Hi Willow,

Nice to meet you. I can really relate to finding it hard to allow yourself to be vulnerable with your T. In nearly 3 years with mine I never once cried and hated it whenever I showed I was upset in other ways. I wonder if your T wanted you to know it was ok to be childlike in front of her and that is why she wanted to stay. Saying that I understand that by not doing as you asked and not explaining herself either that would cause you to shutdown and feel angry as she did not respect your wishes. I am glad you were able to tell her that this triggered a memory and that she apologised but I can understand that it will take time to trust her enough to show that vulnerability again.

I am sure she doesn't hate you...anger is a perfectly natural feeling and something that you should be able to express freely in therapy. I hope that you and your T can work with this so that you are able to feel more comfortable with her.

Hugs
Butterfly

Willow,

I'm sorry your T was not accommodating to your requests. I am wondering why. Perhaps you can ask her via email? Is that a possibility? It is difficult for me to understand why she would say no, but I'm thinking that she had a good reason for that...probably something that has not occurred to your or I but that would make sense once you heard it from her.

I hope you are able to get some relief from this rupture and get back on the path to trust and healing with your T soon. ((((Willow))))

Thanks Butterfly for your reply, it's nice to meet you too. It's good to feel I'm not alone in the struggle to open up although I'm sorry that you're experiencing this too. Yea maybe you're right, she has said she understands and that this young part needs to have a voice which really scares me because I don't feel in control anymore.She's just consistantly nice even when I'm not which doesn't feel normal. Maybe I want her to hate me because it feels more real. I'd hate me if I was her. It's just feels like all the progress we made together, to be able to trust someone that much and to be able feel safe with her has all gone and I have to start over but much slower. I hope I can work it out with t too because I hate being in this limbo between wanting to quit and not feeling able to because she's my person.

I do not think she would hate you for being angry. I think getting angry is often what they want.

LadyGrey,sorry missed your post,just getting used to this,nice to meet you. She said she wouldn't leave the room because it's not something that she does. It wouldn't be a good way to end the session. I think she wanted to show me that I had nothing to feel ashamed about but she didn't really communicate it very well.The next week I decided not to go and then I had exams for the next 2wks which were so difficult to focus on so I did email her and told her how hurt I felt. But that was more upsetting because her reply was understanding but cold and really didn't acknowledge my feelings.I sent her a really angry email back in caplocks . Eventually we talked, she did apologise and said that she felt she let me down. It felt good that my hurt was finally acknowledged but then I felt bad that she was feeling bad. I know I can't win either way. So I don't want to email again. It just doesn't feel like it can ever go back to the way it was.

Stoppers- yea, I hate the way it feels like a game just pushing buttons to get a reaction.

Hi Willow, nice to meet you
Excuse me for joining this post late, but I wanted to add that I can relate to you feeling its not going to be the same way, T and I are rebuilding after a similar rupture to yours, when I did not want to go back. I wrote her a letter and gave it to her to read to herself about what happended. I know what you mean about feeling bad that your T is feeling bad, but mine said to me the other week when I said sorry for my feelings for the umpteenth time, 'I love it when you try and protect me from this, but I want you to know that's what I'm here for and I can take it' - I still have my training wheels on as regards that one but it did help. I hope you find the strength to go back and see your T as it sounds like they might be the one for you. I'm glad now that I got over my thing and went back, and we are talking again after us both admitting we both could have done things differently around the problem that caused the rupture

Hi, Willow, and welcome to the forum. I'm sorry that your T wasn't able to meet your request, and that she didn't take the time to explain gently and carefully to you, why she wouldn't do it. I think it most likely had to do with her not wanting to leave you in a place of abandonment after a painful session, but rather to be present to you in your pain, otherwise it could have been really awful for you. But I guess she didn't understand at the time what was happening for you. It sounds like you will be able to repair this with her, she sounds like a competent T who is in this for your sake and not here own. Just keep talking about it with her, and I hope it will feel better in time.

I'm impressed that you were able to open up to her, and to find a way to do that! good job talking about it all.

BB

Thanks DebbieN and BB for your support. I was really going to call and cancel tommorow's app. until I saw your posts. I really don't know how to do this anymore. I feel I'm starting from stratch to rebuild and repair something that she should have forseen coming because I'm in the shit when I'm there. She has more prespective and supposedly more insight than me. I feel so angry with her and that makes me shutdown pretty quick. And I've tried talking about the anger but that just ends up wasting a whole session talking about our relationship but I know that is important because when I ignore the anger it just lurks behind me until the session is over and then I carry that until the next week!!Agh!!!

BB- you talk about my T so compassionately and reasonably and logically.It's sounds like the way I used to think. Maybe I'm just throughing a trantum!?

DebbieN I'm really interested if you are able to share how you got over your rupture with your t. Did the upset/hurt/anger that you felt about the rupture reappear when you were talking about other issues or was admitting that you both could have done things diiferntly enough? Did it go back to the way it was before for you?

Sorry for going on about this. I suppose I'll know for sure how I feel about working through this with her after tommorows app.

