldn’t be doing.

There’s no scope in his way of relating to me for me to have the opportunity, with him, of ‘exploring’ the dynamics of the interaction. I’m finding myself constantly in the position of being told things that I’m ‘making’ him feel without anything about what I’m saying or trying to say being clarified first and certainly without being given the chance to understand what he means. And it takes me quite a while to work my way to a position in my own head (usually long after session is over) where I can think huh? What does he mean by that? He doesn’t say these things as a springboard for talking about what’s going on, he says them as a kind of ‘end of conversation’ conclusion.

Sorry I’m going on about it, more for my benefit than anything because I need to clarify in my own head exactly what the problems I’m encountering with him are.

The way you are describing the process, that’s exactly how I’ve been thinking up until yesterday - accepting that I have an image in my head of what therapy ought to be like, and adapting and interpreting things to modify it to fit the reality of what’s happening in sessions. But yesterday was one modification too far. My whole basis for going along with what seem to me counterproductive and outright blocking techniques on T’s part is that he knows what he is doing, that it’s all part of an overall ‘in my best interests’ view that he has. So I’ve accepted my reactions to things he says and does (and doesn’t do, more to the point) as being ‘resistance’, ‘denial’ self defensiveness, fear on my part and not being honest about my feelings needs and wants with him.

I think the bottom line is that he’s not prepared to - or more to the point maybe doesn’t know how to - go into and help me deal with feelings themselves. That for him the therapy is not at all about feelings but is everything about intellectual understanding of how and why I am as I am and actually not even that, he seems much more preoccupied with trying to make me see that how I am is dysfunctional and has to be challenged and changed. While that probably works for a lot of people, I’ve already done all that to myself, there is nothing negative he can say about me that I haven’t already recognized and tried to change (even if it’s not true!) For me it’s my feelings that are the key to my healing, not being told that how I am is negatively affecting other people, and not being helped to understand how, either!

Maclove I’m glad you’re happy with your T - I do get what you mean by sticking with someone because ultimately you understand why he was so cold in the first place. That’s what’s been keeping me seeing this T - accepting that the coldness is somehow therapeutic, that the boundaries are necessary (and I WAS pleased initially, thinking well good he’s going to be consistent, I can rely on him to have strong boundaries that if I run up against them, he’ll help me work through how that makes me feel etc etc). But I’m really really doubtful now that my T’s boundaries are actually therapeutic and so it’s very hard for me to now go back to seeing his setting up of such rigid boundaries as being in my best interests. Basically he’s lost whatever trust I was making myself put in him, and I’m not sure that I can get that back.

Sorry to disagree with you, it’s not what you’ve said that I don’t agree with, it’s that I don’t think I can apply it to my situation. Thanks for giving me a different view though.


LL

Blanketgirl lol you made me smile - eeeuuuck kissing frogs indeed (lol except our very own forum Frog). Yet that’s about what it’s like isn’t it? Trying to find the right T is like trying to find Mr or Mrs Right, not even the perfect partner though, just someone who is GOOD ENOUGH. I’m quite happy to kiss as many frogs as it takes, so long as I can believe that one of them will turn into the good enough T. *Sigh* or maybe it’s all a fairy tale after all.

And thank you for telling me I’ve done nothing wrong - I needed to hear that yes being honest about my needs and wants is exactly what I should do in therapy - that’s been behind a lot of my motivation all along, and I’ve been totally prepared to ‘work through’ not getting my needs and wants met - but this guy isn’t even giving me the chance to do that. It’s like he’s not prepared to let me go into how it feels to not get what I want - as if he’s trying to jump straight into my having to just accept I can’t get it and tough, now CHANGE! He’s skipping the important bits.

Yes BG it was helpful, thanks

LL

Ah Jones, the powerful image-maker. Your words immediately made me think of the tiller and of my sticky little fingers still superglued to it! Thank you for your confidence in me, yes you are probably right, I’ve been in scarier and much more destructive places than this, and I’ve got enough stubbornness and obessiveness to say sod you world I’m still here kicking and screaming. Anger is the best antidote to fear. So while I can kick and scream the fear just sits there curled up in its black little fog, sneaking around the edges.

Thank you I did need to hear you tell me that everything around me is safe, my body, my environment (though Peeky Puss dying has put a big dent in the home safety factor) nevertheless, it’s helped me get out of my black fear and see that the threat isn’t out there. Hearing everyone’s replies on here has gone a looong way to making me feel less afraid too - it’s as if when you’re trapped in the terror and pain in your own head and you keep it there, it just magnifies. Getting it out and having it heard really really helps put it in perspective. (Hear that T????)

Thank you Jones

Ok just read your second post - as always Jones you have a knack of bringing things up that make me stop and think. Funnily enough I was sitting here last night freaking out thinking, oh hell surely this is not all a terrible waste, maybe I could look back over it and see if there isn’t anything positive I’ve gained or learned or changed in some way. Well the thought was there, couldn’t find anything positive though

I think you’re right though - something has to have changed, I have to have learned or gained something from the messes I’m making of my therapy. It’s just right now it really feels like what I need simply doesn’t exist. I can’t afford to believe that so I pull my mind together as best I can and carry on pushing and pushing and pushing in the hope that the next T or the next one or the next one, will somehow get what no-one else has ever got. Or at least that they’ll be sympathetic and understanding enough for me to be able to deal with the not getting, with the not being heard and understood.

