DBS... I hear you and I understand. I had a very emotionally charged session with T yesterday and even though T was absolutely great throughout our time together, I left feeling bereft in ways I haven't experienced with her before. It's like they had another layer of intense pain to so many others already there.

I'd like to send you a gentle cyber hug, if that's okay.

Here it comes....

Take care of you.

The Kid

"but right now it just feels like today's pain."

That’s exactly what it IS, DBS.
I’m sorry you’re feeling this way and can relate to how much it really sucks. I don’t have the answer either, just my thoughts going your way. And keep venting, anything that helps…

(((DBS)))

Sorry you are feeling this, it can be so intense and overwhelming. I've been there too and it seems to be manageable sometimes and just horrible other times. I hope you can find a little peace or distraction and the pain eases up for you. Wish i was more helpful but just wanted to let you know you aren't alone. Keep hanging in there and taking care of yourself

AH

I know the pain and I feel the pain. It is relentless and I feel it to the core.

((((DPS)))))

It IS so hard. I hate the one-sidedness of the relationship too. It takes quite a lot to keep the faith that there will be healing at the end of this road.

(((DBS)))
I think its really a very good thing that you are speaking of your pain. Slamming into the boundaries is so very painful, evoking resonances and echos of our losses and griefs. As you know, I am in a very similar place, and I am trying to hang on to the fact that while I cannot have everything I long for (to go back and be a child again and to have my T as my father so that I could be loved and learn to value myself instead of being so utterly ashamed), I can speak of these feelings and know I matter because my T does not leave me alone with them and treats my feelings as important and me as if I matter. I am really, stubbornly, hanging on to believing that while I cannot erase the losses of my past, I can heal and go forward in a way which allows me to live authentically and fully, and be loved the way I wish to be.

But the pain is truly breathtaking and approaches (and sometimes exceeds) being unbearable. You're not alone.

AG

quote:

I just care so much more about him than he'll ever care about me. He'll go home and eat his soup and play with his cat or whatever (I have no idea if he eats soup or has a cat) and I will sit here and cry for three hours.

I used to feel this a lot, but I never do any more. If you have a good T, it's absolutely untrue that you care more about them than they will ever care about you. It's simply that you NEED them more than they need you.

It's kind of like if you were drowning and your T was the person trying to throw you a life preserver. Their life is not the one in danger, so they don't feel the terror that you do, but they are fully focused and intent on the task at hand, wanting to make sure you get out of the water alive. It's the very fact that they're not also drowning that makes them able to help you...otherwise you'd just be two drowning people clutching at each other.

Anyway, I know that probably doesn't help in the moment, but they do care. They're just not struggling with overwhelming feelings all the time.

Awesome point BLT and very powerful analogy.

Thank you all who replied! Just knowing there are others out there who get what I am saying is so comforting. I very much appreciate the support and advice.

I was able to repair things with my T today. I knew I would but lost a lot of sleep until my session. I was also able to express how painful this process is and the limits of the relationship are. He was very receptive, as always.

So, now that we are back in tune of course the longing and need for constant connection is back and stronger than before. Gawd, it's just never-ending the need. Sometimes it just feels bottomless.

I know you all will understand.

Thank you! Thank you!

I am in this painful process. It is gut wrenching... this attachment, needs, care, love, tended to and then feeling like I am absolutely going to break into pieces.

Do all therapy clients go through this, or just us with attachment, abuse, etc.?

Rebuilding me- I have wondered that same question, and it came to me because I had a friend go to therapy who did not have abuse/attachment issues, and she never let on about having constant need for connection with her T. It led me to believe that at the very least, those with abuse histories and attachment issues definitely have a much more intense experience with this.

I keep battling the process here myself. I've gone through every defense mechanism in the book, and some days I think I have a handle on it, yet it keeps coming back to the excruciating place of NEED. So hard to hang in there with it. I told T today that the month break coming up at Christmas must be in the beginning stages of dealing with now. He kind of smirked and I said, "I am so serious. You better use the rest of the year to contain me for that break. And you better start now."

On top of that I know he is moving out of state in early May, and I've already begun grieving now. Man does that up the intensity of attachment. I will seriously melt down. I will be wailing to you guys like a baby during that time, you've all been warned!!

AH

((RM)) ((AH)) In my admittedly limited, experiencing this kind of intense transference relationship with a therapist is very much tied into insecure attachment and strongly correlates with people who experienced long term childhood abuse/neglect. The truth is that people who have experienced long term trauma also usually experienced a terrible lack of attunement and all that goes with it. So we walk around with a lot of unmet childhood needs and arrested development, buried deep, then we walk into therapy with a kind, compassionate, attuned person focused on us and on our needs, keeping their needs out of the room and accepting us just as we are. Which is all the things our parents should have done. Those needs come roaring back to life, with all the life and death intensity of how they are experienced as a small child.

It's really a fairly small percentage of the population who experience this in therapy, and while not everyone with long term trauma goes through this, in my experience the people who do always have some kind of long term trauma or neglect in their background. And while no two people are ever exactly alike, the pattern of feelings and behaviors are distinctive.

In other words, we are having reasonable reactions to unreasonable circumstances. This isn't about something being fundamentally wrong with us, but about what happened to us and how we were treated. Take almost any human being and put them through what we experienced and they'd more than likely go through this with their therapist.

AG

AG -

People go into therapy for something else??

My therapy experience has been so intense, as you described above, that I can't imagine therapy being anything else. I guess I just always assumed everyone's therapy experience was also to have their insides wrenched from their body and tossed around the room -- you're saying that is not the case?? I guess I would prefer to not think I am in a minority group but, on the other hand, I know I am getting my money's worth in therapy.

Hope you appreciate the humor!

RM and DBS if its any consolation my experience of therapy sounds very, very similar to yours - insides, outsides warts and all bouncing around EVERYWHERE. Insatiable needs and attachment longings, ongoing grief and loss.

It does make sense those without a history of abuse, neglect, trauma and insecure attachment don't go through the same hell as those who have do in the therapy process.

All these replies have really helped me, so thanks for that.

Yes GE, Insatiable needs and attachment longings, ongoing grief and loss. Then, throw in there extreme fear of abandonment and huge buckets of shame. What a mix for crazy making all inside of me.

RM how did i forget the shame and abandonment fears???