Took a Risk... now Feeling Scared

True NorthCo-moderator

Hi. As an update to my trying to work things out with my T... I had a session this afternoon. I'm not sure what to think of it now. I sort of felt okay after it was over but now I'm getting that really scared feeling again and I just can't seem to shake it. I think it's now based on my feelings that I have been doing everything SO WRONG lately in therapy and that I'm making huge mistakes and saying stuff that is making my T really angry with me. Of course some of this goes back to his telling me he thinks I should see someone else but he's not asking me to leave. Last week I wanted to walk away and never see him again but I realize that was coming from a hurt, scared emotional place. I have hung in with him and am trying to find some clarity in our relationship and to see if it can be worked through.

Today I walked in and sat down and make a few minutes of light conversation to calm myself. I felt I needed to find that quiet place to launch the session from. We have been at such odds lately that I have lost the heart to fight anymore with him. I hate when I feel he's angry or annoyed with me. I didn't really get any encouraging response from him. And so I took a risk to ask him a question that was probably a boundary issue. I had been feeling like there was something going on with him in his personal life that was affecting my therapy in that he seemed so remote and detached lately, even before we had that awful falling out and I can't help but feel he is under some other stress that is making him much less tolerant of me and my needs. I have felt this way for the past month and have tried to ignore it. So today I asked him and I didn't ask to know what it was, only if there could be something else that I was feeling or was it just me that was causing the disconnect. I have a really hard time trusting my perceptions and need to ask to find out if what I perceive is real.. is real. And what I got back was icy silence and a brick wall. I told him I understood it was in the realm of self-disclosure but I felt I needed to mention that I did notice something. I could tell by the look on his face... fleeting but there... that I had hit a nerve. He asked me if what I was lookig for was reassurance and I guess I was but I refused to acknowledge this because I feel that he thinks I don't need or deserve reassurance. So I denied it. I then got the lecture on how he is going to have to enforce stricter boundaries with me than in the past, now that he understands about my trauma, when before he allowed the boundaries to be less defined.

So now I feel like an idiot, I feel like he is punishing me by changing the whole boundary structure of our relationship and I STILL don't know what those changes are... unless he has decided to beome one of those blank slate Ts. I was so upset by his speech to me I just totally cut him off and changed the subject.

I launched into a topic that I had been trying to get the courage to talk to him about for a year now. Since last summer. I had started last summer to give him more information about my past and one particular trauma. But this one I could not seem to speak about until today. I just started talking and didn't stop for about a half hour, telling him all about my varied, destructive and abusive dating history. And I just kept talking until I just spit out the trauma that I had kept hidden from him until today. To his credit he listened really well and rarely interrupted to ask a question.

When I got to the end, time was up and he allowed me an extra 10 minutes or so to compose myself and he asked me a few more questions and especially why I decided to talk to him about this today. I told him that I felt I had nothing left to lose. In my head I was thinking that he probably already has changed his opinion about me and why not just go for it and have him think the worst of me and get it over with.

At the end I just looked at him and could barely talk to him and I said... that's it... that's the end... I have nothing more to tell you. And he said, but I think you do... you will have more to tell me and I said.. no I mean no more trauma. That's the end of it. I will always have more to say to you but now you know everything. I think in some way I wanted to tell him all of this to prove that we could do the trauma stuff together. That we can work through it and that he is perfectly capable of guiding me and helping me.

As I write this I feel like none of this makes sense. I mean... the fear that I'm feeling. He was moved by what I told him, I could see that. He stopped looking angry. He said we could talk more about this next week and gave me a Monday appointment that I asked for. He said I did well today. Then he told me to sit in reception (which was empty) and relax a few minutes before leaving. What he didn't say was... if you need me you can call me or if things get bad for you I'm still here. And this was the issue that started everything. The contact out of session time. And so I walked out to sit a few minutes and then went back to work. About 20 minutes later, I got an email from him with some inspirational quotes about courage and conquering fear. He said he thought I may want to add them to my quote collection and that we could talk about them next week when we meet.

I felt very relieved that he would do this for me. I actually started to cry when I saw the email because I felt that he would never do this again and that the last email I would ever get from him would be that cold, dismissive one from last week. I felt good for a few hours that he cared enough to use this method of reassurance. But I seem to have lost that feeling now. Now I'm sitting here feeling scared about what I told him and scared about our conversation about boundaries and that I acted totally out of line by asking him about something personal. And now I'm thinking that he's sitting around thinking that he regrets the day he ever accepted me for a patient because I am just too much trouble, I require too much support and I'm just too depressing to have around.

