((((QUELL))))

quote:

Am I the only one for whom therapy is the most interesting and consuming part of their lives?

Hell no!

Hello Quell

I am quite new at posting on this forum. When i read your post i was nodding all the way through,so
just had to reply to you. It is so interesting how we meet people from all walks of life who post here, professional people, different cultures and ages etc ,
and yet it is so easy to understand and empathise with each and every one of you.....
because we share almost identical thoughts, feelings and emotions.
My relationship with an experienced, caring and committed T has been an important one from the beginning. Experiencing a mental health crisis led me to this gentle man, who's very presence induced a feeling of immense relief and safety. Of course, it has since been an emotional roller coaster, with a mind trying to make sense of it all.....
or, more accurately, two minds......
It is always comforting to picture his face, especially before going to sleep at night. I do struggle with transference feelings towards my T, and feel i would simply curl up and die should he leave me at this moment in time but i know he wont, because i have 'tested' him by daring to 'expose' the angry, suspicious, " Why should YOU care ????" corners of my mind. Also 'acted out' expecting to be ultimately punished in some subtle way.....
but no.....
this gentle and steady person only ever responds with patience, humility and understanding.

Quell, i am a married woman, early forties, two grown up children. Yet i think of my T and our work every day between weekly sessions. Next Monday can't come soon enough !!!
Thank God for this wonderful site, as i sit here each night, relating and learning from other forum members. ( May i mention each night is also spent with my 3 beloved cats and a cup of English tea ! )
Also i attend AA meetings and though i would love to tell fellow members how special and important this theraputic relationship is to me i know i wont........
because there is no need.......
T sits calmly and quietly in my mind during meetings . I say the Serenity Prayer and then silently thank God for him and my family and for my AA friends.
Have i the courage to change and to heal ??

YES !!!

TODAY I BELIEVE THIS BECAUSE I HAVE FELT THE GIFT OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FROM ALL THESE PEOPLE.......
SAFE LOVE.

So thank you Quell for posting, and a big thank you to all the other kind, sensitive, caring, brave, wise, inspiring, helpful, generous, sincere forum members who now form part of this safe love.
I sincerely wish you all well in your journeys.
xxxxxx

Thanks All,
I guess on this site it's kind of a no-brainer to find others whose weeks are ruled by therapy, but it is good to hear from you!

Hi Liese!

Monte, I really like your theory about the unresolved childhood stuff, and the way you explained it. That helps!

Breaking Free, I really appreciate everyone on this forum, too. I have learned SO much here. I think my relationship with T is often more contentious than comforting, but I have learned a lot from him, too. I also think that Al-anon is one of the reasons I became a little less consumed by thoughts of T in the past few months. Nice while it lasted! But obviously I am not done, so I keep on keeping on trying to get that lost soul out of jail, apparently.

I hurt my back this summer and can't do the usual physical activities I love to do. For the past few weeks I have only been able to go for walks. The first day of just walking was hard for me, but I decided to make the best of it and told myself that I would sort of walk and meditate at the same time. Then the serenity prayer popped into my head. At first I was laughing at myself because it seemed so corny, but I kept bringing my mind back to the first part of it. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. And I found myself covering a lot of mental and emotional ground on that walk. I really felt better about myself and the world around me for a while. You never know what's going to work.

***POSSIBLE TRIGGER - PARENTAL DEATH ***

I mostly drink Diet Coke. I have three dogs, a cat and a long-term loving relationship. No kids. I recently terminated with my T, and I think about her every day.

I struggled with her agonizingly, and I believe I finally wore her out. She cut my allowed contact way back and I didn't feel it was sufficient, so I chose to leave.

I think in my mind/heart, tho, I am waiting for her to not be tired of me. Tired from me. I think I wore her out, wore her down. But I have to hand it to her - because she didn't terminate me. I read here about other T's and their email terminations, and I feel fortunate. She didn't quit on me.

I have made several inquiries with other Ts and have even had sessions with three of them. They were all fine. I don't feel drawn to see any of them.

What I really want is to go back to xT. But then I think about the ways that our relationship didn't work and how much pain that caused me. I tried for months and months to make it work. But it was almost unbearable.

