incognito... you are searching for info on him because you want to feel closer to him. It's a way of making contact with your attachment figure, a connection of some kind. Searching for info on them also makes them feel "safer" in some ways... that they are just regular people with kids and families and car troubles etc. It is VERY typical for people with trauma histories to search and google and to so badly want to know more about their Ts and to find a safe way to be close to them. It is NORMAL and I think your T handled things very well. He does not miss a beat and is very consistent. Good signs.

I think he is correct. You are circling some big deep and important feelings. You will get there when you are ready. And he will be his usual wonderful, caring, listening and non judgemental self. You know... it's true... that sometimes their kindness and caring and protection hurts as much as the bad stuff we are dealing with. We don't know how to accept the love they offer us and don't know how to react when it's offered.

You will go back. You are making good progress despite all the tears. It's good to cry incognito...my T always tells me that it's cleansing and important to cry. Our tears tell us a lot. You will go back because you have a great T and he is helping you and you are doing great work with him.

It takes time. Be patient with yourself.

Thanks for letting us know what happened today.

TN

(((INCOGNITO))))

I think it was so brave of you to confess. You didn't have to do that. I never told my T I googled him. I agree with TN that he handled it really well. I know it will be hard for you to go back and face him. But my guess is that he'll be his usual, wonderful accepting self and he will make it easy for you to go back. The hard part will be getting there.

Did you want him to reassure you more that it was okay and that he wasn't mad at you? The unending unimaginable pain will get better eventually. You just have to keep talking about it, if you can. I get that pain too and I know how awful it feels.

xoxo

Liese

thanks TN and Liese.

I wish I could feel something other than despair. TN, I think I understand that I'm struggling with the relationship I have with him. I can't define it in an terms that are familiar to me. I just feel like my session was just a lot of crying and I couldn't talk to him and he can't help me so I get stuck.

I couldn't help but confess because I felt so guilty I couldn't talk about anything else. I think I wanted some kind of reaction from him. I wanted him to respond either that he was angry or not. I wrote an email trying to explain how I felt but ended with quitting so I haven't sent it. I wish I could stop the pain. I know that a large part of this is transference. I'm always waiting for some sign that I'm allowed to talk about how I feel and I'm frequently upset because I don't think my T gives it to me. I know that my parents never let me talk about my fear so some of that feeling belongs to the past but I think some of it exists in the present, in the way my T lets me sit there crying and saying nothing. I can't help but think that I'm not capable of talk therapy because I can't force myself to talk enough.

(((Incognito)))

I'm sorry that you are hurting so much. I agree with what DF said. I also think that maybe he didn't say anything or react about what you told him because to him it wasn't a big deal. I know that to you it was a big deal and felt like you had done something really wrong, but perhaps his lack of reaction was just that and actually really did convey his feelings about it.

DF, I'm sorry that you no what the silent treatment is like. I know theoretically it is supposed to be permission to talk about what I need to but it doesn't work that way in practise for me. Hearing other people relate to how I feel helps because it means I feel less alone and alone is pretty much how I feel when I spend a session crying in my T's office.

STRM, I think you are right he wasn't angry about the facebook thing and he said as much in an email this morning. It is too bad he didn't say that yesterday because maybe we would have gotten somewhere instead I just feel like it is another example of why I can't do therapy. I think the pain of staying in therapy is starting to outweigh the pain of leaving therapy. I'm attached to my T and depend on hiim a lot but it is so painful when the session goes like yesterday I would do anything to stop that pain.

Here I am almost 24 hours later still crying and obsessed over it. I know if I quit I'll cry too but eventually it will end.

quote:

I know if I quit I'll cry too but eventually it will end.

Yes, the pain of missing your T will end, but will the original issues underlying all of this pain end? What would you really be getting away from?

I'm glad he said he wasn't angry.(((hugs)))

Incognito--I just wanted to send you a HUGE hug today. I hope that you are doing well.

