Hey All,
Thank you all for your support and words of advice. I finally have time to tell you how things went down today, so here goes. This is gonna be long, sorry.
My session started off pretty simple, catching up with a few FOO happenings- you know, who's making a big deal out of what and what I think about it. We then transitioned into what I have been thinking about my stuff this week. I handed her my writing which had the two main issues I mentioned earlier.
Question #1- Why won't she engage in any physical touch with me- hug, slap in the face, anything?
Answer she gave me-
First, she read through all of my guesses at why she doesn't want to touch me. These included: "you’re repulsed by me and you think I’m disgusting," "you don’t want me to contaminate you with my dysfunction," "you don’t think I am worthy of that kind of affection from you," and (my personal favorite)"you derive some sort of sick, sadistic pleasure out of withholding from me something you know I desperately want."
She shook her head as she read through these and verbalized her disagreement with the more outlandish ones. She told me that none of my guesses were accurate and that the reason she won't go there with me is becuase she believes I will use her physical touch as a "measuring stick" for how well I am doing, and that getting touch from her will then be my goal. I articulately said "Nuh Uh" and she said "Yes, it will." I both agree and disagree with her, but I think the part of me that disagrees with her is the part that REALLY CRAVES touch from her, no matter what the consequences. So on that front, I really have to think hard to discern what feelings come from the adult in me and what feelings come from my touch-deprived little girl who wants what she wants. All I really know is that I FEEL LIKE my T has the capacity to give me something that she really doesn't have the capacity to give me and it makes me sad. I really want my lil girl to win this one, but she isn't going to. I'm still pondering the "poking" plot though...
Question #2- The second part of my letter explained to my T that I feel like she is lying to me about certain things. I told her I don't completely mistrust her, but I do think she is full of shit when she tells me that I handled something well/did a good job/am okay just the way I am.
Answer she gave me- Well, she didn't really answer this one at first. She initially asked me what I thought would happen if I actually received a compliment, to which I responded, "hell would freeze over." Since we weren't really getting anywhere with that route, she decided to try something else. She then asked me if my mother lied to me. I gave her this look like
and must have conveyed that I was thinking "seriously... you're asking me that?" She then said... "well that's a silly question, what I meant was did she lie when she complimented you?" Whew! What a relief! For a minute there I thought she hadn't been listening to me AT ALL for the last 11 months! Anyway, we talked for a while about the lies my mother told, if I had ever been able to accept compliments, if anyone in my family complimented me and blah blah blah. We also got into what she thinks my mother's diagnosis was, which was interesting to hear, but kinda off topic.
We talked all around the issue of receiving compliments and how my receiving of criticism is skewed too (way too sensitive). Then, I heard myself say, "you know, I'm not real sure I am ready to let go of not letting people in; there's a little too much intimacy and vulnerability in that for me." She said, "oh, well then you just answered my original question (about what would happen if I received something positive from someone). I said, "I DID? What question?" She said, "you just said you don't feel safe letting positive things in. therefore, if someone compliments you, you don't let it penetrate because you feel too vulnerable and scared. You don't want to feel good and vulnerable about anything that someone can take away."
Well that right there was the comment that did me in. I didn't realize it in the moment, but I got really anxious after that. I could feel my time ticking away and I started to panic because I knew I wasn't ready to wrap up but knew we had to. She said something about this lack of accepting people at their word being how I felt I protected myself, but it doesn't really work because I still get hurt and still am impacted by what people say regardless if I let it all in. I believe one of my parting comments to her was, "well, this used to work for me before I started therapy... **make sure when you read that that you include a tone of utter disgust in your voice** She promptly informed me that, no, it wasn't working before either. Damn, i hate it when they are right and you know it and you want so badly for them to get SOMETHING wrong!
So, I managed about 30 mins before I called her back and told her I was angry and upset and felt awful and was worried my week was going to suck something awful. I also told her that I was really confused because she never told me that she isn't lying to me, which made me think that she is lying even more! I managed to work for a while, very disturbed and disgruntled, but trying to be productive. She called a few hours later and we had a pretty decent chat. She told me she hated that I left feeling worse than I did when I came in, and I told her that I hated it to and that I really didn't like paying for it either. She asked me what I was doing to care for myself and I said "I can't do anything, I'm at work." She promptly and emphatically informed me that being at work doesn't stop me from soothing myself...
She then informed me that the reason I was most likely so agitated was because we were poking at a method of protecting myself that I have used all of my life. I asked her if we HAD to poke it (I'm the one that brought it up!) and she said yes, that it isn't effective anymore and that it is in the way of me getting to where I want to be. I found what she said next to be really neat- I told her I couldn't focus on anything else and she said I should create a box in me where I can keep therapy stuff while I have to do other things and can't think about it. She said, "then place all of this in there and close the lid until later- but don't cram it in the box, stuff it in there and slam the lid- just place it in there, shut it and keep it there until you can come back to it."
Then she said, "as for me not reassuring you that I am am not lying to you, nothing I say will work. If I say, I'm not lying to you, how will you know I'm not lying about that too? It won't do you any good for me to tell you that I'm not lying." I told her that the fact that she didn't try told me that she didn't care and she said that was not what that meant. Then she told me a riddle about some dude walking down a road, comes to a fork in the road, one way leads to a place where people always lie and one way leads to a place where people always tell the truth. He asks some guy for directions, but doesn't know which town the guy is from and doesn't know if the man is lying or telling the truth. Basically, the point that she was trying to drive home is that her not reassuring me does not mean she doesn't care or that she is lying. She just has to let me determine her truthfulness on my own- apparently I have to give it time (side note- I asked her how much time this shit was gonna take because it has almost been a year already and that at the rate I'm going, she's gonna retire before I'm done! She told me that wasn't going to happen, but she didn't not give me an estimate of time).
Oddly, I feel better knowing WHY she isn't trying to reassure me. And I think I believe her. I just needed to know that it wasn't because she didn't care and I needed to hear her say it. I felt better and more focused after we talked, but I have a lot of writing to do about why I started protecting myself in this manner in the first place, why it worked then, why it doesn't work anymore and how it is in the way of where I am wanting to get.
Thanks for reading everything I'm spewing. It helps to talk about this stuff with people that don't think "hmmmm, why isn't your T seeing you more often???" I appreciate you guys.
-CT
But in working through that disruption, my T told me he would never lie to me. That earlier in his career, while he wouldn't have lied, he might have hedged more, but he knows it's important that he doesn't lie. I have enough difficultly sorting out what is reality because of being told so often as a kid that what I saw going on wasn't happening. I told my T that I would much rather he honestly hurt me than lie to me.
It sucks for that little girl who deserves a hug. I am sure she does, but does your T welcome you to express that little girls feelings in defiance to her? I mean not like you're going to convince your T to offer touch, but to give the little girl expression to her grief and anger for not having it and how much she wants and needs it? Do you know what I mean? The little girl wants and believes that your T can fulfill your longing for touch and she needs to pour out her feelings to the raw bone of them getting to the heart of where this deprivation comes from.
