Thanks Ms. C--I really appreciate it. I just can't see me going back to him with my tail between my legs. It's embarrassing. I guess what little pride I have left just gets in the way.

LJB

What strikes me in your post, is that as soon as you got really sad, all actions were directed to 'modificating' it. Like 'sad' isn't allowed? Like 'sad' had to end, or become less? But you were sad... and maybe just needed someone to sit next to you while you were being sad and hopeless. No more no less.
Dear LJB, I think what you experienced was a temporary rupture. Not a break up. You were sad, maybe you didn't feel validated in that (it had to change) and then you got p'eed off and announced you'd had enough. To me perfectly reasonable and very recognisable. And it hurts and makes you feel hopeless and pointless and possibly mad. I hope you can take some time to scrape yourself together a bit and face this with your T. After a (temporary) rupture often a period of deepened understanding arises.
Hope this doesn't sound too theoretical or even harsh-ish... I just got up and my English isn't all there yet. But my heart is...

Thanks again, MsC...and thank you too, Elsewhere, for your words of insight. I will take all into account. I can't tell you how much your words lift my low spirits. I know this is going to sound awful, but I just feel like a "burden" to the people I know--even to my therapist. He did tell me that he does not see me as a burden. He's never said an unkind remark to me in the four years I've been with him. He's always upfront with me and is the ultimate professional. It's just that when you feel like you are not making any progress...what do you do then? That is something that I don't have answers for.

LJB,

I have felt the way you are feeling so many times. I have felt like closing the door on all of it, of just walking away from all the docs and all the help and saying screw it. For me it always seemed to boil down to frustration toward myself for taking small steps forward only to land flat on my butt emotionally. I have told my T several times that I was "done". Her reply to me was "I strongly recommend you stay in therapy with someone". I used to interpret this that she didn't care because she didn't tell me that I should stay with her and that she really couldn't care less about me, but my head knows differently.

The idea that has been most difficult for me to accept on an emotional level is that my T is there for me no matter what I do, no matter what I feel. As a survivor of abuse, I am used to withdrawing and retreating and keeping my mouth shut. I am used to suffering in silence. I am used to having my words and feelings used against me to make me feel less or invalidated. I am used to taking away from myself the things I value and love out of fear that they will be taken away from me because one day the person who I love and value (my T) will one day find me insignificant and unimportant and will abandon me.

What do when these feelings come up is look back over my Ts behavior over the course of time in therapy with her. I have shared some things that I have never shared before, I have behaved absolutely inappropriately at times, I have said things out of transference and out of anger and hurled nasty words her way, but she has stood firm and consistantly and constantly offered me support, encouragement and love and prescence over time.

I remember on one occasion just a few weeks ago, telling my T that I do not know how to respond to her and to this relationship, that she is offering me a new reality. Something I have never had before, and that requires me to experience the new reality while old tapes are playing at an amplified level in my head. I have been trained not to trust, not to feel, not to feel supported, heard, loved and valued and sometimes those very things make me want to run like hell even though those are the things I want. I have slowly started to integrate that those are the things I not only want but that I deserve them too. To have someone stand by me regardless of my "unacceptableness" that I feel toward myself and the way I behave sometimes is foriegn to me and it requires a lot of work and alot of trust in my T and in myself to listen to my gut and my heart that this particular T is different.

I have departed from T on several occassions and seen other therapists and psychologists, but deep inside I know it is she, who can help me heal, because I want to heal with her. I want to take this journey with her and I want her to be the catalyst to my healing. She means something to me. As survivors we have a tendency to remove ourselves or people from our lives that mean something to us out of fear of losing them or ourselves in the process of keeping them.

I hope you go back to your T. It is ok, to want to give up, to quit, to become angry and frustrated and to voice those things. That is a sign of growth.