Hm now that last question of yours, that’s a biggie. If I began to try and describe that fear, and how it really would destroy me I’d be sitting here another whole day typing . Hm the word ‘wrong’ comes up a lot because basically that’s the core of my issues - that because of a psychotic drug related episode when I was a teenager, I experienced my known reality disintegrate and be replaced with a howling black persecutory and malevolent universe. And the basis of that malevolence was that I was ‘bad’ to the very core, that I didn’t deserve to exist that I certainly didn’t deserve any kindness and caring and wanting and acceptance, that I was utterly morally bad and selfish for daring to believe that I had a right or could naively assume that I could possibly be experienced by anyone else in the world as remotely good or pleasing. Everything that I had in blissful ignorance subconsciously believed up to that point. The psychosis not only made me experience ALL my perceptions as totally wrong and based on no external evidence, (that everything I thought was good was actually bad, and I was bad for not realizing how bad I was) thereby making it impossible for me ever to trust my perceptions fully again, it set up a default system in me whereby anything that is uncertain or unknown or scary automatically means ‘bad’ and more to the point, means bad about me. Something I have to fight on a conscious level every day, even now nearly forty years later.

Now I’m not psychotic anymore but the effects of that experience, and of the unutterable and indescribable terror of being in that state of total badness, is the fear at the back of my mind. This whole thing with T yesterday, hooked straight into that fear (it’s always there just under the surface anyway) and believe me if it took me over again, I would not be able to fight it. I’m in that awful position of being terrified of being afraid. So though I can fight it rationally (and one of those ways is by posting here, by getting such wonderful replies which helps me to stop getting lost in the paranoid crap that that fear brings with it) - I’m always very very careful to try and avoid situations which can spark it. And yesterday’s session sparked it big time. Hence the panic post.

Sorry you probably got way more of an answer than you bargained for. Hope that makes some sense though.

Jones thank you for your marvellously positive words, in time I will reread them and think, yeah she was so right!

LL

Russ as I was spinning around typing my first post, I thought of you, thought how so very similar this is. I think that’s why it resonated so much when you were describing bakT and I was so keen for you to switch to him - after 14 sessions with this cold inhuman psychoanalyst, I’ve realized just how important to me it is to have some kind of normal human reaction from T. And I don’t know how you’ve managed two and a half years without a smile (though you did say you and he share the same sense of humour, so that means he must laugh sometimes yeah?) I have yet to see my T smile - the only place I’ve seen him smile is in his photo on website (and that’s a totally misleading photo too, doesn’t look anything like him and was obviously taken many years ago, because his hair has changed colour since then!)

You’re so right when you talk about a palpable sense of kindness encouragement empathy and hope. I don’t know how a T can convey those - it does’t have to be overt, in fact I think it’s more genuine feeling if it’s subtle, like soft mist around the therapy. Maybe it’s evident only when a T genuinely feels those things - somehow the sincerity itself conveys it. I’m of the opinion that my T is actually in reality a cold unfeeling type of man, and practises psychoanalysis as therapy of choice because it suits his own set up better - being cold can be a distinct advantage in that case. When I finally did get to see his face properly yesterday, I was struck by (among other things) how careworn it looked, and his whole way of being there, as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, so down, so burdened... Not a chance of hope or humour there.

Lol Russ I’ve only ended up with a psycho T because I’d been doing nothing but seeking out Ts from the more humanistic approaches and couldn’t find one that worked (except one, and she got sick :sob. But I think my instinct there was right in the first place. Maybe if I’ve learnt anything from this, it’s that a combination of approaches, with psychodynamic (as opposed to psychoanalytic) amongst them, will work better for me. Gosh I bloody well hope so. I’m running out of T options now.

Thanks for telling me I’m not doing anything wrong - I so need to hear that. Thanks Russ - hope you find yourself following your own instincts as regards bakT too

LL

UV thank you too for taking the time to think about what I’ve said and for posting such an insightful reply. And THANK YOU for validating my fears and doubts about not having things clarified - that is really hitting me clearly now, how a lot of my not being heard is just that, he doesn’t clarify anything, he doesn’t check with me that what I’ve said is how he’s heard it, he seems to just take my words at face value but even then I don’t even get an interpretation, it’s as if his responses are off the cuff say whatever comes into his mind that he can grab from a text book - very little of what he says seems to be specifically related to me or what I’ve just been talking about. It really confuses and throws me especially as he then pauses and expects me to make some kind of response, but to what HE’s said, not about what I’ve been saying. Can’t explain it really, it’s just so tricksy - not clear and open and above board - like having conversations with someone who never quite responds to what you are saying, but is responding from their own internal dialogue. It makes it all feel very unclear and nebulous and creates profound doubt and uncertainty in me.

My sense is that if someone gets what I’m trying to explain, then they are ipso facto also going to get how I feel - to understand my situation/experience to me automatically means they are going to have some idea at least of how it feels to be in that situation/experience. That’s why being heard is such a huge deal to me. That’s what’s so wonderful about being able to talk about this stuff on here - you guys get it, and therefore you also get how it feels. And respond on both levels. Now why the hell can’t the Ts I’ve seen do that too?

