Posted by LG04 on March 18, 2005, at 20:53:51
In reply to Re: no worries, (Dinah, please read, too), posted by Dinah on March 17, 2005, at 20:16:25
Hi Dinah,
My theory of what happened is similar to Sunny's. I am starting to recognize this with me and my therapist and have had those same feelings of suddenly having no idea who she is.I'll explain what it is for me and you can see if it rings any bells for you.
I have an "idealization transference" with my therapist, which i am working to break. But meanwhile, I need her to be ideal (i understand why but that's a whole other subject). Which, among other things, means not making any mistakes. Not being quite human.
When she makes a mistake, or isn't doing what I want/expect her to do, i get furious. She is supposed to be ideal! how dare her mess up? This keeps me from having to see her as human. Humans mess up. Perfect mommys don't. If I'm furious, it maintains my need to see her as perfect. if i understood that she wasn't perfect, if i could accept her in all her human-ness, then i might be mad, or annoyed, or frustrated, or perhaps even forgiving. the fury allows me to continue to see her as ideal. i am furious, she apologizes, and she is back to being ideal again. i've avoided seeing her as human.
i know that you didn't get furious or even that mad. but the common denominator is that it terrifies me to think she is an ordinary human being. i use fury to cover it up. (or, i might think that i am totally worthless. either way, it keeps her ideal). perhaps you use dissociation in that "weird" way b/c it scares you so much to think of him as an ordinary human and not the ideal mommy.
because the few times that i've actually allowed myself to see her as human, as ordinary, i felt the exact same way. i had this feeling that i was supposed to know her, but i didn't. i didn't know whose office i was in, or who i was talking to. it's the most bizarre feeling in the world, especially since i have a very close relationship with her.
and when i feel this way, i also feel total panic and that i am desperate to run. because only a perfect mommy is safe and will protect me. anything less than that leaves me feeling incredibly vulnerable and scared to death. an ideal mommy won't hurt me or make mistakes. less than an ideal mommy? totally unpredictable. therefore, terrifying.
so maybe it's not that you are angry at him but just the fact that he made a mistake (wasn't as gentle as he could have been) and apologized was enough for you to see him momentarily as a regular person who messes up sometimes. and right now you only want to see him as an ideal mommy. especially since you were having those thoughts beforehand where he picks you up and so forth. you were in that mode and then he showed himself as human. that would be enough of a reason to dissociate.
so that's just an idea, i don't know if it fits for you or not. but i thought i'd throw it out there since the same thing has happened to me. i've been reading a lot about idealization transference and it's given me a lot of understanding into what's going on with me and why.
i hope you are able to figure it out. i know it's a scary feeling. by the way i've always been able to put her back into the role of ideal mommy after those weird dissocations, so maybe that will comfort you that you will be able to do it also.
LG04
poster:LG04
thread:471999
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050315/msgs/472656.html