What was hardest was that while I started my weekend. Y spending Friday night shut in my bathroom wi the lights off, curled up in a ball and sobbing my heart out; she is blissfully unaware and enjoying her weekend off work.

I don't know a thing about her other than her name and where she works (two jobs). I have no idea if she has a family or is single or whatever - and I pray to god I never ever find out otherwise.

But whatever she's doing, it's not going to impact her life in ANY way WHATSOEVER that I'm in so much pain and suffering.

And that is just like it was with my mum. Exactly the same ;(

ElizaJ,

I hear your pain and frustration and I am sorry you are experiencing transference issues with your T. I have been going through a similar experience with my T. I totally "get" your feelings and thoughts surrounding your mothers unavailability to love and nurture you as a child and how it is playing out in therapy with your T because the same exact thing has happened to me. My mom was an alcoholic and "chose" to not give me those things, just like I perceive my T is not giving them to me. It is painful to not feel worthy or good enough. In my case I sought the assistance of another T to help me process my feelings and insights about my current T because the transference was actually blocking my progress with current T. It was actually like sitting across from my mother every week. Talking with T2 has helped to me to open up to T1 a little more. I have also been working on "detaching" or putting T1 in her place in my head. I really craved Ts love and attention and nurturing and soothing words, while all along she was providing it (just not in ways that translated as loving to me).

I have learned that T1 does care, that she does provide unconditional positive regard in therapy just not in ways that my inner child understands, so I have to talk to my inner child and give her what she needs. On the upside, It feels like I am being a little more caring toward T1 myself by not placing such demands on her.

I am not a T but I am in the psychiatric field as a provider and I can tell you that as a provider who delivers direct patient care, I care about my clients very much and often times think of them on my off time and would be devastated if anything ever happened to one of my clients. Your T does care. Maybe just not in ways that you can embrace just yet. We all demonstrate love and caring in different ways. In my case T1 saw me for free for 5 months last year due to a gap in my medical insurance. I didn't see it as loving behavior before, just that she was doing me a favor, but in doing that favor, she loved me. She didn't leave me, she stayed with me even though the money wasn't there.

If you feel blocked discussing transference and all the messy emotions it brings up maybe a consultation with another professional to clear things up. If you feel like you can talk to your T please do, it opens HUGE doors to healing and self-reliance and self-love. My T is giving me the greatest gift of all in teaching me how to provide and meet my own emotional needs.

I wish you luck and great healing on your journey. I can definately identify with your pain. You said it best.... it is RAW.

Huge healing hugs to you and your inner child. Thank you for sharing ElizaJ.

Just saw this and am out of time to write now, but sending hugs. I know what it's like to just crave to hear their voice or even get a one line reply to an email. It does get better, at least it has for me, as you grow more secure in the relationship. If she's a good T and a safe person, talking about these things with her will help.

Thank you everyone for the replies - it really helps me feel less alone. I'd read quite a few posts on here about this before I joined and I joined cos I knew other people would know what I was going through. It's a hard thing to acknowledge, let alone deal with.

20 years ago I was in my late teens. I had entered the psych system and found myself feeling strongly attached to my day treatment nurse. I didn't know it was transference. I did want her to be my mother. She was so kind, and she gave me hugs. I felt safe with her. I ached to be near her and have her talk to me. I thought of her all the time, and it hurt so much knowing she would go home at the end of the day and be with her own family (she had teenage boys I think).


I wasn't diagnosed with PTSD then - I know now that's what has always been the issue, but they misdiagnosed me as BPD. 20 years ago the 'treatment' for BPD was to pretty much IGNORE any distress someone with it had, least you 'encourage' further 'dependency'. 20 years ago those with BPD (which was any young woman presenting with a history of abuse and who self harmed - men with the same symptoms were never diagnosed BPD ) were seen to be manipulative, attention seeking and out at all costs, to manipulate others in order to feel cared for.

When I would phone up emergency psych after hours for support when I was feeling suicidal, I'd be told 'well if you want to kill yourself, that's your choice - we can't stop you'. Once when I was really struggling with suicidal feelings and urges to self harm, I was responded to like that for 3 days total - then I was put in hospital. I was so upset, and asked if they believed me why did it take 3 days to help me - their answer? The psychiatrist actually said, quote "well we were only 95% sure you were going to kill yourself"

on top of that, the day program where I was started using my feelings of attachment for my nurse to bribe me into doing what they wanted - if I didn't do goal setting or didn't eat my lunch (I had an eating disorder), then I wouldn't get to see my nurse for a one on one session that week. This conditional caring mirrored that of how it was like with my mother - and cussed me so much pain.

Worse still - our one on one sessions were viewed by 2 health professionals via a one way mirror. I felt like a fly under a microscope. I felt like (because of the so called BPD) I was seen by them as sooooooo manipulative, that my nurse had to be protected in her interaction with me like this, least I manipulate her without her awareness.

It felt like the one way mirror thing was to protect her from me

The whole thing left me with such intense SHAME, and that my feelings for her were incredibly wrong and PATHOLOGICAL.

Going through this with my T now, it brings up the same feelings of shame, rejection and fear. I am so afraid she will feel she needs to protect herself from my 'lying, manipulative ways' that if I ever try to make a connection or reach out TOO much with her, she will insert major concrete walls in order to stop me coming 'too' close, least I seek out to manipulate and control her in some way .

I've told her most my past experience and how it left me feeling. How I fear her thinking I have BPD - because having that label put to my name would be worse than being told I have an I curable, horribly painful, leper like terminal illness. I really, honest to God, think of few things worse right now - such is my fear (!!!!) of the resulting REJECTION, ABANDONMENT, SHAME, and PAIN those 3 letters bring.

(Please know I am NOT saying I think people with BPD are lying, manipulative freaks to be kept at a distance and rejected - it is just that I was left feeling that way due to how BPD used to be 'treated' all those years ago . )

I've managed to be honest with my T and tell her my ongoing fear of the BPD thing prevents me sharing some things with her for fear they are 'too BPD-like'.

Argh. Double posted

Eliza my heart breaks for how you have been treated. I am so sorry. I don't have time to write a long response now because it's dinner time in my house, but I'll be back later. I just want to say that much of what you need is a stable fearless attachment figure and a lot of nurturing. Your development was never allowed to happen in the way it should have and you likely missed a lot of those stages you needed to pass through to grow into an adult without PTSD.

I just wanted to let you know that I hear you and I am sorry and I'm glad you wrote this out so others can offer their support to you as well.

Lastly, welcome to the Board.

TN

I don't think I will ever get what I need; not even a breath if it. As I told my T - the fundamental truth that is my biggest, deepest pain, right down to the depths of my soul - and which I really do not know if I am capable of truly accepting, is that I had just one chance to be given what I needed - and now that childhood is well and truly finished, I will never ever get that. Not even a little bit.

I really do not know if I can ever accept it to the level I need in order to be truly free of the pain of the past. I'm coming to realise that while INTELLECTUALLY I have spent 20 years going to therapy knowing it's not possible to ever have unconditional love and acceptance, I've nonetheless kept going to therapy with the EMOTIONAL HOPE that somehow, if only I talk enough about it, share about it, I will one day get what I need and missed out on.

With my T, exploring the transference stuff, and having to - one day, probably sooner rather than later - come up against the inevitable pain of the inevitable boundaries within the T relationship, is just so heartbreaking.

And I'm not even there or near to it yet. It sucks knowing what will happen and still my heart goes there anyway. Still it hopes that somehow, somehow, i will get what I've always needed.

All the logic in the world isn't going to protect me from the future pain