UV my paranoia takes the form of ‘bad me’ interpretations of reality - that is, people aren’t out to get me so much as I believe I am bad in the first place and that people can’t do otherwise than respond to me negatively. So, far from trying to control other people, I’m in this awful state of having to control ME, of having to be and do and think and feel and say only the right good correct thing all the time. It’s precisely that set up I’m trying to overcome, because I already blame myself for how people treat me, seeing as something bad in me that’s making them react in the way they do. So having T (who has had all this explained to him!) come along and effectively confirm it by holding me responsible for how he feels and how he is acting towards me - is sure fire guaranteed to both recreate my own paranoid fears and for my defensive oh no you don’t you’re not bloody well going to make me responsible for your feelings response to kick in. If he’s trying to point out to me that this IS actually what I’m doing, then he’s doing it in a way that is feeding straight into my own paranoid set up and that tells me he hasn’t listened or understood or even taken seriously what I’ve explained to him about my set up. Yet again not being heard.

Seeing as how you quoted from Maclove’s post, I’ll reply to it here separately - I actually resent that comment, because I know that insofar as I’ve been able, I HAVE been seeing this T with as open a mind as I can - the fact that I’ve had a mental image of what psychodynamic therapy and a psycho T is about does not mean that that image is all rosy tinted and perfect - as far as I can tell it’s a pretty realistic image composed of what I’ve read heard and actually experienced myself at different times. And I’ve actually squashed and debated and ignored and rationalized many many negative thoughts and responses I’ve had about him because I’ve been aware that I’ve got stuff I bring and project, and have actually been as open minded as possible about the way he’s been towards me. For sure I’m overreacting here - but that is my stuff, that is why I’m in therapy in the first place, and if he isn’t able to help me with it, if he isn’t able to accept that that’s where I am at the moment, then he really can’t help me - because I’m the one who needs understanding and accepting, not him. If I have to contort myself and my own perceptions (no matter how unrealistic they might be) in order to keep maintaining some sort of open or blank positive image of him, and he seems to be doing everything ‘wrong’ then where does that leave me and my ability to trust in my own inner sense of what’s right and wrong for me? So no I’m sorry, I don’t think going in with an open mind, as you two are suggesting, is the right thing for me to be told right now. Sorry don’t mean to be aggressive about it, it’s just a bit of red button to me - doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate you both thinking of ways that might make it better for me.

UV would you mind explaining how you see a T building a relationship? I think you’re right on with that question, T has talked about the crux of the therapy revolving around the ‘relationship’ between he and I, but so far, like you are picking out, I haven’t felt anything resembling a relationship developing (except maybe in profoundly negative terms of absence.) How would a psycho T go about building a relationship (or ‘alliance’ as I’ve read it called)?

Groan you’re right UV I don’t have an attachment to him, not as such, but I did consciously commit to doing therapy with him quite a long time ago. Which means that I have quite a lot invested in him, not least that I’ve allowed myself to believe that he is doing what he thinks is right for me - so it’s very hard for me to just walk away without ‘knowing’ on several levels that it’s my fault, that it’s something in me that’s causing all the crap.

Just read your second post - yes that’s interesting what you’re suggesting he might be doing. And it’s perfectly possible that is what’s happening. But (ha ha has to be a ‘but’) if so, it’s not helping me at all, it’s just making me feel both paranoid and totally alone. What I desperately need is to be reflected positively, and if he’s doing all this specifically to reflect how negative I am, it’s just feeding straight into how I already see myself, just reinforcing and confirming that I am bad, unacceptable, have to change/improve etc etc. Besides, I’d fully expect him to TELL me that that’s how he is working otherwise there’s so much room for confusion and bewilderment and doubt and uncertainty that it would be inevitable a client would withdraw, become less open and more defensive. Maybe as you say, you could happily cope with something like that, maybe he thinks I’m a lot stronger than I am. Don’t know. It’s an interesting idea though. Thanks.

Thanks for your support UV

LL

STRM thank you so much for your support too - and the fact that it’s ‘short and sweet’ doesn’t detract from the fact that what you’ve said is what I needed to hear. Thank you.


Hey Jill thanks to you too! You know after reading one of your posts the other day, it really made me realize that what I’m wanting over and above and beyond everything else, is a safe place to let out the pain. That seems to be my driving force, this incredible need to keep on and on and on trying to find someone who will sit with me, be with me, be understanding and sympathetic and STRONG while I let myself go into all the pain of decades of damage, loss and hurt (and anger!)

You’d think that therapists would know that wouldn’t you, or at least be familiar with that kind of need? I just don’t understand why they don’t get it. This psycho T certainly doesn’t. So I doubt if he ever will. And I can’t make him get it either he does or he doesn’t.

Well I hope your dbt gal turns up trumps, you’ve been through the mill with this T hunt. Let’s hope I can find someone else too and SOON - I’m feeling pretty blown away by the sheer amount of time I’ve WASTED this last year and a half seeing T after T and investing so much time emotion and money in a T who is after all, not going to be able to help me. All I want to do is just get on with it. Really, just get on with it. And I feel so blocked at every turn. Gaaaaahhhh!!!!

Thanks Jill.



Lol Echo, I’m right with you there on the preferring some warm fuzzies. I guess I thought that even with a psychoanalytic T there would be some touchy feely stuff as well. Didn’t bank on it being quite so inhuman and cold.

