quote:

But I keep feeling like I want to go hide (anyone picking up on a theme?) so I thought I'd post instead.

Gee, I don't know AG, I get the feeling you feel like you want to hide? But I may be way off on that.

I am glad you decided to post and that you talked to your dh about this and that he continues to be so understanding. One thing is for sure, you definitley have a much better support team and attachment base than you had as a child and all of this is handy in helping your little girl self to feel what she never had a chance to feel back then. It's another opportunity for you to help show her that this is different now. That YOU can and have made it stop and your external resources you have around you are safe this time.

It must have felt very lonely to be hurt and violated by one parent and for it to be allowed to happen by another made it seem like you had no one to turn to, nowhere to go with this. AG you were alone, but you are no longer alone. So cry and grieve all you need to now for not only are all of us listening and standing up with you, but you now have the strength to do so. As you have told many of us several times, we now have the resources to deal with this that we didn't have before. You are being heard loud and clear.

(((((AG)))))
JM

AG

I'm so glad you decided to post. I know for me, it not only helps to get the thoughts written down where I can really see what I'm feeling, but also that I know everyone here doesn't just feel sorry for me. That everyone understands because they have been there and they might have some good advice or another perspective.

I can tell that you are feeling a tremendous amount of pain, but I think it is positive that you have realized that this has something to do with your feelings for your mom. I know that when I have these longing feelings for my T, I start to feel like they are inappropriate. But in reading so many of the posts here, I realize that first of all, I'm not crazy and secondly, they really do have a lot to do with my mom. And sometimes my dad I might add.

I'm glad that you only have to hold these feelings until tomorrow morning. I'm sure your T will help you to sort them out, and yes, he will behave differently than what you expect. That's what makes our T's so wonderful. They always surprise us by their response, and yet they are consistent in their response.

Hope tomorrow goes well for you.

PL

(((((((( JM )))))))) Thank you.

quote:

Originally posted by Attachment Girl:
I went upstairs to taka nap this afternoon and ended sobbing for an hour.

Hey, me too!. I tried to get a few winks this afternoon, then started to feel fearful and down and sobbed for a while.

quote:

I'm grateful that despite the pain I'm able to make the connections.

AG, I'm really struggling with this myself, so as strange as it might sound, you're farther along than me and many people in working through your pain in simply being able to pin point the source of it.

This afternoon, I just started to feel really frightened and depressed and sad but I had no idea why, other than it's about what feels like one gigantic mess of a life I've got going, and the confused mess about my parents' role in it. It sounds like now you can feel this stuff, identify the source and endure it, even though I'm sure it feels unendurable and overwhelming. It's your hard work paying off.

quote:

It's really exhausting trying to handle this and real life...

Boy, you said it.

Hang in there, AG, and remember that you're stronger than you realize.

Russ

quote:

It's really exhausting trying to handle this and real life

I'm with you there, AG. You've done a better job than me, though. I've only managed a couple of loads of laundry this weekend.

quote:

I'm grateful that despite the pain I'm able to make the connections.

You are able to make the connections, AG, and you're spot on. I'm sorry your mom didn't make the abuse stop; I understand that and know how utterly alone and scared that can make you feel, and how it makes you feel like you don't want to give your trust to anyone. Like JM said, you've got people you can count on now and you are smart enough to realize it, and you're able to allow yourself to trust them enough to count on them. You've come a long way.

I hope your session with your T goes well and your pain subsides.

OW

quote:

There's really not anything anyone can do, I just need to feel this stuff. When it got really bad this afternoon, I kept feeling liked I wished my T could make it stop and then realized that's exactly how I felt with my mother. I kept wishing she would make the abuse stop. I'm grateful that despite the pain I'm able to make the connections. Tomorrow morning should be fun, but I do know I'll feel better after a chance to talk through some of this.

AG, you are soooo brave, and ...and... awesome, and I just admire the heck out of you. You know you shouldn't stop seeing your T, you're actually running right toward 'im, all through the pain and the scared. S'pretty awesome.

Hang in there? And keep taking care of yourself. You take care of us often enough!

Thank you all so much. You know from the very beginning, my T has been trying to teach me that despite my deep-seated beliefs, moving TOWARDS connection brings comfort, not just pain. All of you allow me to experience that again and again. I'm going to name my new neural network after all of you.

HB,
I never knew that about tears of grief, but boy would that explain alot.

Russ,
It really does get less confusing the longer you work at it. Hang in there, you're doing really good work, I can see it in all your posts.

I really appreciate all of the encouragment it provides to hear how you all "see" me. When feelings from my past are coming up this strong, its hard to see ANY positive qualities, let alone the one's that you have catalogued. Your belief in my ability to handle this helps me to believe I can.

I had a good session with my T this morning. Nothing earth-shattering, just some good work. We're trying to get to my anger, which is always an interesting journey, in a kind of "here be dragons" kind of way. But I felt really connected with my T and it was really clear that the intensity is very connected to the past. Which lets my T be my T, which is a good thing because that's what I need him to be, despite my occasional(!) longings for him to be something else.

