Friday. Phone session. Want to cancel it. Trying to just write how I feel and send it like usual and ride through these feelings. I feel like there is no fixing this unless he DOES something, anything. F---! I want to destroy something right now. Really go to town. Not a good place for me to be, because I am an internally directed person, not an externally directed person. Trying to keep it to verbal stuff in my journal.

(((DF))) Thanks.

Honestly? I want a hug or a hand on my shoulder or even just for him to talk to me like I'm a f---ing human being. He was trying to get me to talk...and listening...and taking notes. And the scribbling made me just want to leave. And we talked about the past. All the stupid transference stuff that I've brought up a million times myself before and I guess now that he's experiencing it for himself, he wants to hear it again? But all I want is for him to SOMEHOW show me he is different. But when he feels so detached, I have no faith that he is. He's just some guy who I am paying to be kind to me...and that's kind of f---ed up.

Sorry. You are being so sweet. I just want someone, in real life, SAFE, to hold me through this anger and pain and fear and aloneness. And all I have is my H who I have assault feelings about, because of his condition. And, more than that, I want to be the sort of person who can be held, physically, emotionally, verbally...whatever. And I can't even manage it without giant spikes coming out of my body and obliterating anyone who tries to come near.

((((Yaku)))))

hang in there, hun. Don't cancel on Friday just yet. If Thursday rolls around and you are still feeling like canceling, then go for it but I would strongly encourage you to ride this out because I'm thinking you may feel differently tomorrow.

I still want to cancel. Moreover, I want to quit. This man is hurting me so much and I can't stand it. It is taking everything in me to not drift from wanting to be close and not getting it to not f---ing caring and taking it out on myself for ever allowing myself to feel this way again when I knew for sure there was a good reason I quarantined the needy, little brat. Yes, that's how I feel about myself right now. And T said, "Nope, you need to feel these things. Needs are good. Dependency is OK," and then as soon as I really just let myself be OK with it he steps back. It's like I was playing that game where you fall and count on someone to catch you and he let me face plant. And now my need for help is in high gear except the person that made me trust him enough to be willing to keep playing this game has turned into a ghost. You can't trust a ghost to catch you, can you? I think today will be bad. All I want is to tell him, "YOU CANNOT HELP ME! I quit!"

IT is a really difficult place, Yaku. (((((Yaku)))))
I think your T will not only not be surprized by all that you write here, but it is par for the course really. The hurt, the fear, the loss, the feeling he is there and then not there, all rushing up from the past, all really good meaty stuff to work with - as you well know.

Horrible though it is to live through it.

and of course you want to cancel. And quit. You want so much from him and all of it is is utterly reasonable considering past events from your child hood etc, and he knows this and you are beginning to consider this as a possibility, but the FEAR, the need to run, is HUGE.

I have every confidence in you and know that although you have such a load on you at the moment, with H and all the other things, that you are not a quitter but yes, it is SO nice to allow ourselves the possibility of quitting now and again, especially when it hurts this much.

I am rooting for you and sending you such hugs.

(((YAKU)))))

although I have a rather big wedding to attend here in the UK on Friday, (LOL) I shall be thinking of you on Friday.

I see sweetP tomorrow morning and one part of me just wants to leap at him and snuggle up with sheer delight that he is so kind and there for me and the other part of me wants to sulk in the corner and not talk to him AT ALL because he WON'T hold me. Urgh.

I love hearing about your journey, I resonate so much with it. Take care, and good luck.

Thanks, Sadly. Just a sincere thank you. It hurts so bad right now. (((hugs)))

more hugs then (YAKU)
YAKU hug hug hug hug
(((((YAKU )))))))
and a warm and empathetic hand holding too, just for good measure.
If you were here I would offer you a hot drink, and we could put our feet up and sort out therapy and therapists over a chat.

You take care.

I am feeling like the cruelest, most abusive person ever. I know, intellectually, that's not true. But all my projections about his lack of believing me and care (that I have been sharing with T via text) have caused him to have to confront me:

"I don't really believe my behavior (nor the thoughts of my heart) warrant the conclusions you seem to be making about me. I think I have been and continue to be kind and supportive. So I am confused by your negative spiraling about me..."



Why can't I connect with him. He's obviously caring and trying to support me and I am just drifting, unable to grasp it. I think things with H this week just have me in such an unsafe place that I can't even see T's safety. So, him stepping back and then H invading has everyone seeming like a threat... I hope I can make T understand. I always try to tell him that it's not about him or what he has done. Now, I'm feeling like I should just not share my projections with him, because even though I know they're not about him, they feel real and it obviously frustrates him that part of me is so certain that he is a monster. I feel like I've finally pushed him away and I have no one to blame but myself if things break down.