Yet, I still hurt. Is this a pain that will subside? I suppose, as most pain does.

I find myself constantly putting this "loss" up against the loss of my mother, now 17 months past. I had medical power of attorney, and I told the doctors to remove her from life support. I chose to terminate.

I terminated my mother and I terminated my T. Different, yes, in many, many ways. But still, the end of a relationship. Significant relationships.

I find myself feeling frustrated and helpless that there is absolutely nothing that I can do to change the situation with my mother. We sent her to be cremated, but really that is just a nice way of saying that I had my mother burned. Now I have only a small box with some ashes that may or may not be those of my mother.

But T - she is still alive. She is still a possibility. She is so much a possibility, living only five miles from me, that I could very feasibly run into her at the grocery or restaurant or park.

Yes, I think about T. I look for her. I have conversations in my head with her. I imagine her relaxing some of her limits and welcoming me back. These are possibilities.

My heart hurts.

-RT

To answer you Quell - you are not alone! I think I echo much of what has been said above.

I just wanted to say 's to (((RT))) you sound really hurt about your mother and your ex T. I can completely understand but don't beat yourself up over your mothers death. My H had to make that call re turning the machines off and although it is an EXTREMELY difficult decision, try and think of it as though the machines were really keeping her from peace, and by switching the machine off you released your mother from her heaviness and her pain. You broke the chains that kept her a prisoner in a lifeless body. You set her free. Now she has wings, and although you can't hear her - she hears you. I know if I were in that state I would want someone to set me free. I'm sorry for your loss RT. I've lost a parent through different circumstances and it's hard.

B2W

Hi Quell,
I am married(OKish) and have two lovely children, but I think about T so much every day. I think about what she has said to me and in difficult times I try to imagine what she would say to me.
I only discuss her with my best friend though. Although my husband has met her, and liked her, he tends to be a bit suspiscious about what I am telling her about him, so we don't discuss therapy much.
I love the serenity prayer too, perhaps because T has it painted on the wall in her office. It is the first thing you see as you enter.

Hello

Yes, my relationship with my T was my most important relationship, except probably the one with my nephew but I would see her weekly without fail whereas I'd see him less frequently but my love for him is whole and complete whereas my relationship with T was fraught with adult difficulties and frustrations.

I'm single, childless and unemployed so therapy was the most important thing in my life. I think that's why I'm freaking out so much now the relationship has broken down.

I think T wouldn't be so important if you didn't have issues to work on but I think it's important that therapy is leading you towards a place where real life two way relationships are possible. I'm certainly not there yet and am questioning whether therapy will ever get me there.

Hopefully this wasn't too much of a downer post. I think the intensity is quite normal for therapy but whether it's healthy depends on the quality of the relationship I suppose.

"I think it's because so much of it is rooted in ancient, unresolved needs and desires...it touches the unresolved childhood stuff. That is powerful stuff that doesn't go away. Once it is tapped into, once that connection is made, it doesn't release you because that connection needs to be made and things need to be played out and resolved. It just grabs and doesn't let go. I think if stuff is missing from that crucial developmental stage, it will nag at us incessantly for attention. To me that's why the relationship is so consuming - because those needs are so consuming - and must somehow be met to meet our design standards so we can function as intended."

Wow, that paragraph just knocked my socks off Monte. I think it describes perfectly why the connection and drive to feel connected can feel so all-consuming.

There have been times in my life where the relationship with a T has been the single most important connection I had. My life revolved around that point when I'd get to leave work and go to therapy.

I think it is okay for therapy and our Ts to feel so central. With my current T I think there's some developmental stuff going on that I'm not even really aware of consciously sometimes. I feel deeply torn over letting someone matter so much - for me that's got a lot to do with my ambivalent relationship with vulnerability, rather than being worried about it in any wider sense. I kind of try to be a bit zen about it mostly; if my T feels central then I try and trust the process and roll with it and try and explore what that might mean with her (my success in this area is variable, mind!)