Thanks for telling me that changing chairs is perfectly reasonable. I’d like to think that I thought that too, but my reaction tells me I feel like I’ve done something really damaging to the therapy, to him, to how he sees me. So I’m glad you said that, because somewhere in me I’d like to think that too.

How’s your therapy going by the way?

LL

Thanks Kashley for your great reply. You know what you said about there being a level of incompatibility that would take a long time to work through, actually makes huge sense. Interesting because in thinking about yesterday’s session, I realized that at one point I had the feeling that he was very close to terminating me (I just had this feeling that he was struggling to deal with me and was on the verge of saying well if you can’t deal with my methods then I can’t work with you.) That makes it a bit easier actually to get this in perspective - and like you I’m not sure that I have the patience (or the emotional ballast) to stick at it - I’m the screwed up one and for me to have to keep making allowances for his not feeling comfortable with me, I don’t think I could tolerate that emotionally ie it would be difficult not to keep experiencing it as something wrong with me rather than as a problem of ‘fit’ that might be able to be resolved. Hm made me think there, thanks K.

Yes you’re also dead right about convincing myself he was the right one for me - I’d spent SO long and had so much trouble seeing all these other Ts that I’d mentally gotten myself into a state that said, ok just suck it and see, stop being so picky and demanding and give this guy a go. It didn’t help that in the first session he was GREAT! Only for me to be told several sessions later when I referred to it, that oh yes that first session was just an introductory session, that’s not how the therapy works. WHY NOT????

quote:

The second thing I think about your T is that he has handled this poorly. I think he may indeed be sticking to his style of therapy in how he confronted you, but he neglected to take into account your perception of his reactions and the possible negative toll that it would take. It seems as if, in this latest session, he was trying to force his approach onto you in the hopes that some proverbial light bulb would go on. It seems to me like he reacted way too strongly when you pushed a little on his boundaries, although you didn't know until you pushed where exactly those boundaries were. Another fault on him, in my opinion, because if you didn't know where the boundaries were, it seems very inappropriate for him to react so defensively.

Yes yes yes. Thank you Kashely for saying that. That really does reflect the situation, and definitely I think the way he throws his comments at me it’s like some kind of light bulb is meant to go off. Only it never does and he never follows through on it. As if, if the bulb stays off, then it’s my problem and I’m supposed to go away and think about it and assimilate it and understand it and come back going oh yes oh great and mighty one you were so right I really am a crap person. Lol. Ok I exaggerate a bit, but that’s how it feels right now.

Thank you Kashley for your support too. Hugs to you too.

LL

Hello MH and thankyou for replying. Lol I’m sure you didn’t mean it but I had to laugh when you said you ‘felt compelled’ to reply, I’m just glad you didn’t say I ‘made’ you feel compelled. Sorry don’t mean to be flippant, I just cant’ get my head around how much this T tries to make me responsible for how he is feeling.

quote:

You are right that it came across as being all about him, not about you, as if he were threatened by it or felt a need to control you.

Exactly! Thanks for putting that into words for me - that’s exactly the sense I got, that he responded as if he were being threatened in some way. I was more floored by his response than I realized at the time (because I was building up to talking to him about not being heard) and it’s only in retrospect that I can see the chair switching thing as pretty indicative of how restrictive my therapy space (both in the room and in my head) really is. I can cope with reasonable ‘restrictions’ quite easily, but when they seem to me not just unreasonable (as with the clock) but outright controlling, then I start to have real problems being able to trust that this guy is doing anything in my best interests.

Wow I’m so glad you have a T who is giving you the freedom to choose where you want to sit and what you want to say. I’m also impressed that you feel free within yourself to choose to sit in all sorts of different places. Even if I had ‘permission’ I’d be so uptight about it that I’d probably end up sitting in the same place purely out of fear. Wonder what it would be like to feel so safe you can effectively wander around the room whenever you want? I’d love that. Did sort of get it with a gestalt T I saw a couple of times (gestalt being one of those types of therapy where body work and movement is important) - and I guess I’d have hoped that this T might be that flexible too. Instead it feels like I’m stuck in one of those Victorian sitting rooms - a clock ticking loudly on the mantelpiece and everyone sitting perfectly still and talking in subdued and hushed voices. UGGGGHHH.

MH that’s a pretty good question - if it were my child (well I’d have to substitute ‘cat’ for child seeing as how I’m a non-parent) - hm. You know I’m so terrified and timid and paranoid that even for my own cat I had a hard time getting him help when he was sick, I put up with a lot of what I thought was incompetent (and expensive) treatment and tests for him because I didn’t really dare challenge the vet’s authority. So, hm, if I couldn’t do it for my Peeky Puss, chances are I’ll find it even harder to do it for me. Oh hell. That makes me sad too. And angry at myself. Grrr. Sod that I think I’ll just get angry at T, he deserves it!

Thanks for your kind words MH

LL

Aw thanks JD for being proud of me (you know a sneaky little part of me is just a little bit proud too, for having had the guts to just go sit in that damned chair even knowing that T would probably not like it.) I always feel better if I’ve stood up for myself in a reasonable way. Pity he couldn’t see it.

Oh JD I’ve read about your awful experiences with old-T. I didn’t know though that you had seen so many Ts before finding her. Makes me feel not quite such a freak for chewing through so many Ts myself (sorry don’t mean to say you’re a freak, just that it makes me feel a whole lot better knowing that I’m not the only one who is doing the rounds to this extent.)

