Hi all.... I know I haven't written about my sessions for awhile. I'm not sure why. Some of what we have tackled is reflected in the title of this thread. I know I mentioned somewhere on a thread that I was very angry with my T because he seemed to dismiss my fears of processing some trauma in my background. I was also angry with him for bringing up another patient who has been with him for many years and I felt that he was comparing me to her all the time and I was coming out on the short end. This was in a session last week. And because I was so upset (including yelling at him in my sleep) I decided I needed to call him the next day.

So last Friday I called him and told him that I was struggling with a lot of angry feelings towards him. And to please never mention his Ms. Perfect Star Patient again to me that I was tired of hearing about how wonderful she is and how I can't measure up. He said he never meant to have me feel that there was a comparison going on because he was only holding her up to me to give me hope that I could do "this". That he has seen the process with someone with a similar background and I just need to trust the process. I am having problems trusting anything.

I was also angry that when I brought up the topic of how difficult it was to even imagine processing trauma and abuse in 45 minutes and then rushing back to work and having to be perfectly normal and in control he told me that he could patch me up after the session and I would be able to function at work and then I could process stuff when I got home. That made me furious because it felt like he was saying... oh yeah don't worry I'll slap a band aid on your gaping wounds and no problem. You go back to the real world and do your job. It felt like he made light of how enormous the idea of talking to him about trauma when I knew I had to leave him so quickly and go back into the public world where I am scrutinized.

He told me that he did say he would be able to contain the trauma until we could work on it again when we met the next time. He did not want to slap a band aid on it. He just felt that he had enough experience and knowledge and I was strong enough and I just had to get to a point of trusting enough to allow it to happen. So I told him that it felt like he was telling me to jump off a ten story building and I would not get hurt when I hit bottom and I'm looking down and I see concrete and I'm thinking, are you nuts? I'm not jumping!

What he said was that he is not asking me to jump off a ten story building. He said we are standing at the top of a long flight of stairs and he is only asking me to hold his hand and take ONE step down. That is all. Well, that just absolutely melted me. The visual of him standing next to me and taking my hand to steady me, guide me and protect me on the stairs was very powerful. My anger just dissipated and what was left was an intense connection back to my T and the feeling that I was cared for and that he would always protect me. Oh, and btw, at the end of the conversation he told me that he just wanted me to know that I am a good deal ahead of where that other patient was at this point in therapy and that he was very proud of me and pleased with my progress.

Another issue we have been trying to work on is that I have been totally blanking out at the end of our sessions. I have absolutely NO memory of shaking his hand, putting on my coat or walking out of his office. I cannot remember our last few minutes together. We discussed this and it may be that I still have some separation anxiety at leaving him. But he also suggested something that I think is very valid. He said that it was the child who was causing me to dissociate when she felt unheard or if she still had something to say to him. This really resonated with me because I recalled that at the end of the recent session we were talking about some issues (me in adult mode) but it seemed like in my head I was hearing a voice that was screaming about something else. A different topic that I never addressed that day. He told me that was the child who wanted to be heard and had something to say. So I have been trying to be more aware of what I'm hearing in my mind and to stop ignoring it out of fear.

We also talked about slowing down the ending and to make them less abrupt. My T does sort of abruptly end sessions with little warning and then I feel that I have to run out of there and not use up 30 seconds more than I am allowed. This is not something that comes from my T. It's a habit from the past that we need to explore further. Yesterday, T gave me a longer warning and then he asked me if the child had anything to say before we ended. So I told him that she was a little scared because he was leaving and we wouldn't see him until Tuesday. He is taking a long weekend to travel somewhere. He reassured us that he would be there on Tuesday waiting for us as always. He firmly shook my hand and then rubbed my arm. I can remember that. He did check in before we shook hands and asked if I was present. All of this has helped me to hold him close to me today. Now if only it will last until Tuesday.

Another thing I have been attempting to do relates to tea About 3 weeks ago while discussing our relationship I got angry and yelled at him that this is not really a "real" relationship. It's not like I can just sit down with him on Saturday afternoon and have a cup of tea with him and chat. He smiled at me and said, well why not? Why can't you have a cup of tea with me? Of course he didn't mean we would actually meet for tea but that I could find a few quiet moments on Saturday afternoon for a cup of tea and use the time to focus on our strong connection and our good relationship. That I could talk to him as if he was there and I knew him well enough to know what he would "say" to me. So I've been trying that. It does help to keep him close to me and when he feels close to me, I'm a stronger person. Holding him close instead of pushing him away because he is not really there or I'm angry that he really cannot be with me on Saturday afternoon, makes me oddly feel good and happy in those moments.

There are a few other things we are working on simultaneously. Sometimes I have so much to talk to him about that it's difficult to figure out what is most urgent. I am facing a personal developmental challenge which I will write about more in depth in another post. And we have begun to chip away at the more intimate aspects of the T/patient relationship and how that impact me. A lot of it has to do with "proximity". How I long to be close to him while at the same time terrified of being close to him in a physical way more than an emotional way. I have been dancing around this for a long time. At times I will mention it and then back off and try to redirect the conversation. Other times, the child is screaming about it and I'm ignoring her. It was a difficult conversation but I hung in and he was enormously pleased with me. I could see it on his face. He got so excited it was cute. We have a lot more to work through on this but it was a start.

Lastly, there is the topic of control. T keeps telling me that I'm not in control of the therapy and that I need to stop trying to be. I'm still confused about this. I told him that yes I am in control because I can just stop talking to him. He said that is not what he meant. Aside from that, I don't think I'm trying to keep control of the therapy and I don't know what I'm doing that makes him think that I am. Has anyone ever had this "control" conversation with their T?? I'm curious to hear anyone else's experience with this.

So that is an update on what I've been doing over the past month or so. Thanks for reading.

TN