Quell, I'm sorry to hear about your cat. I just lost my 17 year old cat too and mourn her absence greatly.

quote:

I also go to Al-anon and have found that helpful overall.... So tonight I am thinking about it and realizing that my damn therapist is the most important relationship in my life. So there I will be, in a support group kind of meeting, a single, middle-aged schoolteacher with no kids and no partner... talking to strangers about how I feel about the most important relationship in my life, my therapist. I mean if I wear a cardigan and drink some chamomile tea while I'm at it, the stereotype will be complete. (No offense to any other cat loving single middle aged childless teachers who drink tea and wear cardigans--obviously we rock!)

Am I the only one for whom therapy is the most interesting and consuming part of their lives? Is your relationship with your therapist basically the most important one in your life? If so, is that OK?

I coulda written all of the above, except that I'm a middle aged, single, no partner or children, chocolate tea drinking, cardigan wearing, DOG loving person who tends to count hours between therapy sessions.

As many have said in this thread - you're not alone Quell, and I think you're in very good company!

I'm just sorry that all of this is so hard for us sometimes.

I was walking again today and just recently I've become aware of how much of the things I see are tinged with feelings of the past. Yeah, I am talking about bushes and trees and shadows and streets and cars and dogs. When people would say things like "you have to let go of the past," I thought they meant like discrete stories and specific traumas of the past, so I didn't really get it because, for example, I know that I am not walking around thinking about the fact that my dad died when I was young. The feelings and images of the past for me are so subtle and insidious and pervasive that I really didn't see that I was carrying anything from the past in my everyday life.

When I was walking today I realized that while I have been pretty healthy physically for most of my life, it seems that I have never really been healthy psychologically or emotionally. I don't know where I am going with this story, but it seems funny to have been invisibly sick for just about forever. That unresolved childhood stuff just follows you and it is you somehow. So letting go of the past means letting go of being 10 and also letting go of last year and last month, too. I don't know.

Like I said, I wish healing was easier for all of us. It is really hard to deal with. My sympathies to everyone who is hurting and caught up in such confusing and painful and difficult dynamics. And my admiration for everyone's courage in continuing to try to change what they can for themselves and to heal.

Absolutely. My relationship with my T is the most important thing to me. Any time something even threatens my time with her I freak out. I have family and friends but I can't talk to any of them about therapy or T because I am pretty sure they would not understand why this relationship is so important. My family and friends are important to me too and I try hard to keep those relationships healthy because I know they are all I will have when I lose T. Losing T will devastate me and no one will be able to grieve with me because no one will really know. But if I still have family and friends too then at least I will have that. All of those relationships aren't nearly as intimate and I do not trust them as I can trust T but I try. I have been trying to entertain the notion that T will not be in my life some day. It is so painful to even briefly consider. I have barely been able to talk about it to T because I am so afraid that talking about it will make it happen. But since I am so attached I am afraid and feel the need to "prepare" somehow for life without T but that seems like a bleak and painful existence full of grief and loneliness. I don't think I feel quite so intensely about losing anyone else in my life. Kinda of makes me sad to think that. Makes me wonder if I am doing it wrong.

Hi Quell,

As others have pointed out above, having other significant relationships – bad and good – doesn’t really seem to get into it when it comes to our relationships with our T’s. It’s just so damned different from any kind of relationship we are familiar with, and has such an unknown intensity to it. It's all very reptilian I guess. Feeling accepted as we are, with all our feelings. Having a person's attention completely devoted to our needs for a whole hour. I have been in a good relationship for 16 years, we have two wonderful daughters, I have close friends but none of these people lend me 4 to 5 hours of undivided attention every month - and wouldn't, even if I paid them for it, haha! This T-thing comes just so damn close to very deep, deep stuff from when things started going wrong.
So yes, I - as 99% of this community, I guess - think about my T lots of the time and almost always count the days until my next appointment. There's loads of transference going on between us, but we're both rather cool about that. She calls it 'letting the feelings come up and exploring them', while I'm almost dying with embarrasment/craving/fear of rejection
I get edgy with the idea of cutting our sessions back, for financial reasons AND because I'm starting a 4 years course to become a therapist myself.
I'm really grateful to you for starting this thread, because I too, sometimes wonder if these feelings are ok and knowing that so many others out there have them too, is such a relief.
Big hug

Wow, I have really enjoyed all of your replies, for the solidarity and understanding, and because they are thought-provoking and entertaining! Ahh, I am “differently domestically arranged at this time”—love it SmilingP. The power of the right words. I almost feel special with that!

