Winter is coming in Canada, and it’s now quite cold outside. Last session T’s office was quite cold too, since it was early in the morning.
T offered me a cup of hot water, to keep my hands warm. It was just a normal mug but it was warm, and it was comfort. I did not think twice about it, it was a great idea in winter (well, cold wintery autumn).
Holding a warm mug. Warmth, comfort, holding. What a good therapeutic image.
But I find myself weirdly… disturbed by it. With a sort of longing for it, of desperation for this warmth and comfort I can never accept otherwise. My T never hugged me, and I made it clear it was not something I could deal with, so it is not even near the realm of possibilities, but the question of offering “warm support” and “care” has been challenging, as they are things I do not think I deserve, which I most of the time struggle to accept and feel very guilty about afterwards. I accepted this warm mug, and now, I find myself craving for it, for more, so much more, so many forbidden things. I want her to care, to protect, to hold me. So many things I can’t have. I have felt those feelings already in the past, I feel them every time I “go mad”. They are the feelings which hurt so much that I will be a monster to feel some relief. When I feel them, I become a monster.
It was just a mug of hot water, how can I feel so… craving, longing, just because of that? I am amazed by how easy it is to activate those ‘primal needs’, and whether I can survive them, going through them again. My guess is that therapy is probably about going through them, adapting, but it still means I must first have them.
I remembered this brilliant post about touch in therapy and those questions:
quote:“I wish I could hug you, but its probably against the rules?”
What if I had asked: What rules Michael? Perhaps they were his own internal, unspoken rules and parameters – a mandate that his primitive dependence not be activated in any setting that could not truly contain him. If I hadn’t hugged him could we have maintained an alliance through the break? Did I activate primal needs impossible for either of us to contain?
I don’t know what my ‘rules’ are, and I am guessing that, probably, I can survive if they are broken. The rules say I must never be cared for. I am just afraid of what any bigger risk will bring, if a mere warm mug triggers the Self-Hate and Despair. And the longing, impossible to satisfy: I would buy the same mug, the same shoes, I would try to re-create T to keep her from disappearing while knowing I will lose her, and the pain leaves me shaking. And I will hate myself for this (and SI. And of course, I can’t tell T I would SI for this reason).
I write this to process it, and... to know if you have experienced similar things, and how on earth you 'survived' it?
(I will probably take this away when I will get scared)
AH