I so hope that like you, I’ll end up with a T who will really help me. That all this pain and frustration and fear is in a Good Cause and leads me ultimately to the person who will be the right T. I’m glad you’ve now found good Ts to work with - your posts sound like you are really starting to heal now, that things are moving forward for you. Good for you ((( JD )))

Thank you so much for your encouraging and supportive words, they mean a lot to me.

LL

((( Starfish )))) Thank you for your support, as always, I so appreciate it.

LL

Oh my favourite Frog ((( Frog)))

Wow can I have your T too? Being able to talk about your ‘demands’ and needs from a T and why the other ones didn’t suit, that’s exactly what I would have expected from my T. In fact if I were a T that’s one of the first things I’d try and understand about a client, because it’s obviously an important way to get to know what’s going on in the client. Huh really that just reinforces that my T isn’t really bothered about finding out about me - I guess he’s going along with the ‘it will surface when I’m ready to talk about it’ but hell I’ve got SO MUCH to talk about, where do I start?

I’m glad your T saw it as positive in you - I think so too! See that’s the kind of thing I have on my list of ‘things a good T would do’ - to see things about me that I see as bad, as actually having a positive meaning. This T seems hellbent on rubbing my face in the negative and nothing but the negative. I loved that about my surgeryT - she was so open with complimentary stuff about me, and I knew she meant it, she wasn’t just saying it. I could have sat with her all day listening to her say good things about me. Didn’t believe them but I believed SHE believed it and that’s what I’m desperately looking for in a T, someone who can hold a positive image of me that I can eventually believe in.

As for dream Ts - well I figured that however I saw my T, that would be in big part ‘transference’ and I was quite keen to ‘work through’ that, whether it was positive or negative (in my case it’s nearly always negative transference). But I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with having an ideal image of how a person could be - if nothing else it really points up our own needs and wants. Anyway, it sounds as if your T actually is pretty ideal in lots of ways!

Aw what you say is lovely Frog. And makes a lot of sense. Lol wish I could believe it. Hmm Hmm but it’s making me think, and that’s a good thing. Yes I wonder if maybe the fact that I’ve learned so much about therapy, and am pretty clear on what I need and want and have done all this self analysis for years now, doesn’t sometimes threaten therapists, who are more used to dealing with first timer clients. Still, I’d expect a T to be whole enough within themselves to recognize that. Don’t know, it would be nice to think that it’s all good stuff in me causing these problems, lol, but really I just know it’s me, something wrong with me. The trouble with that is though, that just because I’m aware of what’s wrong with me, doesn’t mean that there’s nothing wrong with others. It’s my perennial problem, trying to work out how much of it is me, and how much it might actually be real.

Frog your English is perfect enough for me to understand everything that you are saying - so no need to keep apologizing for it. In fact you should be proud of the fact that you are able to write in a foreign language so fluently and expressively (especially a language with such confusing and inconsistent grammar and spelling as English!)

Hm yeah, I agree with your suggestion - I’ve got another session on Thursday and I will go to it - and I’ll go with the intention of giving him (and me) every chance to resolve this (but I’m not hopeful lol). In many ways I really want it to be some paranoid figment of my stupid mind - so I’m quite prepared to be corrected, to hear if how I’ve perceived him is totally off the wall. Quitting really isn’t a very good option for me at the moment, at least not unless I can find another T who is willing to work with me. Oh it’s all catch-22 at the moment.

Thank you Frog for being SO positive about me. (((( Frog ))))

LL

Hello Smiley, I appreciate very much your coming onto forum and replying to me. And thank you for your support too - it’s really helped me no end to hear how people feel about that bloody chair because to start off with I was feeling really really bad about it, like I’d done something terribly wrong, made me feel not proud about actually sticking up for myself, but like I’d transgressed some fundamental moral line.

Oh your shrink sounds horrendous. I know I’m moaning about this T talking too much, but I think total silence like that, with no input would be worse (That’s how it was with a psychoanalyst I’d had before, only in her case I didn’t just get massive silences, but the odd really stupid comment like oh the baby is nuzzling for mother’s breast. Oh spare me the psychocrap!)

Thank you for thinking I am brave. I tend to think of it as desperation, and once I’ve done something like that and it backfires like it has this time, I always feel bad as if I’ve done something bad and selfish and demanding etc etc. Which then makes me mad!! Grrr. Even though I’ve decided to go along on Thursday, I suspect that I might be quitting before too long. Well, at the moment that’s how I feel. We shall see.

Thanks Smiley

LL

Phew, if anyone has made it this far just want to say I'm sorry these are such long posts, and I’ve spent literally all day typing them up - which has been great, giving me a chance to really think about this, in your company so to speak . Only now I’m shattered and have to go feed the H (he pays the therapy bills after all!) I’m off all day tomorrow and have T session on Thursday so chances are I won’t make it back here until Thursday night, if that. So just writing this to say I’m sorry I haven’t really had a chance to read or reply to other posts on forum and hope nobody feels like I’m ignoring them.

Just want to thank everybody all over again.

LL

quote:

Originally posted by Lamplighter:
And I don’t know how you’ve managed two and a half years without a smile (though you did say you and he share the same sense of humour, so that means he must laugh sometimes yeah?)

