Posted by lonelygirl on March 22, 2004, at 18:52:16
As I've probably repeated in almost every post, my story is that I got in trouble at school and was forced to go to counseling against my will, but then I finished the mandatory number of sessions and ended up "in love" with the psychologist and I keep going back.
The problem is that I am feeling more and more attached to him, and I hate it, but the only way to stop it is to stop seeing him, which I also can't do because I am so attached to him in the first place. On the one hand, I hate the attachment, but on the other hand, I hate the thought of not being able to see him any more.
I had decided, before the last mandatory session, that I was not going to come back any more. I told him this, and he said that he liked working with me and would miss my sense of humor and he wanted me to know his door was always open (well, as long as I called in advance to make an appointment!), but you know you can never REALLY tell (it's not like he could just say, "Yes! Thank God it's over and I'll never have to see your fat, ugly face again!"). Then he said that "some of [his] clients" make a follow-up appointment 2 or 3 weeks later, but it's up to me. I'm not sure what that meant -- he didn't come right out and directly suggest it for me -- did he feel an obligation to give me that option even though he didn't want to, or was he trying to put the option out there gently without pushing too hard? (I have many more thoughts and indications on that, which I would be happy to elaborate on if I thought anyone wanted to know, but I am already straying way too far from my point...) I agreed to that and made the appointment, which would have been my last, but then I had another "crisis" come up and decided to come back AGAIN, and what do you know, I am still going.
Anyway, I like him because he is so nice to me, and that is the reason for the attachment. I don't have any real relationships (neither platonic nor romantic, and I don't even have very close relationships with my family, who live hundreds of miles away right now), and it is simply addicting to have someone be so nice to me. The one hour a week I converse with him is probably more than the total time I converse with everyone else in the world (not counting online, ha ha).
One thing I have considered is, in a way, sabotaging my relationship with him by getting him to say something that makes me dislike him so that I can stop seeing him without missing him. I had 2 ideas for doing this:
1. Explain my dilemma (that I am getting too addicted to him being nice to me) and ask him to be mean to me so that I can break the attachment and not feel compelled to come back. The problems with this approach are that he may be unwilling to do it, and that if he does, it would hurt a lot (but then again, that's what I want).
2. There is a certain political issue that I feel very strongly about, and I am highly involved in this issue. He knows this. I strongly suspect that he disagrees with me on the issue, because when I mentioned that I was involved with it, he did not comment. Then he said that I appeared to be "withdrawing" and he wanted to know what "happened." I said that it is a controversial issue and I don't know how he feels about it, so there is some tension in bringing it up. He still did not say whether or not he agreed with me; he basically changed the subject to my "withdrawing." There are some other clues that he probably disagrees with me about the issue, which I am generally pretty good at picking up, since I deal with this issue a lot. So, my point about this is that I could ask him, point blank, what he thinks about the issue. As I said, I feel very strongly about it, and when I find out that someone is on the opposite side, I automatically view that person differently. For example, I would never marry someone who disagreed with me on the issue, and I might not even be willing to date someone who disagreed (although beggars can't be choosers!). So although I would not get angry with him or argue about it, if he said he disagreed on that issue, I would feel a lot less attached. The problems with this are, again, he might refuse to tell me (although I think I could get him to say if I persisted enough), and also that it could actually backfire if he surprises me by saying that he DOES agree.
I do want to break the attachment, because I could swear that my mental health is worse from seeing him, but I don't know if I will be able to go through with any of these, for the exact same reason I couldn't go through with just quitting. There should be a 12-step program for quitting therapy!
Anyway, just wondering what you all think about this... Thanks in advance for any advice!
poster:lonelygirl
thread:327147
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040321/msgs/327147.html