(((((INCOGNITO))))))

When are you supposed to see him again? I really like how DF explained the "silent treatment". I always experienced a lot of negative transference around telling my T anything precisely because in my FOO we weren't allowed to talk about anything. And, it's sometimes really hard to believe that it's coming mostly from the past although it sounds like T could have been more helpful.

You sound a lot like me in that, and of course correct me if I am missing the mark ehre, it can take me a really long time to figure out exactly what it is that I'm feeling. And the process that I have to go through to get to that feeling is gutwrenching. And then it turns out that it was this little tiny thing ... well not always little and tiny, but something that could be said in one sentence ... Maybe the pain is the fear of losing love and the more you (and I) open up and realize that your not going to lose T's love when you disclose to him, the pain will lessen when you go through that process because it will become less and less scary and you won't have to fight it anymore. I hope that last sentence was cohorent. I got up really early this morning and I'm pretty fried.

Even though you wanted to talk about other things in your session and you feel like you "wasted" a session, the whole incident seems to have brought up some very core issues for you that might be worth looking into. You've spent a lot of emotional time on this both in the session and out of the session and that tells me that there something important there going on for you.

I know it hurts so much and that quitting feels like the only option to stop the pain. Can you talk to t about how much pain you are in and how you think of quitting often? Sometimes we grow more during breaks than we do in therapy. But, you've made so much progress and done so many brave things in the last 7 months or so, and you've confronted each step with fear and tripdation but made it to the other side, time and time again. Maybe you can do it one more time.

Have you and T talked about your feelings for him? Is this what you think you are circling around?

xoxox

Liese

Thank you for the hug Brokenillusions. I'm processing a lot today and I hope it gets easier soon.

STRM, I think you are right that I wouldn't be getting away from the issues underlying all the pain but I don't think those are interfering with my life as much as they used to. Lots of things have improved over the last 3 years and the things that haven't I can't talk about. I sent T a pretty honest email after he emailed me a short comment on last nights email. I told him that if he didn't have time I would understand him not answering today and waiting until tomorrow (which means I won't hear from him even though I keep checking). I told him that I don't understand my attachment to him because I don't want to be friends or lovers. I told him I'm worried that I'm addicted to the pain therapy causes me or maybe that I'm reenacting my childhood in which I try to get someone who doesn't care for me to care.

I was thinking about the fact that I don't think he cares about me and I realized that I don't think he cares about me particularly. I think he cares about people in general and anyone who sat on his couch but not me or my life. I realized that last wed. when I was talking about my friends tragedy I actually asked my T if he was okay because he seemed so upset by the story (it is a horrible tragedy). I think he cared more about my friend and her family than me and he's never even met me. I guess some of my upset yesterday was that jealousy.

Now I'm starting to worry he is going to decide therapy is hurting me and we should stop rather than try and convince me that we are getting somewhere. I hate the roller coaster of my emotions that was the argument I was making and now I'm afraid he will agree with me. Sorry to keep updating my thread but I'm trying to work things out and I have no one irl to talk to about therapy.

quote:

I told him that I don't understand my attachment to him because I don't want to be friends or lovers.

incognito... he fulfills the role of an attachment figure that we need to survive as children and to pass through our developmental stages in a proper way. You did not have this as a child. You had an insecure or most likely a disorganized attachment status with your parents. Your T is fulfilling those needs now so you can "earn" a secure attachment and pass through those stages of development that were missed or were done improperly. This relationship of secure attachment helps us to regulate our emotions, to banish any shame, to be able to embrace life fully and to develop our self-esteem and self confidence.

Your T does care for you. It would be really hard for him to work with you this long and this intimately w/o developing warm affectionate feelings for you incognito. I know this is hard to take in but it's true.

You cannot classify these attachment feelings for your T because they don't fit into the usual relationship roles. It is unique and it's safe and helps us heal. You don't have to label it... just understand that having this attachment to your T will help you to heal (as he is a good T).

TN

TN,

I know I am agonizing over this but do you really think it is possible to be attached to someone in absence of like or care and even if it was possible do you think that it is possible to make up for the things we missed in childhood?