Yaku,

I do not think you have pushed him away, but he does sound a bit frustrated/confused by your interpretations of his comments. I'm curious if and what you texted back to that comment he sent you?

I basically freaked out and flooded him until he responded again...

Me: You're right & I'm sorry! That's why I prefer not to share w people when I am like this. I just push away bc I'm scared to death & require more reassurance than is humanly possible to give. I really have no idea what I should do. Be honest or keep this stuff to myself to minimize collateral damage? What do I do?

Me again: I really am sorry. Last week really threw me for a loop. I know I need to stop confusing you w others. Stuff that happens w H making it hard to see anyone as safe. So my fault/issue. Not yours. You are still steady. Just hard to sense when I'm in chaos. Can we try to regroup? I surrender...white flag & everything!

Me 3rd try: Um...would you mind skipping/deleting my 4/26 email? It has a lot of these sort of projections in it...it's ok if you still want to read it, but I feel awful.

T: God bless you for your humility in this. I think it really is ok for you to talk about and process all these things freely. This is a process and we are hoping on His redemptiveness as they come out into the light and He cleans things up for us...

And then, I replied to that, but if I included all our texts back and forth from today it would be way too much. I am in freak out mode for some reason. So, at least it seems like T is OK with me. I didn't think I was being particularly humble, though. Whatever. As long as I didn't push him away. If I quit, I want it to be on my terms.

Do you feel like you create misunderstandings with your T so that you have something to work out? Sometimes I feel that I create drama in therapy so that T and I can have "make -up therapy". I'm just wondering if maybe you do this too? Like it feels good to have conflict because at least then we are engaged with our Ts between sessions and crisis seems to be the only way to maintain contact?

Yaku,

FWIW, I think what you are experiencing right now is fairly normal for this stage of the game (that does not mean it isn't incredibly painful and confusing, I am not minimizing the very real agony you're in.) I think your relationship with your T has been growing deeper and you are allowing more of your feelings and memories to surface and are starting to confront the things in your life that need to be changed and stored up stuff you need to process.

On some level, you are experiencing a deeper sense of safety and trust in your T, or you wouldn't be doing what you're doing. But that means you're moving closer to your T and letting more of your real core self be seen. But, again, that is going to signal danger on a very deep primal level. You're doing something that for a very long time when you were developing led to you getting hurt. You are doing the emotional equivalent of reaching out to touch a hot burner. Everything in you is screaming to pull back, stop going towards your T and get the hell out of dodge.

One of the ways you are trying to keep yourself "safe" is by seeing your T as dangerous. It's not just about seeing him through the lens of the past (although I don't want to discount that as it's an important part of the dynamic) but also about your frontal lobe trying to come up with reasons to do what your hind brain is screaming at you to do which is to GET OUT. So you'll grab onto anything at all. I was constantly amazed at my creativity for coming up with reasons of why I HAD to leave therapy.

The best thing you can do is keep hanging onto the fact that these are feelings that you are having, but it's a consistent you which is also sometimes able to feel that your T is trustworthy and not dangerous. These feelings of danger and threat will not always be there.

I am glad that your T is being patient, but I wish he had a better handle on why you're feeling this way so that he doesn't take it personally. One thing I really appreciated about my T was that he understood where all my fears and mistrust were coming from, so he just held still and trusted that he wasn't doing anything to deserve the feelings which allowed him to be very patient and not distressed to hear about them from me.

But one thing is definitely clear which is that you need to talk about how you're feeling. You're not just seeing what you do with your T, you are seeing what you probably do with a lot of relationships. I know that was very true for me.

All that said, I know that this is just hellish to walk through. (((Yaku)))

AG

LG - This is actually the first time we've had a misunderstanding that has affected him. That's why I was so distraught. Because, usually I am so clear that it is NOT about him and he is very understanding that it has nothing to do with him. So, it kind of freaked me out to have chinked his armor, so-to-speak. Then again, perhaps my whole "zoo exhibit" discussion means he is just being willing to show me his human side a bit...so I can see that my pain affects him. If so, that is another kindness he is doing me.

