Hi Incognito....don't think we have met yet

Sorry you had a really crappy weekend. Your boss was out of order treating you that way...being in a supervisory role, he should be addressing things as they arise - and I think you handled that really well Sometimes it is hard to not react in a similar way.

Please don't be so hard on yourself when it comes to not opening up to your T - I understand and identify with you issues around trusting your T, and them being fed up etc...I struggle with this all the time although I can find no rational reasoning for it. As for withdrawing...If I withdrew any further, I'd probably end up on Pluto

Have not got any pearls of wisdom...just letting you know you are not alone and sending positive thoughts your way.

Hugs, F xx

quote:

Monday when I got into my session I couldn't talk to my T at all. I had a terrible weekend with a flashback when I tried to be intimate with my husband and a fight with my mom. My T tried asking me questions but all I could do was cry. I felt like leaving early. Near theend when I managed to choke out a few words my T told me it must be difficult because I am always worried that he will get fed up with me and fire me. I don't understand how he can know me so well and I still can't trust him and open up. I feel like quitting therapy, withdrawing from the world, and licking my wounds.

Incognito - It's as if we had the same weekend and attended the same therapy session, minus the fight with my mom, who I didn't see at all. I'm sorry. I know it hurts to keep walking toward your T when everything in you is screaming to run away and hide. I wish I could make it better, for both our sakes. (((hugs)))

((((INCOGNITO)))))

That scene with your boss must have been awful. But you were so brave. So glad you were able to talk to him about it. Did it get resolved? Do you think you are in danger of getting fired? I hope it's not that serious.

It sounds like sometimes for you as you get closer to your T, it gets scary and you want to run away. It sounds like there's still a part of you that still doesn't completely trust T, especially after the difficult things that happened in your life at work and over the weekend.

(((((HUGS))))

Liese

quote:

I don't understand how he can know me so well and I still can't trust him and open up.

(((Incognito))) It's because you've had SO much experience in your life that opening up and trusting someone is a dangerous thing to do. What is wrong here isn't how you are responding, you're responding in a very understandable way considering your experience. What is wrong is that you were so mistreated that even in a safe caring relationship you still have to feel so much mistrust. And your T understands that which is why it's a LOT easier for him to be patient with you working it through until you can trust him. He understands that you HAVE to build up a lot of good experiences before you'll actually trust that what you experience with him is real and can be depended on.

You are growing Incognito and have been making a lot of progress, especially recently. Which if you're anything like me, usually triggered a "I have to get the hell out of dodge" reaction. I'm sorry, I know it's really slow and painful working through this stuff, but you are doing lightyears better than you can give yourself credit for.

AG

Hi Faith, Thanks for letting me know that you understand how I feel. I look forward to getting to know you.

Yaku, I’m sorry that you struggle with the same issues. I hope that you are able to keep talking to T and discussing things.

Liese, The scene with my boss was awful. To give a little more background I work in an academic setting. I first met my boss when I was a student and he was my supervisor for 5 years. I left and worked elsewhere for 8 years and returned to work with him for the last 8 years. Our relationship is complex because in many ways he was a transferential father figure for me originally (not that I would have described it that way at the time). He was calm, patient, understanding and supportive not at all like my own father. I’ve shared a lot more with him than many bosses. I don’t think I’m in any danger of being fired. When I spoke to my boss he apologized for his outburst and we both acknowledged that we needed to work out other ways to communicate. I’m sure he thinks things are good between us. It doesn’t feel resolved to me because it doesn’t feel safe. If I didn’t recognize that he was getting frustrated with me I can’t trust that I will recognize it in the future. I often think I don’t do a good enough job (or I’m not a good enough parent or wife or daughter or friend, you get what I mean) and I’ve thought I must be because he was happy with me as an employee. Now I will always wonder if he is frustrated and trying to control it and when will he fail and so on and so on. I wanted to quit right away on Friday because I generally want to leave anywhere I’m not wanted. I went back on Monday and I was uncomfortable. I told my T if I didn’t have 3 kids and a mortgage I would have quit already. He encouraged me not to quit and give us time to work on communication.

I’m starting to think that there will always be a part of me that can’t trust T and I don’t even trust him enough to tell him how I feel. The fact that he understands me so well is kind of amazing to me because I often don’t know how to put my upsets into words until he does it for me. I worry that I’m incredibly weak because it seems like I’m always freaking out about something, therapy, my relationship with T, my husband, my kids, work, my parents. I don’t know how other people (normal happy people) manage normal life disruptions. They throw me into despair so easily.

AG, thanks for your encouragement. Right now it feels like I’m stuck in concrete and I’m exhausting myself by struggling against it. I hope I can go to my appointment tomorrow and talk about some of this. The silent crying is so awful I just want to run out of there and quit wasting his time but then I don’t want to speak up and have him be disgusted by me. It is an terrible bind I’m in.

Di

Incognito,

I can imagine how scary it will be to trust that your boss will now mean what he says and says what he means. In my own FOO, everything was said with a smile but then you got punched in the stomach. You just couldn't trust what anyone said. And that has been a huge issue in therapy. Believing that T will take care of his own boundaries and I can trust that he's not angry with me or not going to get angry.

So, the long and the short of it is, I totally get how scary that would be for you. On top of that, to have to worry about whether or not you are doing a good job, which you do naturally anyway. It's as if your biggest fear came true. BUT, and there always is a but, it sounds like you have a good relationship with your boss. Maybe it'll make you feel better if you tell him that you would prefer that he communicate with you right away instead of letting things build up, that you want him to be happy with your work, etc. And put the ball in his court, so to speak. Reassure him that you are open to feedback. He just sounds like a really nice man from what you've described. Maybe he has unconsciously taken on a bit of the father role with you and felt bad saying something to you about your work. Which, is he had done earlier, it wouldn't have been such a big crisis.

I often feel the same way you do, about not being able to verbalize what it is I am feeling. My OldT would amaze me when she said things - I posted something on Quilters thread about how when I left her, I hated the feeling of rejecting her and I hated the possibility that I might run into her. We kept having these wierd phone conversations and finally she said, Liese, you will never see me again. I was so relieved when she said that. But also amazed that she knew why I was feeling and I didn't. But that was also a problem in my relationship with her - I felt sooooo transparent and wasn't really ready to be "seen". New T has had a way for the first three years of our relationship of kind of pretending he was a normal guy and not a psychologist. He always says that he never assumes he knows me better than I know myself. He also says things like, "I can speculate. YOU know the answer." And he almost never puts words in my mouth. I've realized how much I needed that, how vulnerable I felt when OldT seemed to know me better than I knew myself. New T has a way of "planting" ideas to help me get to where I need to go. Maybe you can talk to T and tell him you feel vulnerable when he knows how you are feeling before you do. I know I have had to protect my emotions like I was protecting the queens treasure. I'm just not ready to share them or be so transparent. I'm getting better and trusting T more. But the way he worked really worked for me and helped A LOT.

I remember when OldT said to me, Oh, so you hate me and you love me. I was sooooooo mortified that she knew I loved her. I hadn't come to terms with those feelings yet. I felt soooo exposed and not ready to go there. And then I left her. Well, that was after the doublebooking too but it was just all too much. Just wanted to share my own personal experience with you. IMO, it's perfectly normal to feel the way you do especially if you've suffered from emotional abuse.

Liese