Posted by Adia on September 29, 2003, at 20:56:16
In reply to Trust - A therapy homework, posted by Dinah on September 29, 2003, at 13:19:46
Dear Dinah,
Thank you for sharing..Trust issues stop me from deeeping my relationships too..
I think you need to have a deep level of trust to be able to say something like what your therapist suggested,but that it could be worthwhile and it could help to deepen intimacy in a friendship, if you feel close enough to be able to talk in such an open way..I don't like risking being rejected or left, and sometimes I am scared of burdening people or of scaring people away...that's why I would tell you to try with friends you feel you can trust...
Opening up to other people is really hard for me, as it gives them the power to hurt me and sometimes I am really afraid to take risks...
but there have been times when I've tried to talk or go deeper in a friendship and with a friend it worked..
In one case, I told a friend that I was having problems trusting or knowing how to feel close or open up more but that I truly wanted to be able to give more of myself or share more from my heart, that I felt i was hiding so much of my real safe and my life..and that I wanted to be able to be completely honest with her in everything...but that I was scared..and we talked about that...and I tried to be honest to her and tell her what I was working on in therapy...and just open my heart..and it worked..really well..and she told me that she was happy I had taken that step and it encouraged her to open up to me and now I know I can count on her and share almost anything...It brought us closer together..
I find it hard to have relationships in which I have to pretend everything's fine or I am someone I am not...and I've found that it is worth risking or trying to share or let someone closer...because it might work and you may be surprised...
since bringing that up to my friend, I was even able to cry with her and that is something I don't do often and it was really good for me to be able to experience real closeness with a friend...
in some other cases it didn't work so well to be so honest and open about my feelings and fears...but I learnt who I could trust and who truly cared about me and where I could turn for support and who valued my friendship...
It's hard to let people close, but it can be soooo rewarding when it works ..and maybe you can start bringing it up slowly...and sharing a bit more and test whether it is okay to go a little further or not...that's what I try to do...
I find that being honest about feelings helps deepen a friendship..I've talked to my friend about my fear of being rejected or of her thinking less of me if I share more...and she has shared with me..when she has needed space or has been quiet...and it works well...
Well, just wanted to share how it has worked for me,
I wish you the best...
thank you for sharing.....
Adia.
> We continued in today's session the topic from last week. My anger that I couldn't trust my family. But this time with a twist.
>
> My therapist thinks, and I would agree, that trust is the major difficulty I have in most relationships and the thing that keeps my relationships from being as deep as they could be.
>
> I think that as a relationship builds, you disclose a bit more, and see how the other person reacts. As you find a person trustworthy on a certain level, you go a bit deeper. And if you hit a roadblock, where you want something that someone can't give, you try a few times at that level and then you accept the parameters of the relationship. And it's fine to settle for that. That the relationship can be perfectly satisfactory where it is, even if ideally you might like more intimacy.
>
> My therapist thinks there is a flaw in my relationship skills there. That it's limiting in life to accept those parameters. He suggests saying something like "I enjoy our friendship and would like to bring it to a more intimate level. If you're also interested in that, maybe we could work on it." And then if the person is interested, I tell them where I'm having difficulty in trusting them more fully and what I need from them, and invite them to do the same.
>
> I think this is a very strange idea. I can see doing it with my husband. We're bound to each other by law and by obligation. I've done it with my therapist, with very good results. We struggled and wrestled our way to a better therapeutic relationship through quite a few roadblocks. But he was bound by ethics and by financial interest to try to work through it.
>
> But to try this approach with friends seems very odd indeed. First of all, wouldn't it be likely to hurt their feelings? And second, people don't change substantially all that often. Is it really worth jeopardizing what you have in an attempt to build a deeper relationship that most likely won't work out anyway? A friendship would have to be pretty strong to begin with to survive such a thing, I would guess.
>
> What do you guys think? Is my therapist a bit touched in the upper works? Or are my relationship skills even more lacking than I had thought?
poster:Adia
thread:264237
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20030925/msgs/264337.html