Eliza
One of the terrible side effects of long term childhood trauma is that we learn to be deeply ashamed our own needs, because it is our (legitimate and healthy) needs which drive us towards the caregivers who hurt us. Long term childhood trauma can also be very confusing in that our abusers are also sometimes the people who are nuturing us or meeting at least some of our needs.

So having someone care is a double-edged sword in more way than one. If we are receiving care, it is a danger signal since care was often followed up by abuse or exploitation of our needs, so while you can recognize that getting your needs met and your T care are good things, on a deep, unconscious level, it feels dangerous. Your system kicks into hypervigilant overdrive watching out for what feels like to you, the inevitable pain that will follow. This is reasonable, based on your experience, but also happens not to be true.

The other problem is that getting your needs met makes you AWARE of your needs, and since your safety used to depend on you shoving your needs away, again it feels dangerous. And if someone met your needs, that means they saw you in a state of neediness. Now there is, in reality, nothing wrong with being needy. All human beings are needy at times. But when staying safe means not allowing you needs to be seen, having it happen will feel anything but.

You did not wake up one day and decide, "hey, I think I'll decide to not accept someone caring about me and freak out instead." This reaction was trained into you by your experiences.

So the terrible answer is that you have to tolerate these feelings of fear while continuing to move towards your (very safe) therapist so you build up experience to offset the ones that tell you its dangerous instead of a good thing to move towards someone and get your needs met. It's painful and confusing and chaotic for a long time, but on the other side is a place where you can be much more comfortable with your needs, getting them met, and accepting care. I'm sorry this is so hard and painful.

May I offer some unsolicted advice? and please feel completely free to ignore it. But another damage that results from lack of attunement is we miss out on the chance to have the right-brain connection in which we learn to regulate our feelings. Judging from your posts, you are experiencing some very intense feelings and are having trouble because of that intensity. John Briere talks about a "window of treatment" where we can access our feelings enough to process what happened to us, but not so strongly that we dissociate and lose our ability to cogitate. So I know it can feel like a backwards approach but I am wondering if talking to your therapist about learning some skills for dealing with your feelings before trying to do further work would be more beneficial. It is draining and exhausting to be living at a fever pitch all the time and I think directly addressing some emotional regulation skills might be really helpful.

AG

Thank you for the replies - it means a lot, really does.

AG: thank you - makes sense. I very much relate to the 'showing your neediness is dangerous' part. When I showed neediness, my mother would upstage that with HER needs - and HER needs were always more important than mine .

So I guess I leaned early on - not only is showing that I have needs dangerous (I could get physically hurt), but it would often result in ME having to be the adult and comfort my mother - and then she'd respond in a way that I can only describe as 'emotional rape'.

I do have some pretty good coping skills. - and they work for the main part. I've also become more aware of how much to push myself at therapy and SO importantly - when to go slow and NOT bare all - just yet. I've come to realise a danger sign / red flag for me is when I feel NOTHING. A few times I pushed myself so hard in therapy, talking about things too deeply too soon, that by the end of the session I would feel NOTHING. Not dissociated, not empty - nothing. Completely out of touch with any sig of my own reactions. That was when I found. Myself in a situation with my T where she was pushing and bringing up something that was far too much and I could t even recognise that at the time it felt like a kind of molestation - I couldn't talk and say STOP. I think I've learnt from that now though, thankfully.

Coping skills I have - I PLAN to work after therapy session - I'll give myself approx 1.5 hours so I can let some feelings settle, but not enough to swallow me. Working - being in my 'professional role' wheee I have a lot of responsiblity, leaves me feeling in control. I work on call, and sometimes I have to deal with unexpected, potential tidally life-threatening emergencies - I can get paged any minute and have to switch into work mode - yet I thrive in that role. Why? Because no matter what the phone call brings, no matter how terrible the situation, I know what to do.

I also cope by distraction: music, painting, journaling, art therapy (go through phases with all those things), posting on here and another forum I'm on; watching utube documentaries. Snuggling with my dogs on the couch with a warm blanket; having a hot drink - or a very cold fizzy one; and often - just riding it out and reminding myself this will pass ... And counting down the hours til the end of the day.

And what a life send, being able to access mobile respite care!!!! I will definitely use that on weekends again when needed.

You might have been meaning CBT type skills or the dreaded M word (rhymes with kindfulness) - for some reason (my psych dr believe it's cos I'm still TOO traumatised) I really really REALLY can't tolerate that type of work (not yet anyway). I Immediately dissociate and I am actually MORE triggered by even the suggestions of practices like that, than I am talking about my trauma

I will re-read through your post AG and will probably post more about it later. A lot to think through and thank you so much as it makes so much sense.

It also really helps to have how I feel validated - and not pathologisized - cos yes, I have a HUGE amount of SHAME as to how I feel. I've managed to tell my T how much shame I have as to how I feel with regards to her - ie if I let on in any way that I might like her or care for her or want her to care about me? Her response WILL be utter utter REPULSION

That and, my sharing my stuff with her will TAINT her goodness

SB - thank you too.

My T emailed me to see how I am, and if the mobile repairs care she set up for the weekend helped.

She's NEVER initiated an email to me before (I have been seeing her for 10 months).

When I saw her name in my inbox my first reaction was 'wow - she's emailing me - wow, she cares!'. Then it's been FEAR FEAR FEAR since. I want to run in the other direction. I feel unsafe

The scary feelings outweigh the positive right now.

I'd planned on emailing her tomorrow (Tuesday) morning to update her and thank her for setting up the mobile respite ... And to possibly tell her how scary it has been letting her 'help' and possibly show 'care' ... And how whenever I think of seeing her this Friday, or think about what hpeened in our last session, I have flashbacks from childhood.

