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Session: back to this crap again...

yakusokuyakusokuMember
Last night, could not connect with T and it destroyed me. I'm still not feeling safe. I wish I could see T again today and erase last night's session. I had so many things I wanted to talk about, but I couldn't. Every time I tried, my mind would freeze up. T even kindly said that he was glad that my feelings and needs were coming up and it sounded like I thought he judged them, but all he saw was normal, human feelings and needs and he was glad I could experience them. I still couldn't say, "OK, then, I feel like I need you HERE!" T brought up that guy and my dream surfaced and I couldn't share it, because the little parts were way too scared to talk about it with T across the room, but I couldn't ask him to move either, because his no would have killed me. So, I just sat there upset. I didn't want to make the session go longer, so I let T end it even though I knew I wasn't safe. I got stuck in the hallway...couldn't even make it to my car. T came out to use the restroom. He checked if I would be OK. I lied. Twice. Why can't I say, "No, I need your help to be safe right now!"? I spent another half an hour considering very bad things in my car. I have texted T. I should have called. I couldn't. It was so late. He was going to hate me. Texting with him this morning, but I can't even ask him to meet my needs, because it just feels so wrong, so contrived and false, just too much to ask a human being to give me that sort of care. I'm really tired and I don't want to keep doing this...
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True NorthTrue NorthCo-moderator
Yaku I'm sorry for the struggle you are engaged in with trying to connect with your T. I am having the same difficulties. I understand that part of you is trying to reach out and be open but then you just freeze up and the words won't come... even though you have so much you want to talk about. I know you would encourage me to hang in there and remind me that my T really does care about me and wants the best for me... so I will remind you of those same things.

This is terribly hard stuff ... especially when you don't have the experience of being safe in relationships. And then all the old stuff gets stirred up and it's really hard to contain it. It's okay to text T for connection. Eventually, you will find that the feeling of carrying him with you will last longer and feel stronger. I would probably already be far into that feeling except that my experience with oldT keeps getting in the way and blocking my feelings.

Be kind to yourself and perhaps you can ask your T for some coping strategies for when you are not feeling safe. Of course, you are always welcome to use this place for some grounding. We are here for you.

Hugs
TN
yakusokuyakusokuMember
Thanks, TN. He said he won't abandon or reject me, but he already has. Last time I asked for an extra session, it went horribly wrong. I'm ready to cancel all my work for today and BEG him to let me come late tonight, but I can't imagine that would be acceptable to him...especially when last time it broke me pretty bad. I wouldn't even confirm about Friday last night, so I don't know if we'll have a phone call. I don't feel like I can ask for anything right now...
faythfaythMember
Hi yaku...sorry that you are feeling this way at the moment.
I seem to spend a lot of my time in session being unable to speak...even though there may be a lot I want to talk about. Sometimes I think the "mind police" have come along and arrested my thoughts as I, too, so often go blank.
I am sure your T would welcome you texting him (even though I know that you probably don't feel this way).

Hope you feel better soon, take good care...

Faith xx
yakusokuyakusokuMember
We have been texting this morning. Well, I say we, but what I mean is, I have sent a bunch of stuff trying to keep myself safe and he sent one back saying he is praying and still processing what I'm saying and won't abandon or reject me, so that doesn't need to factor into my decision making process (I'm assuming he means about whether or not I want to keep up this work with him).

Yes, it does feel like my thoughts are arrested. Sometimes, a little glimpse of an idea I want to talk about will peak through, but even if T says, "Ok, let's talk about that then," I will have to say, "Well, nothing really comes to mind about it." It's like I need him to ask for the tiniest bits of information, very specific questions, to get anything to surface. Frowner
yakusokuyakusokuMember
Liese - Sorry. Not all here and missed your question.

So, T had been sitting on the floor with me, but we weren't disconnecting smoothly at the end of sessions, so I asked him for an extra session to just focus on connecting and disconnecting. He started out the session by saying, "I think maybe I shouldn't have sat on the floor with you..." and it was so painful that it was all I could do to keep myself from running away and quitting on him or worse. We have since worked through it as intellectually, I know he was trying to do the right thing to make things safe. However, emotionally, I experienced it as a complete rejection. So, now I feel like asking for things will only get me hurt. Like, I could have shared that scary dream last night if he had come and sat on my side of the room. I would have felt safe to do it. But, I couldn't ask, because he "took it away." Seems like we will be living with the repercussions of that longer than I thought.
L lieseMember
Yaku,

What was his explanation for why he shouldn't have sat on the floor with you? I hear you about not feeling safe now asking for things. It's supposed to be a safe place to ask for things and I guess to hear no but it's very very hard to hear no. He's moving a boundary on you and I can understand how confusing that could be. Hopefully he can be a little more consistent with you.