LL, yes, my T does smile from time to time, and on occasion will actually manage a chuckle. Actually, to be fair I'd say he smiles at some point most sessions. But man, most of the time he's pretty grim-faced, in a way that often casts a pall over the session, and the few smiles just don't balance out the lack of any kind of empathy. And like your T, he also never addresses me by name, either in person or via email, which I find really insulting, a lack of common courtesy. No projection there. It's all him. Even my Dad addresses me using my name and always has.

quote:

Originally posted by Lamplighter:
You’re so right when you talk about a palpable sense of kindness encouragement empathy and hope. I don’t know how a T can convey those - it does’t have to be overt, in fact I think it’s more genuine feeling if it’s subtle, like soft mist around the therapy. Maybe it’s evident only when a T genuinely feels those things - somehow the sincerity itself conveys it.

No question about it. During one session with bakT, he said - in reference to when he saw me a couple of times two years ago - "I'm not sure what it is about you, but you seem stronger, more definite than the last time I saw you." That not only felt good, but it also contained hope, encouragement and warmth. And when he emailed me to confirm our appointment, he actually addressed me by name and signed off with his own name! My T does none of this, and I think it's a problem. I complained to my T about this and other things again last night. No response, not even the 'ol "what does it mean to want those things?" question.

Also like you, I've gone along with this "style" for so long because I figured it was just the way it worked, that the benefits would eventually outweigh the lack of these things. I'm sure this works for many people, but I'm discovering that it's not really working for me. So, you're not alone in your protest.

Russ

Lampers

Sorry for the brief post earlier. So I've read through what you wrote earlier and there are so many things I'd like to comment on....but I keep asking myself 'are these red flags or are they feeling like red flags to me because they are just worlds apart from how my T behaves and her model? And is there a wrong or a right way of behaving?' But some things really stand out to me as being wrong LL because he seems to be quashing you and your spirit and that really upsets me.

quote:

Never calling me by my name (perversely last session he did, in the context of effectively telling me off about something

Ooohh that's hard - firstly that he doesn't use your name, but secondly that he was telling you off. Where is the non-judgemental bit of him there? So that either makes you feel like a child straight away, or rattles you...neither of which are very productive or kind.

quote:

Never calling me by my name (perversely last session he did, in the context of effectively telling me off about something

What!!!!!! Who does he think he is, that his clients have to book their holidays around HIM???!!! That makes him very much up his own, if you ask me. Is he so kind as to give you all his planned holidays a year ahead then, so you can revolve the rest of your life around him??!!! I have never cancelled on the day so not sure what my T's policy for late cancellations is, but I am pretty sure that if I was sick or had a genuine reason for cancelling I wouldn't be charged. Likewise if I have holiday I just tell her a few weeks ahead and would never be charged. How bizzare is his behaviour??? But also all that you describe with this makes him sound very controlling LL. No wonder you are afraid to open up.

quote:

and got up to go (there was a natural lull in the conversation) and he said ‘sit down we haven’t finished yet there’s a minute to go’.

I think he forgets you are paying him...not vice versa! LL this doesn't seem in any way right. He shouldn't be ordering you to do anything at all. My T says that I am free to leave whenever I want to, that is important for me to know and gives the control back to me. The only times she has ever stopped me have been purely for my safety, to make sure I was grounded enough to leave...but even so this is done gently and with care. It hurts me to think of someone speaking to you like this LL, but maybe because he intimidates a little sometimes therefore he is not challenged. Please excuse me if I have said anything that is not right or has felt too critical of him....my concern is really that he leaves you feeling so bad and in a spin.

quote:

If I were normal I’d just cancel this guy right now not even bother turning up on Thursday - save myself £71 and a four and a half hour drive there and back (for a measly 50 minutes.) But the thing that’s pulling the rug from under me is that I have no-one else.

Lampers, you are very very normal But if you cancel him now, then you will be back T-less and that's quite a vulnrable place for you to be. So maybe it's a case of 'better the devil you know' here. I don't think it's that there is something irrepairably broken in you, really not, I think we all have that as our default and it IS frightening. Maybe you can persue the other T's - darn, why do they all have holidats jus when you need them most? But it willl feel tough and must be zapping so much energy from you right now.

Hang in there ((((LL)))). I hope I haven't said anything out of order,

starfishy

LL, i enjoy reading how you are processing all of this, and despite the crap of it all, i think you are moving ahead, at least in recognizing what you rightly NEED and deserve to get. and, all t's are not good for everyone. they can't be, it just woudn't make sense. so, hope this gal t is good, and keep on looking, and truly, i've gotten a bit from each of mine, even skanky ol' t3 at least gave me the bpd bit that got me on dbt...so, there is good with the bad, and you certainly know what you DON'T like and can probably sort that out from the beginnning. there ARE warm t's. really. not perfect, but warm IS realistic.

jill

Hey, I’ll try and make this short, I’m so impressed with your responses to everyone- you have some mad typing skills!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Lamplighter:
Have to say I felt very defensive when first reading your post and felt like arguing with you about nearly every point!

I’ve noticed when reading your other posts on the forum (NOT IN A BAD WAY AT ALL) that we don’t seem to have the same views on anything at all! We are just two very different people, totally understandable.

quote:

From what I’ve read about your T, he doesn’t sound at all like mine (he sounds more like the T I have pictured in my head of what a good T ought to be like).

