Posted by LG04 on June 22, 2004, at 8:20:37
In reply to Re: Do Ts really care about you?, posted by shadows721 on June 21, 2004, at 21:49:28
I have a couple of thoughts...
one is that I am a preschool teacher and I often have to think about how much I love those kids in order to understand how my therapist cares about me. Meaning, I do get paid for my job (which I need obviously to have a home and pay bills), but I don't get paid for how much I love and care about them. Meaning, I don't share with them my most intimate feelings or struggles in life or if I'm having a terrible day, though they cry to me and need me. I don't need them at all in the same way. I am there for them, not the other way around. I take care of them the whole day, they don't take care of me.
BUT they are SO IMPORTANT to me and give me so much and I care so very deeply for them and want to do everything I can do be there for them. I love them SO MUCH. I am crazy about them. They make me laugh and cry and I get mad and I get impatient and I have very real relationships with them. I look forward to seeing them and being with them and sometimes I miss them when I'm not with them. At the same time, I am very drained after work and ready for down time and to be alone or watch TV or be with friends or whatever. But I think about them a lot and work hard to be a good teacher and a safe person for them. If something happened to one of them, I would be devestated.
This often helps me a lot when I get insecure about my therapist's feelings towards me. I think it's very similar.
The second thing is that I know that I am my therapist's "most special" client. We have a very intense and very close relationship - a soul connection - and we've talked about it because it's there and to pretend it isn't would be confusing and not healthy. I know she spends more time thinking about me and talking with me (on the phone and in sessions) than she does with other clients. Much of the time I have been with her, I have been planning to leave and move overseas and many times we spoke about figuring out what kind of relationship we'd have when I left, that we would stay in touch. Etc.
The thing is, though sometimes it does feel good and give me a feeling of security with her, it doesn't always help. Sometimes I still think she doesn't care about me. Sometimes I long to be the only person in her life (i.e. not just the most special client but her most special person, her ONLY person), that she wouldn't have a husband and kids and best friends and parents and siblings and everyone else. I get very jealous of her husband of whom I know nothing about, that they share a life together and get to be partners in life and that they've been married so long, etc. In other words, IT'S NOT ENOUGH to be her favorite client. NOTHING IS ENOUGH. Sometimes I want more and I want it all. I want her to be all mine. Like a perfect, and I mean perfect, mother/friend/partner/everything else for all of my inner and outer parts, all of my needs.
So I'm not sure that actually being your therapist's favorite client is an answer to what's really going on. It doesn't make me whole and it doesn't answer all my needs or end my neediness and longings and all of those things or even take care of my insecurities regarding her. I still need to ask her often, "do you still care about me?"
Sometimes, once in a while, it's even confusing and I don't want to be special to her. It can feel very scary. (being special to my dad meant he sexually abused me...)
I've had several other therapists with whom this wasn't the case. My relationships with them weren't nearly as emotionally charged. Sometimes I wish for those other relationships. In most ways it was easier (not as intimate). But then, I was always obsessed/dependent upon some other person in my life which always created deep pain in me and I would spend hours talking about this person with my therapist. So I guess I'd rather have it be with my therapist where at least we can talk about it and I can work on it with her.
Anyway this has been my experience. Being special is nice but it doesn't in any way fill the emptiness inside or the pain I feel inside. Our relationship is still very limited, as are all relationships (even marital relationships, so I've heard), and that's what creates the pain for me.
LG
poster:LG04
thread:358715
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040614/msgs/358947.html