I have often thought I'd like to sit on the floor and have my T sit on the floor with me but something about it just seems sexual, like as if the next move would be that we kiss or embrace or something like that, so I keep stopping myself from asking him that. Of course, I know T would never do that but i wonder if that's why I want to move things onto the floor.

(((HUGS)))

Liese
yakusokuyakusokuMember
For me, sitting on the floor is a child-like position. I feel like *I* can't even do it anymore now that he won't. When I first moved the floor, it didn't occur to me that he would do so as well. He initiated that. So, I think his withdrawing was seeing how intense it made me feel that he would be "with me" like that, that while it made me feel good, it was also unsafe (made me panic even more at separation and also I wasn't sure if I was "allowed" to let it comfort me, because we didn't talk about what it meant before he did it), so he withdrew to give us time to get there. However, internally, I hear it as "Well, we screwed that up with bad timing, so it will never happen again."
L lieseMember
(((((YAKU)))))

I am sorry you are struggling so much right now with T. FWIW, IMHO, it takes a while to become used to the intense feelings of intimacy. And they are intense. At least for me. He just didn't want you to feel overwhelmed. You are not wrong for wanting it or asking for it. He is always so gentle and reassuring, at least from what you describe. It's going to take some more time for you to really trust that he's not trying to hurt you, though I know it feels that way. He is actually coming from a place of caring but I know it's hard for you to feel it that way. Maybe you are used to all those crazy intense out of control feelings when people come close and perhaps violate your boundaries. Maybe he's trying to teach you where your safe boundaries are because well, if you are anything like me, you don't know where those boundaries are. The trust building stage is the longest and the most important.

((((YAKU))))) Hang in there.

Liese
yakusokuyakusokuMember
Intellectually, I know he did it for the right reasons, but emotionally, it is abandonment to me. I had something I needed to talk about yesterday and inside me, little ones were screaming, "It's too scary! I need dad to come over here!" but I don't think I'm allowed to have that, so I just couldn't say anything. So, what ended up happening is I had this HORRIBLE nightmare that's been haunting stuck in my head for hours afterward, because I couldn't process it with T. I would have been able to if he had been willing to come on my side of the room or let me sit on the floor and just stay where he was, but I couldn't ask, because I feel it is a "No," and that answer with the content I was dealing with would have been like death. So, instead, I keep having flashbacks to this dream that I SHOULD have told T about and worked through but just could not.
yakusokuyakusokuMember
Um, wow...

So, whatever freaked out little part of me that was just retreated, like instantaneously. Unfortunately, way more texts to T than I really recall sending while I was like that. Hope he's OK with it. He should be, unless he's been lying to me for several months. I feel completely alienated from whatever it was that was making me so scared of sharing with T, so scared of rejection and abandonment. It happened so suddenly that my only fear was how sudden the switch was. I can read over my texts and posts, but trying to remember thinking, feeling and talking some of the ways I have been...it's like a giant fog is there. I still would like T to sit on the floor with me, but I'm not devastated by his moving. I'm not afraid to ask to have my needs met. I just texted to let him know it passed and ask if we could still do Friday morning. I've had this sort of thing happen before, but I've never had a state/part/whatever you want to call it stay out so long, be so dominant (such that the observer me can't really track what happened and the why/how of my feelings) and then retreat so suddenly.

Right now...just...really confused. I'm assuming it's a normal part of having these dissociated emotions emerge, but it has never been so decidedly "separate" before. It is incredibly disorienting, like I just woke up from a dream of being someone else entirely and I'm not sure if that was the dream or what is happening now is the fake reality...

I feel like I am making no sense here.
S sadlyMember
Yaku - I am still finding it hard to focus and concentrate, but i DID want to say,
1. some therapists like sitting on the floor, hugging, small child talk and small child play and others don't. It doesn't make it right or wrong. some do, some don't. Simple. It doesn't make you wrong for wanting it. I have sat on the floor twice, both times my P was a little wary of it, and does not encourage it and he may well ask me not to, but my need to sit on the floor is still a need and a feeling and I know from past experience that other T's are fine with it and some T's would say that you both sitting on the floor would be a great way forward. So you see, it is all subjective and no one has a right or wrong.
So - maybe just tell your T how you feel - and there are a lot of feelings going on right now in you and ALL of them are okay to tell him. Really. If you feel you can. If not, just try chipping away at telling a little bit at a time.