I guess that’s what hard about only reading about other people’s therapies. I do feel like our T’s have similarities in their practices such as holding strong boundaries, zero self-disclosure, and a focus on the subconscious and intellectual reasoning behind interactions.

quote:

But the real issue is not that he ‘won’t do what I demand’ but that he is saying I AM MAKING him feel compelled to do what I want. I don’t agree with that at all. I can’t MAKE anyone do or feel or think anything - he can feel it, but he cannot blame me for MAKING him feel it.

This makes sense to me because my T says stuff like this. When my T says something like this he means that he is trying to point out to me my “style relate”- basically the way I relate to people that is so engrained in who I am that it would be impossible to actually see that I am doing it myself. He’s trying to point out that there might be something subconscious there that you do with everyone you relate to without even knowing it. Subconsciously, it might be a pattern of yours to try and change people to fit you perception of how they should be. So actually, in my opinion he’s trying to understand you in the deepest level possible.

Thanks for the reply. I think the bottom line is that no matter how much we go back and forth and explain things to each other we will always have very different view on things!

-Mac

Dear LL,

I've been pondering this on and off all day, hoping you are hanging in there and weathering the storm. I'm GLAD your fingers are still superglued to that tiller. You have been through so much, such extreme weather, and you have figured out how to keep yourself afloat at every turn. Please don't forget how much skill and strength has been involved in that, how incredibly well you have done to get yourself through each of those years since you were a teen - *without* ever falling back into that same hideous black malevolent universe. I understand that you will have been skirted the edge sometimes, maybe even often. And I know that you have always felt its presence. But I'm also sure that in those years between, you have been through some incredible stresses, and each time your intelligence, fortitude, stamina, your good fury, your self-awareness and your will to love have brought you through. You are the captain of your ship, and you are here with us, body and mind intact.

I want to clarify here that I'm NOT saying that you are silly to be frightened - not *at all*. I see that alertness to danger as one of your skills. And I know you will do whatever you need to do to keep yourself safe, and I hope you know you have my total support on that.

BUT. I wonder if just maybe maybe maybe - once you have got through the immediate panic feelings - you can afford to take your eye off the danger for a few moments - to count your strengths, to count your protections (eg you have a safe-enough home, which I'm guessing wasn't true when you were a teen) and to have another good hard look at the distance between you and immediate danger. Only you can know this, but I'm hoping that there are a few more steps between you and danger than the panic-feelings are telling you.

Speaking of homes, I just want to pause here to say I totally understand how the loss of Peeky Puss has shifted your sense of safety. That happened for me too, and it took months to settle. I got a lot of daily soothing and comfort from my kitty, and it took a lot of adjusting to be without that.

I also want to tell you that I hear you about the psychosis. I have been around extreme drug-induced psychosis, and I can not imagine anything more terrifying than going through this first hand. No words can express. It breaks my heart for you that you experienced this and have since lived with that unutterable fear.

Okay, there is one other thing I wanted to write about, but I don't know if this is useful now or not - it may be just not at all right for your headspace, and if so please do ignore it. But I keep getting caught, fascinated by this image of the chair, what a powerful symbol that became in your interaction.

I want to make a suggestion which may or may not have anything to it: it seems to me pretty clear that the chair was a symbol for you when you went in. You knew you wanted to alter something in your therapeutic relationship - to change the course somehow, to express a need for a different way of doing things. And you chose in that moment to sit somewhere else to express part of that. It is a powerful (and very valid) communication.

My suggestion is that perhaps the T understood this symbolic movement, and responded the way he did because he too was communicating symbolically. So this would mean that he responded not because he is really finicky about the way the room is set up and wants to control your bodily movements, but because he was speaking back to you in that same language. So the symbolic conversation, as I am seeing it, perhaps went something like this:

LL: I need to change the situation. I need to be in a different position, so I am moving to a different position. (Unsaid: I can't *see* you, I don't know who you are(?))

T: I believe you will get more therapeutic benefit from remaining in your previous position. (Unsaid: The feelings you are having in that position are part of your therapy(?))

Okay, I will be quiet now - I have taken some liberties in my reflections here and I hope they are not upsetting. They may well be unhelpful or simply wrong, and in no way do I want to invalidate the feelings and responses you are having to this situation - they are powerful and they are real. But you know you're in my thoughts, at the least.

love,
Jones

again: I cant believe how you manage to respond so carefully to all of us. you are amazing LL.

I would like to just echo much of Jones poster over here ( ) and keep wishing you all the best in all this strugglings.

...I figured you by now have had your important session with your very problematic current T. I have no idea how you feel right now, and how the session went, (only dramatic imaginings about it, like it was a matter of "life and death" sort of session?) i cross every fingers that the outcome of it will be good to you, and that you will feel a releife about your decition about either quitting or continue. I understand by your latest post, that qutting is the most likely and wanted wish right now, and i am all on your side whatever you decide and would love to continue support you through this. I am glad you know that. And glad to see that you have some many people here on forum, whom care about you and offor you all their best thoughts and shares from their valuable experiences.

I think this thread is an amazing proof of how much kindness and caring there is here. Not only are there so much wisdom gathered here on this thread now, i think its plenty of subtle genuin love and comfort in all the responses as well.