I'm sorry I'm rambling but I just needed to get all of this out. I was feeling okay for awhile and I thought I could handle the revelations I made today, but now I'm not so sure....

Thanks
TN

7/15/108:46 PM

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amazonMember

TN, I can't write much now, but I think that fact the you told him about your dating history is a great progress. I have something of that sort to tell yet, but I am not quite ready. This is something very important and I think it is good that you revealed it. It is something very personal and that's why we go there, to tell stuff we wouldn't tell anybody else.
Asking him a personal question is not out of line at all. We all do that. There is no rule that you can't ask a personal question, it is only up to the T to decide if answering it would be beneficial and appropriate. You certainly have no reason to beat yourself up because of that.
It does sound like it was quite a good session, but it did stir some scary feelings in you. I hope you will be able to work this out with your T and get on top of what was going on recently.
Takce care,...

7/16/1012:29 AM

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lamplighterMember

Oh TN you’re in such a position that this doubt and fear and uncertainty looks set to continue for a while, at least until you and your T can sort some of the stuff that has been coming up in therapy.

I confess I got a bit mad at him for his response to your asking him whether something else has been going on in his life that is affecting him in session - it was a straightforward and necessary question and I think he answered in a typical therapisty way by putting an oblique question back to you. Well of course you want reassurance, but that’s not the point of your original question, you need more than anything for him to be honest rather than leaving you doubting your own perceptions and worse, wondering whether your question reveals some kind of deeper motive in you of which you’re unaware.

However, going on what you’ve explained about him in your last posts, I’m guessing that he’s struggling with his own (good) feelings towards you and your therapy and is not together enough at the moment to give you a straight answer to such questions - either yes or no! I can see from a T’s point of view if he answered yes there is something going on, that he’d be open to criticism and judgements that he’s not doing his job properly BUT it’s so much worse to invalidate your perceptions by not answering at all. Whether there is something else going on in his life that is affecting him in session, or not, being able to talk openly with him about how you’re feeling about his way of being with you lately - is the really important bit. Do you feel brave and strong enough to call him on that one?

His comment about having to define the boundaries more ‘because of the nature of your trauma’ had me frowning too - that really does sound as if he’s reacting from something he’s been told, or read rather than acting on his own (good) instincts as a T. If I were you I’d call him on that one too - ask him pointblank to explain what he means, what boundaries specifically is he talking about and more importantly WHY does he think it is necessary to rigidify them? As in, how does he perceive the tightening of boundaries is going to be helpful? (I bet he doesn’t think it’s going to be helpful, it really does sound as if he’s trying to apply some sort of trauma theory without really believing it himself.)

Gosh it sounds so much like a parent/authority figure suddenly flipflopping from being kind and generous and ‘lenient’ to rigid and controlling and almost punishing (and blaming the child for it at the same time). Sorry I know you haven’t even implied that, it’s just how it makes me feel reading your posts.

I even get the feeling that after having been able to tell him about the trauma in this last session you’ve had to do it in an almost - ‘ok T that’s it I promise there isn’t anything else that you won’t be able to handle’, almost in a conciliatory way, that means you are now afraid to bring anything that might ‘upset’ him and make him withdraw even more.

TN you did take a risk, and you needed to, I reckon you’re going to be ok with him so long as you are able to keep sorting this stuff out with him - it would be terrible if you withdrew now, had to shut down on what you really need from him because of this disruption in his own feelings of competency as a trauma therapist. You’ve shown you have been able to ‘teach’ him things, you still can. It’s all in a good cause - you!

And well done you for being able to talk about the trauma too, that can’t have been easy at the best of times, let alone with the way things are between you and T right now.

Hugs to you TN

LL

7/16/105:39 AM

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deeplyrootedMember

TN,

I have nothing to add to the insightful responses you have already received. I just wanted to let you know I think what you did in that session was amazing and that I am sorry the ambivalent bug is biting now. I hate it when that happens. I do find it a bit interesting to see how I have done a similar thing as you. During a session with my ex-T that was not going well, I shared big secret. I've always been stumped at the reason for doing it but the explanation you gave for doing it with your T sounds like one I could use to explain it. I really appreciate how you and others are able to reflect on a visit and write about it with such clarity and personal insight. I hope as Monday approaches you can feel the care he holds for you and let go of trying to read his mind.