Actually, I am someone who is lucky to have people other than T who I am close to. I was able to get closer to some of the people in my life because of my growth through therapy. Yet my therapist is still often the be-all-end-all. Most of the people in my life know about me and my therapist. It’s hard for me to not be honest about what’s on my mind and what’s important to me, so I talk about it. I am lucky that so many people are willing to listen to me go on about therapy. Some even ask how it is going! I think that this is different from many people on the forum. The sad part is that they know about me and him in a way similar to the way your friends would know about your boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse, from the stories you tell and the angst you have, and the dramas you try to interpret.

Most of the people in my life know that I struggle with my therapist. It has been a rough time with him, no doubt, but like a few of you mentioned, no matter how hard or uncomfortable it is, I always always always want to go to my appointment. I have never missed an appointment in over three years. I went back after he fell asleep on me. I went back after he told me that he won’t call me by my name. I went back after he suggested I help him figure out a way to get more rest so that he won’t fall asleep on me. I went back after I saw him on the street and beeped and gave him the finger from my car.

I posted the other day because I was having trouble with him again, and it was on my mind. Today I did something I have never done. I called and explained that I wanted to skip a week. I left a message saying that it felt like too much pressure for me to go this week. I guess I am tired of the work of this relationship somehow. I need a week off. I am a little bit afraid that I will change my mind and freak out, but mostly I think it will be OK. I don’t want to rub it in for people who have had their appointments involuntarily cancelled, but for me this is a big deal. I’m not sure what it means. Maybe I can just be zen about it like Mallard.

(((Shaman, born2write, Liese, Monte, Tygr, Red Tomato, breaking free, Starlight, Mallard, Hollow, Room2Grow, smilingpenguin, River)))

He said he wouldn't call you by your name? That would have sent me for the hills. How did you work that out? I think it is awesome you have seen it through to this point.

I laughed when you wrote:

"I went back after I saw him on the street and beeped and gave him the finger from my car." (Did he know it was you?)

I hope things become a little less pressurized for you and will be able to resume therapy when you are ready.

All the best.
T.

((((SP))))

quote:

She said shes a T because she wanted to connect with people on a deeper level than you normally get to in everyday life because its more emotionally honest.

Wow. That was a great answer. I was expecting her to say something like, "I want to help people". Instead of making it about being altruistic, she took responsibility for what she gets out of the relationship. I love it. She sounds awesome!

Quell, great thread!

Quell,

I want to write more later but I also wanted to say that you are a wonderful writer. So candid and so disarming. I bet you are a real joy to be around.

I wanted to say something about this business of our Ts being the most important relationship. I can so relate and in some ways have a lot of shame about it. But then I got to thinking further into it and I realized that it is ultimately the relationship with ourselves that is the most important and Ts help us connect to ourself. So think that when it feels like our Ts are the most important we are really saying that about ourselves and that only makes sense. No one else is going to care for you like you care for yourself. If that makes sense???

Whoa, Turtle. That's given me some food for thought.

I think it explains why even now I experience very high levels of fear and even dissociation when I try to stop holding T at arms length.

Shaman--good luck in your journey to becoming a T.

TAS--It's a looooooong story!

Liese--I was really impressed with smilingPs T answer to why she does the work, too! So interesting.

Turtle--thank you! And I really liked your thoughts about how the therapy/therapist relationship is ultimately about our relationship with ourselves. Another deep and true thought following up some of the ideas people posted earlier. They are kind of all connected. Yours is great because it is simple and clear and it brings things back to us.

Hollow--it IS kind of scary for me to get close to me, I agree.

Quell,

I think it's brave of you to cancel an appointment and try to see how that goes for you. I hope you come here and get support from us during that time. Or even if you changed your mind and went anyway it's okay. We are here to support you.

BTW i live alone, never had kids and i LOVE my dog. I don't even have a steady carreer like you do. Hang in there.

Oh I forgot, Hollow and Mallard, Yeah I know scary thought huh??? My relationship with myself is the most rocky one I know so working with a T on me is also very rocky. Ugh