There were so many times I just literally felt like I could not face my T because of shame, anger, guilt for being a difficult and messed up patient, for feeling needy and dependent on her and also because I behaved inappropriately toward her between sessions and yelled at her on the phone during a melt down. I remember just wanting to put a bag over my head and show up to therapy because I didn't want her to see my face because of things I had said or done, but I have come to accept that no matter what I do (aside from self-harm) my T will always be there with welcoming words and a soothing hug. My T is not out to harm me like the many Ts prior to her have, she is not out to harm me like my parents did. THIS REALITY IS DIFFERENT and requires me to REACT IN DIFFERENT WAYS EMOTIONALLY. It requires me to TRUST her and in the relationship. Fortunately that inner voice that tells me to stay, that voice that tells me that nothing is unworkable or unmanageable in therapy with this T is becoming stronger and stronger.
Please allow the relationship with this T to help you re-write your reality. It is worth a shot... the story can have a happy ending.

In regards to if it doesn't help change my reality, I tell myself that I have overcome many T's abandoning me, I have survived and overcome many abusive relationships and likewise I will survive the pain of losing her if it ever comes to that. It requires not only trusting our Ts but trusting ourselves to handle what we think we cannot. Guess what? We CAN! We have in the past!

Go back, it will be an awesome sign of strength. I am sure your T wants you to come back. They invest their time and caring into us and we are important to them as well.

Thank you, GG. Your words are very encouraging. I do agree with everything you are saying. Like I said, my T has always been committed to me and my theraputic care. It's nothing that he is doing wrong. I think it lies within me. I've never stopped therapy with any of my T's, which include 25 years. I think it just hit me that I'm never going to get over this. I have to think about this awhile. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Again, thank you for your input. It is very important.

LJB

quote:

I am used to taking away from myself the things I value and love out of fear that they will be taken away from me because one day the person who I love and value (my T) will one day find me insignificant and unimportant and will abandon me.

Oh, that so struck a cord with me GG...

Likewise for me SB.

At least we know how each other kinda feels.

Thinking of you LJB.

Caroola x

And me. Core abandonment stuff right there. JOY! /sarcasm

Hugs to you, LJB.

Group hug called for I think.



Caroola x

Group hug. I am with you on that.

Okay, all. I have an update. I did take everything you said into account. I also visited a very good friend of mine yesterday and she said my "demeanor" was much different than it has ever been. What is wrong? Well, in the midst of more crying, I told her that I had been out of my night time meds that I take in order to sleep (this was during the Labor Day Weekend--couldn't contact pdoc) and I had substituted another medication in order for me to sleep. So, the morning of my appointment, I had yet another anti-anxiety med ontop of the one I just took before I went to sleep and then I went to my 9 a.m. session. I think the doses of medication significantly effected my personality. My good friend, who has a counseling background, helped me sort this out. She suggested I contact my T, maybe give him a phone call. I stay away from phone calls because I usually do a better job with the written word, verses verbal chatter. So...I went ahead and e-mailed him to tell him that I have reflected on my actions and I think I know what contributed to them. I admitted I couldn't remember a whole lot of the session, only parts, but I did remember feeling sad, shameful and worthless. I asked if my Thursday time slot was still available because I would like to discuss this with him. Then I signed it, Nothing but respect, LJB.

He e-mailed me back and said "Absolutely. See you next Thursday. Let's discuss then." Needless to say, I feel much better about this whole incident. Although it won't be easy trying to explain everything to him, I'm sure he will understand. I think that man deserves a medal.

Thank you all for all of your replies. This forum is one of a kind.

Best,
LJB

That is so awesome. I am happy you contacted your T and will be going back.

Thank goodness! Yay! Nice T

That is good news, so pleased for you LJB.




Caroola x

Silver medal for your T.
Gold medal for you!

Thank you, everyone! You really helped me out in a time of need! Hope I can return the favor some day! (Internally, I feel so much better.)