I made a major connection about boundaries today (I'm back to really appreciating them.) We were talking about my being afraid that if I express my anger, rage really, things and/or people will get hurt. My T basically told me that screaming, crying, and any other verbal expressions were perfectly fine but that he would not allow me to damange his office or hurt myself or him. That if necessary he would call the authorities. It's hard to explain but it was incredibly comforting to hear that. I know, where else but therapy could someone threatening to have you arrested be comforting?

But that containment is what I need. As I was thinking about it, I made a major connection. So much of my crying has been incredibly clenched. And no matter how violently I'm crying, I haven't made a sound. I did in my Ts office today which is progress. But when he was talking about boundaries I realized that part of what made it so scary then was that there were NO boundaries. My father consistently violated them and my T suspects, and it rings true, that my mom probably disassociated alot to miss what was going on, so she wasn't setting them. I am so tightly clenched because without boundaries there is NO way to know how far you can go, what is ok to express and how is it ok to express it. I can unclench and express this for the very reason that I know there are clear limits with my T and he has no problem making them clear and sticking to them. Now I know how big the space is that I have to move in and what its ok to do. Like most "aha" moments, they sound so simple and duh! when you say them, but it was like a burst of light when I realized it.

The other thing I'm struggling with is that I can be angry at my mother but that doesn't mean I'm never grateful again. That its possible to have different feelings about the same person. Well, I realized that I have different feelings about boundaries at different times. Sometimes I love them because they're keeping me safe and sometimes I hate them and get angry about them because they're preventing me from having what I want. I told that to my T and he said exactly. Then I pointed out that it wasn't about a person but I would get there. Got the wry grin in response.

And just to cover things I told him he would probably hear from me before our next appt (Next Tuesday) and he said that was fine. I feel a lot clearer, which we all know won't last, but I'll rest while I can.

AG

quote:

I made a major connection about boundaries today (I'm back to really appreciating them.) We were talking about my being afraid that if I express my anger, rage really, things and/or people will get hurt. My T basically told me that screaming, crying, and any other verbal expressions were perfectly fine but that he would not allow me to damange his office or hurt myself or him. That if necessary he would call the authorities. It's hard to explain but it was incredibly comforting to hear that. I know, where else but therapy could someone threatening to have you arrested be comforting?

Yeeah. Can you asplain this? If you're feeling up to it? I don't get the "comfort" part. Is it comforting that he'll react appropriately if you... um... get out of hand? Is it comforting that he'll not freak out no matter what you _say_? I kinda get that one. It's the "being arrested" bit that confuddles me...

Wynne,
I always love your questions and I get why it would be a little confusing.

When I was a kid, I had a LOT to be angry about but I wasn't able to express it, so it kept getting shoved down and pushed away. But more anger kept coming because the abuse was long term so in sense the pressure kept building. And kids' rage tends to be pretty murderous even under the best of circumstances. Part of what we're supposed to be taught is how to handle our anger, channel it responsibly and find ways to express it that don't hurt other people or violate their boundaries. I was never taught that.

If you take a vessel and continue to pump something into and its sealed well enough that the pressure just mount, eventually it's going to explode. That's what my anger feels like. This huge, toxic container being held under a tremendous amount of pressure, so that opening the tiniest pinhole will result in an explosion. Its not rational but I feel like if I let myself feel this anger, I will explode and hurt the people around me and/or destroy things around me. (This belief was helped along by the fact that people and/or things did get hurt when my dad got angry.) So on a very deep level, I'm terrified that my anger will destroy or hurt the people around me, in this case, my T. Whom I really do not wish to hurt. Or the anger will turn back on myself and I'll hurt myself, which I don't want to do either.

So my T tells me that he won't let me do anything that would result in me, him or his office getting hurt. And in the back of my head, I'm thinking, I'm not sure if you can stop me (that's how powerful and overwhelming it feels, that's how powerful and unstoppable my father looked.) and then he says and if I need to I'll call the authorities. He'll call the cops if he has to. Which I hear as "I will do anything I need to, to keep both of us safe." So I can get angry KNOWING that he won't allow me to hurt anyone or anything. Which makes it ok to finally feel my anger.

No matter how far out of control I feel, my T isn't out of control. And he's very clear about what he'll allow and what he needs to do to enforce that. Which gives me a clearly defined space in which I can move about instead of freezing into a little ball, clenching all the emotion in because I have NO idea what is a step too far and will get me into trouble.

That's what our parents are supposed to do for us. I get angry and throw something across the room. They tell me that getting angry is fine and I can use my words but that throwing things is unacceptable. They model a healthy way to handle anger. That's what my T was telling me. I could scream, cry, curse, etc but no violence.

It was really an incredible relief. I hope that makes more sense, feel free to ask again if it doesn't or you want me to explain more.

AG