Posted by shortelise on November 11, 2004, at 1:54:25
In reply to Re: Maintenance Therapy » shortelise, posted by Miss Honeychurch on November 9, 2004, at 15:33:14
Miss H/C, this makes me crazy.
Rereading this, it sounds a little angry, but I didn't write it with anger, but indignation. I would love my T to love me the way my good friends do, to think he'd like to be able to go for coffee, come to my house to eat, and go for long walks in the park of a sunny afternoon. But that's not on. He doesn't feel that way about me. He sees me when I have an appointment with him, and cares about me when he thinks about me, but that is the extent of his affection for me. Ok, I am tearing up - I really do wish I were so loveable that he couldn't resist loving me as my friends do. I regret that he can't and doesn't. But I truly do not believe that it's as mechanical as you put it.
The people who care about me see the wonderful parts of me, those parts might be what makes them care about me. The warts, well, one would guess they see those too, but the interesting person in me - or the artist, the mother, the friend, the cook, the volunteer - outweighs the warts.
When I really like someone, I tend to begin to find beauty in them, even if they are not attractive. For example, my sister has the most beautiful coloured eyes. Another friend has gorgeous skin, another extraordinary cheekbones. Yet another has a laugh like a bubbling brook. Oh, and another has grey hair that fits her head in a wavy cap.
So why oh why would our T's be immune to our better bits? You make it sound like their regard for us is just short of feigned, if not entirely feigned. You don't think there is a tilt to your head, a glint of red to your hair, a way you have of saying certain things, your laugh, or they way you look at him, that makes you dear to him in some very appropriate way? Must familiarity breed contempt?
Is there something that keeps you from allowing yourself to believe that he actually does care about you?
I know just what you mean, Miss H/C. I do I do I do. But I also need to believe that he really does care, that I am worthy of that. Writing that makes me cry. I need to believe he cares about me because that means I am worth caring about.
I have had fights with my T, not for the past year, but before that, about things like this. I just couldn't believe that he didn't hate me, that he wasn't hoping I'd leave and never come back, and I could point out all sorts of evidence to comfirm it. He would admit that he sometimes got impatient, and that he had bad days sometimes when he wasn't as present as I might like him to be. He told me the truth, or as least, I believed him. I HAD TO KNOW if what I was perceiving was the truth or not. I needed to know because my mother was incapable (and still is) of saying what she really felt. She'd clam up and we'd have to try to figure out what she wanted, how she felt, what we had done, and how to fix it.
I too miss seeing my T. The therapy is the icing on the cake.
Miss H/C, please know that I read your posts with great interest. You help me think things through.
ShortE
poster:shortelise
thread:413412
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041104/msgs/414473.html