LJB

Okay, so I'm going back into my T's office tomorrow...I really feel overtly nervous about this. It's like I just want to say the right things. I want to explain everything without feeling like I have my tail between my legs. I know he will be very gracious about my apology, because I know him. It's just really important that I get it all out the right way. Thinking of writing it out beforehand, but wondering if I should just be spontaneous about all of this. Any advice for those of you who have been here?

LJB

Oh, and in addition...I had given my T last week a plaque for his office (something he mentioned he wanted to get at some time in his career)...which I didn't even remember giving him. Later that day, he sent me a picture of it hanging on his wall, with a thank you text to me. I was like...how did it get from my house to the wall of his office??? THAT is how out of it I was. And to think I drove 25 minutes to get home. I don't remember that at all either. It's like a big dream. See what I mean? This is why I'm having such anxiety about this meeting tomorrow! (But thank God I'm in a better place, now.)

LJB

Hi LJB

When I have been in a situation when I needed to tell my PsycT something difficult and wanted to explain it properly but yet be spontaneous, I have written bullet points and then gone through them at home speaking it out loud. This way, I was able to get continuity of what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. I took the bullet points with me to refer to and followed them but spoke around it, if you see what I mean. I found that when I was with her even though I followed my bullet point notes the conversation became spontaneous because she commented or said something and it was all very natural. I told her before I started that it wasn't easy to speak about this particular subject and that I had made bullet points. She thought that was a good thing as I had thought about it and prepared.

One thing she did say which stuck with me in a good way is that me, the patient/client, does not have to be appropriate. She said it was her job to be appropriate. Obviously there are limits to me being inappropriate but I wouldn't be that extreme anyway as I have respect for her as you do with your T.

I have said sorry to her but not in a way that was humiliating for me because T's expect ups and downs, that is part of their role and if we are being perfectly open and honest with them then these ups and downs are going to happen. For instance, I thought she was going to react to something I wrote to her about in the same way as my abusive T had done. My left side of brain, the logical side was saying of course she won't but my emotional right side of brain couldn't see this reasoning and won. I told her all of this in the letter and apologised and said it was me and my bad abusive T experience and life insecurities and not her. I explained this again briefly when I saw her but I think it was water of a duck's back to her, she had probably heard much worse and the same probably goes for your T. They have heard it all time and time again and to them it is part of being a professional and they don't take it personally. We take it personally for them because we love and respect our Ts.

Hope this helps a bit.

Good luck tomorrow, I am sure it will all go really well for you, do let us know.

Caroola x

Caroola,

It helped a lot. Thank you so much for your reply. I'm going to bullet my points like you suggested. That should keep me on track. I'll let you know what happens.

Thank you very much.

LJB

Well, the session is over and it went very well. He started off my telling me that it was time to take the 90 day questionaire, which is a 30 question survey as to how you have been feeling within the last week. When we got to the third quesiton, I told him, "I don't think this is a good week to be doing this." He reassured me that it's okay...it just gives him an idea of where am presently functioning. Afterwards, he came and sat down and asked if I wanted to talk about last week.

I apologized up front for my actions. He said I didn't have to apologize, but I said I wanted to, and he said, "Okay," and let me. I told him what I thought led up to my actions of last week. When I was finished, he said, "I have learned that rupture is a part of every relationship...and this is a relationship. And the goal is to repair. And hopefully, we can work through this and repair it and get back on track." He tried to tell me he wasn't perfect and he makes mistakes because he's human, but I told him he didn't make any mistakes.. That it was me. He said he didn't think that there was anything, from his perspective, that was insurmountable, so, he was glad I was back. Needless to say, my anxiety level at that point dropped a little bit. Then we continued the session doing some parts work.

I do want to thank all of you who replied or even read my post. I'm not a person who enjoys drama...I definately avoid conflict and my actions really affected me. Thanks for being here.

LJB

I am so happy that it went well and that you are feeling better.

Well done, you handled it brilliantly.

Caroola x

Thanx, Caroola!!!