Hi Willow
You are not going on about this so don't worry about the questions. I was definitely going to cancel my first session (I see T (attachment pyschotherapist) twice a week) after the incident (very similar to your rupture), and really had to talk myself into going. As I wasn't ready to talk with words, I wrote a letter to her about how I felt about how things were left, and asked that she read it to herself (she normally reads stuff out loud that I write with my permission) - that took about 20mins then she said she had been at a loss to know how to help me when I was that badly distressed and unsafe and that she had been thinking of ways to help 'us' meaning her and me minimise my distress while acknowledging how painful my feelings had been and also that although it may happen again, we can work on how we handle it if it does happen again. For my part in the letter I wrote down what I thought might help me in future - she is pretty attuned to me starting to dissociate, so I asked her to butt in a bit more and bring me back earlier on in the dissociation/distress. I also acknowledged that I could have maybe let her know sooner before things escalated that I was going I had expected that she could read my mind of course !!, and that I was wrong to run out of her place like that. So we came to a gentle verbal agreement, and I have agreed what hand signal I will use to stop the talk/session before it climbs to the point where I am that totally out of it with distress. For her part she has agreed to come in and get me back sooner when I stop talking (this is usually the time when I start to get distressed/dissociate)subject to us seeing how that goes. Also because I find writing helpful, she is leaving a pen and paper on my chair (it's there when I get into session so I do not have to even ask for it), so that when I can come back into the present, I can just jot down a word or two (like scared, sad, angry or whatever words I want) and leave them with her so she has a clue as to what is going on with me. The other thing is we both said we could have done it better. The other thing which has been really helpful for me is her suggesting that we leave the trauma stuff alone for a while and just have some lighter sessions about general stuff while we rebuild (we both like music, books that kind of thing)and make the space safer for me and she can then help me contain the work we do in a more balanced way. So that's what we are doing for the moment, and taking it slower together while we rebuild our working relationship. Also we have agreed to build in a longer warning time period, before the end of our 50 min sessions (say at 10 mins) to allow me to have some space to defuse, write or do whatever I need to do before I have to go back to work. No its not precisely like it was, because we are further along in therapy (nearly 6 months now)if that makes sense ? but as she said last week we have both learnt from each other over the rupture, and our communication is strangely getting better as the repair happens. The other thing about the easy sessions is being able as T says to allow us time, and we have also agreed to build in some of these easy sessions every so often, to give me a breather so that I do not get over activated, dissociate (which is something T and I have noted I do) and be generally more present and connected in t sessions. The fact you are thinking about or are going back takes courage Willow (so good on you), I hope that you can do this,as it sounds like your T got you were distressed even if she did not respond or explain her no. It's not exactly like we were before the break but T did warn me a long time ago that there are breaks and repairs in therapy. T acknowledged how hard it was for me to go back after the rupture, and I said it was. She told me she was very glad I had gone back, and now a little way down the line after our rupture I am glad I did too. I hope that you are able to go back to your T and start rebuilding, my T and I have started to repair and I guess it may not be exactly as it was, but it will be a different, more improved working partnership. Sorry for the long winded reply - hope it answers some of your questions. Let us know how it goes - thinking of you

Hi DebbieN,

Thank you so much for sharing all the work that you are doing to rebuild your relationship.It's really good to hear that you're getting back on track with your t (and that it's actually possible!). I really admire your strenght and courage to do that. We have talked about a lot of the things you're doing like her check with me more often how I'm coping with the conversation, leaving 10mins at the end so I can feel grounded and she did say about writing or drawing when there were no word or it was too painful. I cried reading what you wrote because I know how much hard work that it takes and I feel that I've been really trying so hard but I've just realized now after my session why it's not giving me any relief. It's really hard to even write this because I don't want to admit it.. t has become a huge trigger of the person that abused me and the transferance feels so strong that I can't hear my t anymore I just hear this person. And I'm really angry towards her and hate myself so much and yesterday I told t I hated her. They were my last words to her after a tension filled session with long silences. I feel so sad because I don't want to feel like this and I wish it could go back to the way it was. I feel so trapped, part of me wants to run away and forget my life and numb everything and then the other part thinks that I've worked so hard (3 long years) to get to this place I can't give up. But then not knowing when to quit and let something go has got me into trouble before. I'm good at killing myself to do things and in some twisted way it feels like should have to kill myself to do things because it's like a punishment. I really am torturing myself whether I stay or go. I feel so bad now I want to crawl into a hole and die

Hi Willow
I wish I could say something to make it go away for you but I can't except to say that we are here for you. It's very brave of you to recognise that transference is occuring (there are some other posts on here about transference and people who are more experienced with that in t might be able to offer some stories here to you) its a tough call to say what you should do but then you are also recognising that it is a tough call (lots of insight in your post) and you name your feelings very well around what it felt like to go back - I hope to be able to do that someday, its to be respected that you can do that) Whatever you decide to do with respect to therapy - I hope that you would continue to stay around on line (even if you lurk for a bit, and just read like I did before joining and posting) because this is a good place for support what ever happens with T, I hope that you will not go away and you can feel to post, read and gain whatever support you need right now to get through this, if it is okay with you I am sending you a safe virtual hug all the way from the UK ((( Willow)))