He responded again before he left his office basically telling me that he thought there was more to my experience than just not being able to talk and telling me we would talk more about this tomorrow night. I wish I could walk away because I know how tomorrow's session will go. Whenever I write so much in email we end up not having time to talk about it all. I'm not good at assuming that he agrees or doesn't agree with me if we don't talk about it. So for example I have trouble believing he wasn't mad about the facebook thing even though he didn't act mad and tomorrow I won't be able to surmise anything about whether he cares or whether he thinks I'm just reenacting my painful childhood if we don't talk about it.

incognito... it would be very difficult to form a healthy attachment to someone who refuses to allow the attachment. My oldT resisted my attachment to him because he felt threatened by it and it showed in his defensiveness, his detachment and his withdrawal from me but mostly in his horrible inconsistency. I don't see any of this in your T at all. And I am looking!

My current T tells me over and over that the T is NOT exempt from the feelings in the room... meaning the feelings of warmth and affection and yes, even love, although he says many T's will rather walk on hot coals than admit it LOL! He also tells me that he could not work in a long term, intimate relationship with someone he didn't like and felt he could really care for.

I don't believe there is an absence of care on the part of your T towards you because I see it in many things you write about. It's just that you don't see it or you cannot take it in because it's so unfamiliar to you that you just don't recognize it. And yes, I do believe it's possible to get most of what was missed in childhoold through a good, caring, boundaried, attachment relationship with a T who also has a secure attachment status. In other words, you cannot form a healthy attachment with a T who is not healthy himself.

Obviously, it cannot be exactly the same (for example you cannot sit on his lap LOL, nor can you go home with him) but it is possible to have a "good enough" attachment experience in order to heal and to earn your own secure attachment.

I think in order to avoid getting upset over your long and detailed email tomorrow night, I think you need to pick two important things and either make a firm plan to introduce them at the beginning of your session or email your T and say "this is what needs to be discussed tomorrow in order to avoid my leaving there feeling like we couldn't talk about what is important.

Just an idea.

Good luck tomorrow. Let us know how it goes. Try not to agonize. It will be fine.

TN

IG,

I think its perfectly normal for us to search for things about Ts personal lives. We share so much of ourselves with them...its only natural that we'd want to know more about them. You are certainly not the first of his clients who has Googled or Facebooked him. I'm certain of that.

Thanks TN, what kind of attachment reading do you suggest I do. I think your advice about picking two things to focus on during tomorrow’s session. The difficulty for me is figuring what is most important to me. I’m going to try and get a good night’s sleep and see how I feel tomorrow about it. My session is tomorrow night so I have some time to think it over. I will definitely let you know how it goes.

LG, thanks for the short form. I have often been frustrated that my name didn’t lend itself to a nickname. I think you are right about google or facebook but I think it is a little different because it wasn’t him it was his wife which feel worse to me. Obviously my reaction was out of proportion to what I did and I tapped into my sense of guilt and shame about my existence.

Sea-green. You are right it is perfectly reasonable to gather as much info as possible about new health professionals. This is a little different because I’ve been seeing my T for over three years and I was searching his wife. You are absolutely right about not doing something that really crossed his boundaries. I’m hypersensitive to making mistakes and so afraid of screwing up. I hope you can open up to your T soon. I am not a good example of how to open up to a T but others here are.

hi incognito...

I would suggest reading "Parenting from the Inside Out" by Dan Siegel and Mary Hartzell. It's available on Amazon and it is not very expensive... or you could check your library. You can also read the reviews on Amazon to see if it would be helpful for you.

I also recommend General Theory of Love by Lewis and some other... can't remember right now.

TN

I went to my session last night and it was difficult. It was hard for me to stay present and now it is very difficult to remember what we talked about.

I was late because I was at a work thing and when I called him at 3 minutes past the hour I got his voicemail and I thought he had left already. We talked about the difficulty we have when I can't talk and how I feel like he should be directing me more. He told me he can't tell me what to talk about and that it was necessary for me to struggle with what was acceptable and what was important for me. We talked about my attachment to him a little where I told him that the intensity of my feelings about him scared me and felt unreasonable, unlike anything else in my life. He talked about transference without saying the word by talking about how therapy can trigger emotions from your childhood and that is part of the process and it doesn't happen as often or as intensely in regular life because you have more defined roles etc.

