What hurt would it be to say it Liese?

((((RM))))

Would you be hurt if your T made that comment?

The hurt would be that I don't think it would be taken well and I'm sure would be the end of the relationship. I've been toying with staying with him once a month but going on to work with someone else more intensely.

Then I thought, "hey, he said it to me and I buried how offensive I found the comment and I'm thinking about staying with him so why am I so afraid to say it to him?"

The most "dangerous" thing I did was some googling. LOL! I've only ever hurt myself.

(((Liese))) I'm sorry. It would be hard for me to hear those words from my T too. From the outside, it might sound different from being on the inside.

Unless you ask him about it, you won't know what he really meant. It's possible he HAS had dangerous clients before or is afraid based on things he has heard colleagues experience. Or maybe he assumes that is a normal consideration to have in his line of work and it didn't occur to him that you wouldn't worry that he was feeling that way. From the outside, I took it as reassuring that even though he had this boundary crossed from his point of view, he doesn't view you as a dangerous person, despite whatever feelings it brought up for him. Again, without asking him, you aren't going to know.

I've gotten much better recently at simply asking T what he means about things that upset/freak me out or else telling him what I project when I know it's probably way off base. It's really helped me not get stuck on certain exchanges, being in pain and fear about them for extended periods. Sometimes it's really painful to share those projections and terrifying to ask what he means about something. One time, what he meant was actually what I feared, but in talking about it, it ended up not being such a big deal, because I could understand where he was coming from as well.

Anyway, if you are continuing to work with your T, I would recommend just asking him about any and all questions that are still festering. One time, several months later, I went through step-by-step every question I had about the rupture we had when T changed his mind about sitting together for a while. It was scary, but the rupture finally felt resolved by doing so and his willingness to answer the process we had gone through from his end.

I'm sorry you're going through such a hard time, but glad you're still getting support from other Ts and here.

Oh yes, that would bother me. And, I might not be able to question him right away. But, it would fester for me and I would have to work really, really hard to ask the question of what he meant. Often, when I do this, T has a good explanation and I realize that I was using old rules and experiences that weren't true for her.

Ouch, that's a hard one.

Actually... at the very beginning of my therapy with my current T, I mentioned googling someone else quite regularly, and my T insisted that it was stalking. Maybe just legally speaking, but it was the reality of what it was, even if I had no bad intentions at all.
Which made many things more difficult in the therapeutic relationship: I never googled her, and can't even really rely on transitional objects, as I feel that doing that makes me a terrible person. And... tada, I dared to mention it to my T, vaguely, of course, and she admitted that if she could change it now, she would avoid saying that, as it was something 'easy to misinterpret'. It does not erase the impact it has, but... it helps balancing it, even if it is only a little.

It is part of a T's job, to process the impact of what they say to their clients, and part of, from my point of view, what makes the therapeutic relationship so special: you are allowed to go back and say 'hey, that was offending', and examine what happened rather than just get (or not) an apology.

Good luck, and I am sorry you have to go through this.

((((draggers)))

Thank you for the wake up call I am glad to hear that you don't think his comment isn't that bad.

(((About)))(((rm)))(((yaku)))

I am at work typing from my iPhone but will be back as soon as it slows down to reply.

To me, the problem appears to be in the phrasing--I remembering hearing one time that we subconsciously remove the "noes" and "don'ts" and "nots" from what we hear, and then have to add them back with a different part of the brain. The net effect is to leave us at least partially with the message opposite of the actual statement. So, it's better to make positive statements, especially to children (I'm pretty sure the source was a parenting article): " Leave that there" instead of "Don't pick that up."

Maybe it would have had little or no impact if he would have said "I consider you a safe person." Just a thought.

(((Liese)))

((((YAKU))))

I am glad that you found it reassuring. I was trying to hold onto the positive feelings for him and maintain some kind of relationship, even if once a month. But, today, it was as if a part of my brain said, "whoa, wait a minute, remember he said that? Don't discount that too easily." I am glad I posted about it and got others perspectives because it has helped me calm down a lot.


((((RM)))

I hope I am just using old rules and experiences. That's the scary part. But I really have nothing to lose here. I can ask T gently or maybe not. I'll see how things go when I see him next.

(((ABOUT)))

Ouch. That would hurt me too. I kind of feel the same way about me. I hardly ever google anyone I know or knew in the past. And I feel like it's completely reasonable in my situation, seeing T for 6 years, to feel curious about him. I think he reacted emotionally at first because of all the other issues that were going on between us and that was the straw that broke the camels back. It's nice to take some time off from the intensity of therapy. It's odd how I have been really burnt out but couldn't leave and so I caused T to become burnt out.


(((DRAGGERS)))

I know but I'm still glad you wrote what you wrote because I was letting myself go over the deep end.


((((EXPLORING)))

I saw part of what you wrote in my emails. Just wanted to thank you for replying and I'm sorry you felt that urge to delete.

That was supposed to be a hug at the end there. Don't know what happened.