Just wanted to check in here agnia- tell you i think about you- and everything you process now. I am very interested in how you cope (or not cope) with everything now- it seems like you have managed to move meny steps forward allready, by contacting both a new T, whom you will see next wednesday. - And your seargeryT (sorry, i must have missed a important info, but whi is she? why did you quit with her at the firs place? sorry if you have already written about it, i must have missed it...)

Anyways: Thanks again for you reply and whenever you WANT to and have the time, let us know how it went out (i assume you will write a major post about it thats great btw! I love reading you posters, even though the latest ones have revealed a lot of pain and strugglins.)

(((LL)))

LL

I just want to say I echo everything froggy has said so beautifully, that my thoughts are with you too. At the end of the day we can only offer opinion here, but you will be the best judge of what is right for you, will have that raw instinctive gut feeling about where that T was taking you and if there was any future in carrying on with him. What you will glean from here though is the support and care to see you through whatever decision you make.

Take care LL,

starfish

Ditto from me!

Smiley

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whatever I was expecting to come of the session today it most definitely wasn’t what happened. He did a complete flip flop and basically said he would try to give me what I need: more space, more questions, more focus on how I’m feeling. WTF????

You’d think I’d be feeling pretty good about this eh? Hahahahahahaha.

I don’t know what I feel but it sure ain’t good.

Ok so quick (??!!??) précis of session: I go in feeling REALLY panicked, having decided already that I’m going to sit in that damned chair again, I just felt I had to do it for me, instead of slinking back to the couch like the grovelly crawly please don’t be angry at me weakling that I am. Expected all sorts of subtle and not so subtle resistance and disapproval from him and was all set to quit there and then.

Well what the hell? Suddenly he’s Mr Nice Guy - and all the stuff I’m saying, about his rigid boundaries, about his way of relating to me not only not helping but threatening me, that I felt in real danger after last session and am going to quit, about being controlled, about having to risk everything in order to take a stand for me by sitting in the chair of my choice, about not being heard, about having to repeat since day dot that what I really need is to be able to express what I feel and have those feelings really heard and experienced as ok, about his comments not only not meaning anything to me but how they come across as judgemental and making me to blame for ‘making’ him feel/act in certain ways... lots of stuff...

And he actually listened to me and was really quite supportive and encouraging. Well bugger me. He explained about the my ‘making’ him feel/act in certain ways and said he did get that that’s not the right way to convey to me that he does understand how I’m feeling, that he realizes yes I need more open and clear ways of letting me know that I’m being heard and understood - he said he would have to try and find other ways of getting his empathy and understanding across to me, that he would try and be and do more of what I was asking for. Yet again WTF????

So I pointed out that actually, everything he is saying in this session is the OPPOSITE of what he said last session, especially about the now trying to give me what I say I need (cf: I’m making him feel compelled to be someone he is not, and he can’t do that). I quoted that back at him and he did explain stuff about ‘working with’ and that I’ve now been very clear about my needs and that as far as rigid boundaries are concerned, it’s a question of finding the right balance between rigid and flexible and that’s something we will work out together. Hmmmmmmmmm.

I’m now DEEPLY suspicious, saying well here you are telling me you’re going to give me what I’m asking for, yet all along I’ve been asking for it and you haven’t responded before now, and I can’t help feeling that if I hadn’t made a big effort to stick up for myself and sit in this chair none of this would be happening, and it all sounds very inconsistent to me and I don’t know what to think.

(He actually said that the danger now is I’ll start seeing his boundaries as ‘too’ flexible - too right mate!)

It feels like I’ve gone in ready to punch concrete and ended up connecting with marshmallow. It doesn’t feel right or ok. And I’m even more scared now because in principle I’m going to get what I’ve asked for, he’s said he will try and change how he relates to me to a way that is more about giving me what I need and I’m thinking, I ought to be feeling good about that and I don’t and it’s all just making me more freaked out than anything.

It all feels a bit like I’ve thrown a gigantic tantrum, expecting not only to not get what I want but to be punished for it, and instead I’m being given the very thing I’m asking for. How come I needed to throw a tantrum in the first place? And how much can I trust that it’s genuine and coming from an authentic place of understanding and not just a weak response to my insistent demands? A kind of boundary shifting that’s making me doubt everything I’ve perceived in all the previous sessions. (Not that I’d have stayed had he acted in accordance with how I expected him to - if he’d maintained that rigid - this is how I work and no I’m not going to change how I work just because it’s threatening to you - then I would have been out of there.) But I don’t think he was being flexible and considering my needs just because I said I was going to quit - he was Mr Nice Guy from the moment I walked in…

There’s so much in this that’s telling me about my own stuff, but also I’ve lost any sense of having a fix on who he is. If he does have control issues, then they’ve suddenly disappeared. And it all feels very tricksy and unreal at the moment. I guess the proof will be if next session he does start relating to me differently, does do what he says he’ll try to. And all I can do is go along to next session and see how it goes...

I’ve only just gotten back and haven’t really thought properly about this - I expect lots more will come up but just wanted to give this update first.

And want to thank you Russ, Starfish, Jill, Maclove, Jones, Frog and Smiley for your second replies - will come back later and post more in response to them if that’s ok. Right now I feel a bit too screwed up by my own fears and doubts to know what to say. Think I need to scramble back to some sense of normality first.

Be back later

LL