He talked about my childhood and how it taught that relationships were painful and there was nobody to depend on to help me with my feelings and experiences. He talked a lot about my childhood and I just got sadder and sadder and then he told me I had to experience those feelings instead of pushing them away and telling myself to get over it or blaming myself for them. I don't see how much more experiencing my feelings I can take because I am often filled with despair about the things I can't change because they already happened. About 6 months ago I left a session where I talked about the ways my parents treated me (particularly my mother) and I sent my T an email an hour or two later where I said "Who do you have to be that your own family doesn't like or care for you?" He sent me an incredible response that I've reread many times telling me it wasn't me that was the problem in my family. So over the last year I've switched from blaming myself for my childhood and family relationships to realizing that it wasn't my fault but I still feel so damaged that nothing else is possible for me but being broken.

Near the end of my session when I was feeling pretty hopeless I questioned the point of doing something (therapy) that was going to trigger such overwhelming feelings and reactions. He said the point of therapy wasn't to trigger things just for the painful feelings it was for our relationship to survive those bouts of feelings and confusion and disconnection and to still continue our relationship. I think it was a good answer but at the time I was kind of snarky and asked him why he bothered do therapy with me implying it was impossible. I'm lucky he didn't agree. I remember so little of what we said now I'm glad I have recording to listen to.

Also my T booked a phone session for me next week when I'm on vacation. Then the next week I'm in town for 1 day before I go far away and we talked about a possible phone session from when I am on that trip. I won't have my regular sessions with my T (in person and twice a week) until Aug.24th. Even though I'm think it is going to be a great trip for my family I'm going to miss my T.

Starting tomorrow night I'm on vacation in a place where I don't get internet next week and then I'm away for 2 weeks where I will have the internet but very little time to myself with only my iphone to connect me to the internet. So I will probably be very quiet on the Board for the next 3 weeks. Thanks for the support and advice you gave me this week. I hope everyone has rest of summer as possible.

((((INCOGNTIO)))))

All I can say is you are so brave!!! You were so brave just to go in and then to share everything you shared with him. It was amazing.

Oh, yeah, I can say more. Well, I'm just finishing Brene Brown's book, the Gift of Imperfection. One thing that is striking me about what she wrote is that she said that we can't just feel positive emotions. We have to feel all our emotions. So, if you are shutting down so as not to feel your negative emotions, then you won't feel the positive ones either.

They do say that learning is paired. And, so my guess is that each time you feel something positive with your T, it is paired with the negative stuff from childhood and that's why it feels so bad. But as the relationship moves on, the positive feelings will start to get paired with the postiive feelings you get from your T and it won't bring up so much negative stuff all the time. It will get easier.

Enjoy your vacation. You deserve it.

xoxo

Liese

oh god, serious case of pad .. someone help now, please!!

Liese... breathe... it is okay. You are not a thread killer.

Hey incognito... if you check in to read... have a great vacation and time away. I was pleased to read of your session and how well you were able to talk to your T about some of your concerns. I'm glad you are going to have a phone session. Three weeks is a long time.

Have fun. We will miss you here.

TN

Liese don't feel bad. I appreciated your response. I've been feeling batter about my session with time. I just listened to my session on my drive and I'm surprised by how few details I remembered and how I summarized some of our discussions. If I was really brave I would let T read my summary and see if agrees with my interpretation of our discussion.

One other thing I admitted was that I didn't feel like my T cared for me really because I think cares for people in general. He said both were true he cared for me and people in general. He also said it was personal for both of us. Funny how I completely forgot that. LOL

Forgive any typos because I'm on my phone. I hate small keyboards.

Incognito,

I'm glad you were able to talk to your T and that you are feeling better about your session over time. You are facing a long break, but I'm glad you will have the phone sessions. I hope you have a wonderful vacation.