Of one particular scene where I'm in my bedroom, I THINK my mother is there or has been there. And I'm feeling all the same feelings of fear, that I am feeling now when I think of my T.

On one hand, part of me looks forward to seeing her and being in her office cos I want to feel safe - so clearly part of me does feel safe with her. But on the other hand, I'm really afraid of being as incredibly vulnerable as I was last Friday. I don't trust enough yet that just because my needs were met this one time, they sure as shit WONT be again - or worse - what if she does meet my needs again - I think my fear of something happening to her will be really really strong.

I can't remember feeling as vulnerable as I did last Friday in all of my adulthood. Usually, even when I'm really struggling with strong self harm thoughts or suicidal thoughts / feelings, I still hang onto something within me - but this time it was different - it was like I was feeling AS vulnerable as I was BECAUSE I trusted her enough to somehow 'let go' or more fully feel the feelings???

I keep having this weird and awful sensation of 'de je vu' (sp?)- it's like I have felt these EXACT feelings before and with the mini flashbacks I keep having it's like going to see my T Friday is like I will be going back to childhood in a time machine and I am so so scared - because the last time I felt these exact feelings I was deeply traumatised

Can anyone relate??????

I replied to her email.... Said how my weekend was and how I'm doing ok - and it really holed having the respite support....

I also said I have a lot going on in response to Fridays app, but can't share about it yet; that I hoped to email her later in the week about it, and how thinking about last app and coming to see her Friday triggers flashbacks and a lot of anxiety. I shared that I haven't t self harmed at all, or used any eating disorder behaviours in a few weeks now, despite how hard it's been this past few days

just trying to BALANCE. Argh.

ElizaJ, I'm happy for you that your T has made extra efforts for you. I know it's scary, but having someone demonstrate they care can mean so much. And Attachment Girl, your post above was so excellent and hits me at the core of my transference troubles. I would like to print it out and read it frequently.

Thank you skylynx ...

I've posted on a couple of threads already today - about how - FOR THIS MOMENT at least - I'm feeling warm and safe and cared for by my T. I dint wake up and feel fears of of her having emailed me. I woke up feeling loved and cared for and wow, what a contrast to the fluoride of emotional pain and terror

I feel closer to her - but without the fear and yucky feelings. I know it will come and go.
PMH goal for the next few days is to send her an email sharing my responses to her caring and my allowing her to do things for me, show some kindness.

I can't help but feel really guilty though - she tries so hard, and deep down I know she would r ever hurt me on purpose, yet i still fear her so much and struggle so much.

I don't want to hurt her feelings by letting her know that even the act of her making me a cup of coffee bought me so much pain and fear

She won't take it personally will she? I just don't want to make her sad. I feel sad for the little me that feels PAIN and HURT and FEAR because someone tried to be nice and kind to me

quote:

She won't take it personally will she? I just don't want to make her sad.

If you T is well-versed in trauma therapy, she knows exactly what you're going through in regard to the pain and fear. She shouldn't take your feelings personally; they're a normal part of the process. And even if she does have some sort of emotional response to your feelings (which is, honestly, healthy and normal), those are HER feelings to manage, not yours.

One thing that I realized about my T is that he doesn't experience emotions on the same level I do. To me, it feels like I'm being burned alive; to him, it's just an average day in the office. He might feel something in regard to my transference, angst or sadness, but it's not tearing him apart. This realization really helped me to open up more to my T, knowing that he can handle it. It's probably the same with your T.

Thanks for saving me the typing Affinity.

Eliza, I have spent seven years fearing my therapist's behavior and as I like to put it "comparing him to an incestuous pedophile" with absolutely no basis in fact. When I apologized to him about that, he told me its not about fair in his office. If this were a normal relationship, his head would have exploded about six years back. He does not take my feelings or behaviors personally because it understands that they are rooted in my (horrible) experiences. In fact, he is often much more accepting of my feelings than I am. That is what can be so healing about therapy. Have someone understand and accept you, no matter what your feelings are, is what we needed as children and so often didn't get. Getting it now provides a safe place to mourn that loss and how we learn to go forward from here without continuing our maladaptive behaviors. Because the truth is that what surfaces in our relationship with our therapist is usually occuring unconsciously in many, in not all, of our relationships. Therapy is a chance to become conscious of how we feel and behave because its safe to discuss it. That allows us to change it.

Skylynx, so glad you found it helpful, thank you for saying so. And at the risk of sounding terribly vain , if this helped, you might want to read this post on my blog:

Disorganized Attachment or Why You Think You’re Crazy But Really Aren’t

AG

Skylynx - logically I know you're absolutely right... emotionally, that comes and goes. Today I can see it like you do - much harder to when frought!

I also feel fear knowing my T ISN'T torn up and highly emotional about anything I say to her - ive talked a little about this with her - trying to articulate it properly. If she has a reaction I feel responsible, ashamed, and manipulative. If she doesn't have a reaction I feel she doesnt care at all. VEFY black or white. I realize its fear both ways. Reaction = fear of emotional rape (enmeshment like with my mother); no reaction = indifference and then abandonment!

AG: I haven't read all your blog (yet lol) but I have read that lovely post a while back and nah, not being vain, youre being very helpful!

Been doing ok past 2 days - had a birth at work that kept me buzzing and filled with awe and wow. Ive been at the births of all 3 of her chikdren so its a very slecial hattrick .

T session tomorrow. I have a bit to talk about and some big insights to share with her.

looming is the death of my mothers anniversary - a sudden death I witnessed as a 10 yr old. No katter how much I try not too, I relive the days around it. Like right now im consumed with the thought s.of 'this time exactly x years ago I had NO idea my life was going to be ripped apart in a few more days.

as much as my mother's abuse of me shaped my life and caused me all this pain - it's NOTHING compared to the sudden, violent loss of her altogether