Hi Ruby... not sure we have "met" yet. So welcome and I'm glad you are posting.

I just wanted to first let you know that you are not failing therapy at all. A lot of what you experience I experience as well and many of the other members do too. First, with the feelings of overwhelming neediness you describe when you first leave your T. I would say that is normal for someone who is developing an attachment to their T. This is GOOD. If you can attach to someone you are basically healthy at your core. What you are experiencing sounds to me like you are having separation anxiety at leaving your T. You are beginning to enjoy that warm and caring feeling you get from him when you are with him and so it feels scary to separate and when you experience the need to maintain that lovely feeling then you start to feel weird about it. It's okay to want to stay with your T. And it's okay to attach. My T tells me that if there is NO attachment in a long term psychodynamic therapy then something is wrong or not working. If your T is a good, knowledgeable psychodynamic T then he will welcome your attachment, so don't fret over it.

When you verbally insult him or seem angry with him you may be doing a few things. One would be testing him. You want to see if he will abandon you when things get difficult or messy. You need to do this in order to trust him. You are also pushing him away because having someone or allowing someone to get close to you feels really scary. As in your amygdala screaming for you to not to trust anyone or get close to them because it's dangerous. This is a very primitive part of your brain that is not very intelligent! Most likely in your past you have people who have hurt you badly when they got close to you or you allowed them to matter to you.

You may also be experiencing negative transference feelings for your T. This means you are experiencing feelings towards your T that you actually have for someone else who played a negative role in your life. Your T may inadvertently say or do something that triggers this memory or an emotion in you. So you yelled at him that he does not know you and you will never trust him. Maybe you felt that way about a parent... that they never really knew you and that you didn't want them to know you anyway so... who cares? You took those feelings and displaced them onto your T.

Developing trust and feeling safe within the therapeutic relationship takes the most time and effort of all things you do. With patients with trauma histories this is very difficult to accomplish and takes sometimes years to do. I have said this before... I have learned that trust comes from a T who is absolultey consistent in his behvior, who maintains appropriate boundries while at times being flexible, who is willing to discuss and accept ALL your feelings. That anything is open for discussion and understanding. And it's also good if they are genuine about their own reactions and as honest as they can be. When a T behaves this way it fosters trust and the feeling of safety.

And, this is the hard part... therapy almost always gets really icky and messy before it gets better. It's like you have to take all the junk out of the closet, look at it and examine it to decide what you want to keep before trying to get it all back in the closet again. In the meanwhile your T should be helping you to develop good solid coping skills to reduce the chances of SI or using drugs or alcohol to cope.

Hang in there Ruby and keep talking to your T.

TN

Hi Ruby,
I very much agree with everything that TN said. And you're not failing at all. I was in therapy for a very long time (on and off for about four bouts of therapy over a course of 20+ years with my first T and about 3 1/2 with my second.) My recognizing my attachment to my second T led to me working with him individually, but it took me a solid year and a half until I actually started trusting him (and that was after a lot of good work with my first T). And as for the eye contact, I barely had any for at least a year. My typical posture was sobbing with my face covered with both my hands, or not sobbing with my face covered with both my hands. As I learned to trust, I became more present in the room and now I can acutally have a session that has lots of eye contact. But it was so slow work.

Six months really isn't all that long my dear, especially if you have any kind of childhood trauma and I think you're at the most difficult part. It gets worse before it gets better. As you open up and express yourself and fight to let down those walls, you're letting go of your old defense mechnisms which were probably necessary to your survival at one time, but now don't work anymore. But you haven't yet learned new healthier ways of coping, so things actually feel worse right now. It will get better.

I totally cracked up when you talked about wanting your T to get angry and getting more angry when he wouldn't. That drove me NUTS about my T. I just wanted to have a good, knock down, drag out fight and he refused to get angry. When I told him that, he would just smile this really sweet smile and say "frustrating, isn't it?" Then I would tell him I wanted to throw something at his head. What was true for me was that I wanted him to get angry, so we could fight and I could get angry and avoid the other feelings coming up, of fear, of vulnerability, of hurt and of loss. It was really important. Not to mention that I had learned from my father to use anger to control a relationship. My T's refusal to bite, left me feeling lost. But I hated that I couldn't get a reaction like that out of him.

It's going to get better. I'm glad you came here to ask for help.

AG

Hi Ruby
Just wanted to say you are not on your own with what you describe, I am a relative newbie at therapy too (just not quite 6 months) and often its a day or two afterwards I get what you describe feeling wise. Do keep talking to your T about what you feel, I was too scared stiff too until a week or two ago, then having done so she explain with care and thoughfulness why it feels so rough at the start of therapy when stuff gets stirred up. Dont' worry about not looking at your T either, there are plenty of sessions where I do not look directly at mine either, for various reasons, other times when I am safer and more present I can tolerate her looking at me a bit. Keep going as AG and TN say. You really are not on your own in the sticky bit - another newbie

Ruby,

Wanted to chime in here that I can really relate to what you're saying (with the exception of rarely feeling truly angry with my T). I'm feeling at a loss to comment more, because I'm in a really clingy post-therapy space right now myself, but everything you describe sounds really normal to me!

TN, AG, Deb, Yaku,
Thanks so much for your supportive responses. It really gave me something to consider, and knowing that I'm not some sort of therapy reject helped a lot too.

TN, I just want to thank you for your kinds and supportive words and also for giving me a name for my attachment. When you said it sounds like "separation anxiety" I was like YES! I was going around and around in my head trying to figure out what the heck to call it, and separation anxiety really fits. Thanks for letting me know that attachment is normal and welcomed. I still feel like I'm kicking and screaming my way through therapy though...maybe I should just let this happen, this attachment.

I think that you could be right about the transference thing as well. My T sometimes reminds me of my dad (who was abusive and neglectful) so that could be a reason I go on my "you don't know me, I won't trust you" tirades. It's really hard for me to admit to that though, it makes me wonder how many other people in my life I've had similar transference to. And what you said about my anger, it really stuck with me too. When you said that I may need to do this, to test him, to make sure he'll stick it through. That really resonated with me. I think I do this with a lot of people. It's like I'd rather know up front before I get invested, because if they are going to leave I don't want to allow it to hurt me.

AG,
Thanks for telling me about your experiences of wanting to get your T angry. I'm glad I'm not the only person who has done thing. Sometimes I'm right there too, I really think that a knock down, drag out fight with him would make me feel better. I know that probably won't happen but I could always dream

Deb and Yaku,
Thank you both for your supportive words and letting me know I'm not alone. I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't look at my T (I've told him that looking at him is like looking at the sun)

Hi, Ruby, and it is nice to meet you! Sorry I haven't chimed in before this, but I wanted to say one thing- you seem totally normal! I mean, celarly the level of pain and stuff is not normal or ok, I'm sorry you have to deal with that...but...but your responses are seeming really normal to me! (I sure hope so cause I have experienced every thing you have described! )

eeep- maybe I shouldn't say that!

Anyway...listen to those smart ladies up there~ they know their stuff!

hug,

BB