I think when we first started working together, my separation anxiety would work me into crisis in order to connect with him. But, I warned him it would happen before it ever did. And, every time I was actually in crisis, it has felt real to me. Only afterward does it seem like I am getting myself worked up over nothing. In the case of my T, in the last few weeks, I had finally become comfortable with the fact that I can maintain contact for no reason at all. In fact, T actually seems really encouraged with me touching base just to connect with him and especially to let him know about good feelings/thoughts too. So, I really have no reason to believe I need to be in crisis to have access to him. That said, I think that last week's rupture, with me feeling pushed away, might have reactivated "V" (my victim state that I worry is acting out for attention). In the end, if V is acting out, it means I am in extreme amounts of pain and/or fear...and I am always very honest with T about what I am feeling (even if I'm worried I'm overreacting, attention seeking, etc.), so I don't feel too guilty even if that's what is going on. I think I put to bed most of my self-loathing about that already, thank God. At least that's one area where I am seeing progress. If someone in me is that desperate for attention, I feel OK about asking T to attend to her by honestly admitting the pain I'm in, even if it seems over-the-top.

AG - Crossposted. I think my T is actually not taking it personally, but trying to be a little more human for me, because of my complaining that he is detached and my pain doesn't affect him. Maybe I am wrong there, though. I'm not sure honestly how many relationships I do this with, but only because the number of authentic relationships I have consist of H and T. LOL, I am trying to get there with my pastor and his wife and a couple of other friends. But, honestly, I don't do this in relationships, because no one really gets far enough in for me to let myself start screaming to run away. The result is the same, sure, but experiencing this sort of pain and panic is new for me, because I have only ever had to deal with it in regards to H (for over a decade now). I have no idea which inner little part thought it was a good idea to let T so far in, but from about week three onward, I truly have not been able to help myself. I just keep getting more and more vulnerable with him. I keep marching forward, I get hurt and scared and think I cannot go on, but then some (either courageous or wreckless) part of me decides to expose those things to T and take another step forward. I guess that means someone in there really knows for sure that he is safe...otherwise I would not be doing it.

Yaku,

I did not mean to imply that your emotions are over the top or that they don't feel real in the moment. I apologize if that is what I conveyed. I understand that these crisises feel real and can be overwhelming in the moment. (((Yaku))))

Thanks, Monte. I don't think I could quit and go back. I'm not sure if that's more about T or me, but probably me. It's funny, I feel so certain I need to run away, but no matter how close I come to even just canceling my Friday, I panic at the thought of that as well. It really is such a trapped place to be. If I did quit, I'd probably mistakenly hope for T to chase me, to not let me get away, and I know he absolutely wouldn't do that. It would just confuse things for me. I hope some day I get to the point of being able to take a healthy break without freaking out, though.

Something strange happened. Somehow, through the few extra exchanges with T throughout the afternoon, I'm now almost giddy. I sent him a very appreciative text about him making room in his heart-thoughts to be kind and supportive to me when I'm raging at him. He sent me back a smiley , and then I couldn't help it. I turned all 10-year-old playing with dad on him and sent back a teasing/competitive text about my smile being bigger . I don't know what happened to me. I feel like I'm losing my grip a little bit. Hopefully, I'm not annoying him. I can't wait to talk to him on Friday and I want to confess all my ridiculous child-like feelings and longings to him. And all because he stood up to my projections and said, "That's not me!" I'm so weird...

Your are not weird, as you well know, Yaku

You are so normal and I love the fact that both of us are suddenly able to play and be the young girls that were trapped and stuck, and that our T's are feeling safe enough for us now to do that. I had such a playful session yesterday and teased and joked with my sweetP no end.

hope you are still doing okay. Miss hearing from you. Here it is a major day of celebration so very full on and I also moved my father in law from one end of the country to us, in a private ambulance to a care home. sorry, off topic. Ooops.
take care yaku

Thanks, Sadly. I'm in a bit of a loopy space, but at least not completely panicked at the end of my session with T.

hope you are doing okay with all this, I often think of you.
S

Aww, Sadly, you're sweet. I am doing well. I had a post with more details about my session, but I got PAD about feeling like I put too much of my own stuff out there, so I deleted it. I basically have sent T a list of all the things my inner kiddo wants from him and the way I use Evil Projection T to restrain her from doing so. There are some things I definitely would like from him (like a different seating configuration, more of certain types of interaction he already gives me, maybe a handshake to say hello) and others I think I can be OK with not having even though I definitely want them (like the hugs). I think I'm just feeling really trusting of T to help me negotiate appropriate boundaries and that he won't be grossed out or scared by my just saying that those thoughts and feelings keep coming up for me...after all, it IS his job to hear that stuff.

How have you been?