I am going through a lot of testing of my P just now, I actually rang him TWICE yesterday, and also have had some pretty strong sessions and suspect I shall get angry with him tomorrow, but both of us seem (and I may be wrong) at the stage where we are trying to find out ARE THEY REALLY TRULY THERE FOR US, DO THEY MEAN WHAT THEY SAY?

And these kind of things happen when we are pushing to find that out.

Does that help at all?

sorry I am so exhausted - trying to send my love and care ....
yakusokuyakusokuMember
I know intellectually that it is true, but I imagine what it might be like to have someone flip a switch and basically tell you that it's excruciatingly painful to be in a room with them, that they are rejecting and abandoning you (despite saying they are not), that the healing work they are trying to do with you feels life-threatening, etc. And then be like, "Oh, well, that person is gone now. Um...sorry. Can we still talk Friday? We're good, right?" My poor, poor T. Frowner

Edit: I do have to say that T noticed a teenager part of me (kind of giving him a "whatever" in response to something) in our session yesterday and I felt ashamed and apologized. T said gently that there was no need to apologize, that all the different parts/faces of "Yaku" are OK and acceptable (I think he said to him). I really like it when he says my name, almost as much as when he calls me Kiddo. I don't know if he worded it this way, but basically, it came across as him saying he liked me, all the different mes I have let him see so far. That none of them were despised or judged as deficient or any of those other assumptions I make. Good feelings toward my T right now, even if it's hard to believe he cares that way. I feel like my new avatar, a payphone that's off the hook. I have to pay for T's care, and I can't even receive it, because calls won't go through right now... Frowner Hope we connect better next time.
True NorthTrue NorthCo-moderator
Hi Yaku... I am thrilled to hear that T texted you that Friday was on and your texts are welcomed by him. He is such a good guy. I know it's hard to keep that in mind when your thoughts are racing in the negative direction. I know the relief you feel now and hope you can get some good rest tonight.

As for sitting on the floor... I never tried it with either T. I'm not sure if I got down there I could get up again LOL. I'm not that young. I may just ask T what he thinks about me sitting on the floor? What would he do? I doubt he'd join me... he's not that young or in shape either LOL. I would imagine it feel uncomfortable for some Ts just because they are not used to it and having nothing to do with the patient. Just like holding, hugging and outside contact. Some do some don't some do some of it.

I know when my T wheels himself closer to me and leans forward it touches me deeply because at that moment I can FEEL him close to me and his caring and concern and his real desire to connect with me. But then he wheels away again so quickly I want to grab his shirt collar and keep him there close to me.

Hang in there Yaku. Friday is coming.

Hugs
TN
yakusokuyakusokuMember
Thanks, TN. One of the reasons I call the coffee table in his office "evil" is because it is a very real barrier between us. I've told T I hate it there, the idea of it separating us, and that I wish it were gone, so he could wheel closer to me when I'm in pain. He does what he can for me while I am ready for him to be there differently, I guess. For instance, he knows I feel evaluated, so even though he does look at and track me, if he senses that him doing so gets me in that adversarial/evaluative place, he will turn his chair, so he's facing the door, so it's kind of like being side-by-side, or at least I am facing his side...he really tries. He's really good in that way. I just wish we talked more about what these things mean, how they make me feel, what it's like to want him with me and not know whether I can ever have him (for example) wheel closer or sit on the same couch, maybe not RIGHT next to me, but within reach, so to speak. He's happy about me wanting and needing those things. He thinks it is healthy. It's hard for me to get at it being healthy when I am feeling like it will always be withheld, when it causes so much pain...

Blah.
S sadlyMember
I asked sweetP to move closer to me today as I tried to talk about the cruelty I experienced and he choose to not hear and not move.

I guess we have to understand their limitations. I also did tell sweetP today though, that I hope one day he will be in emotional, psychological or physical pain, preferably all three and will really want someone to hold his hand, or come close and NO ONE WILL AND IT WILL SERVE HIM RIGHT.

Pretty mean of me, and he looked like I had just punched him but I just kept thinking it so today I said it. I said I hoped he was not treated as a normal human being when he was in pain, that people just sat and watched.

I should feel bad about saying it, but right now I am just glad I did - cos now he knows how angry I am that I am treated like a not normal person.

I did apologise for saying it before I said it and afterwards but I am still glad I said it.

These therapists are so WEIRD about normal human interaction. WE hold each other USUALLY and we come close to each other when upset, but oh no therapists have to keep AWAY, .....

I seem to be ranting on your thread, sorry Yaku - and do try speaking Japanese some time, I am going to enjoy speaking Mandarin, my mandarin is poor but sweetP won't know that . Smiler

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