Posted by shrinking violet on May 3, 2005, at 19:00:15
In reply to Well, the thing is, posted by Dinah on May 3, 2005, at 13:10:59
.....that you can tell your T indirectly of your "plan" and he allows the conversation and doesn't hit the ceiling. My T reacts to every little thing I tell her (which is probably why she doesn't know much).
>> My plan is to kill myself, and I really don't think it's very professional of him to forget that.
>> I didn't tell him that directly of course, because moving that thought from something I thought to something I told him would move it into something manipulative and that I won't do.--Is your termination with him looming, or is it a someday-in-the-distant-future sort of thing? Perhaps he hopes/believes that you'll feel differently down the road, that your feeling that way now is normal for a client but at some point your feelings/ideas/thoughts about erasing your existence (or, as he knows, that you'll need personal protection and outside safety measures) because of him will change. I guess that would be a lot of weight on a person, knowing that he literally has his life in your hands (yes, he does anyway b/c he is a T, and that's what they do, but I think that's more ephemeral on some levels and not as concrete as your proposing).
--I see your concern about the "manipulative" theory. I guess I feel the same, especially now since I have one session with my T left.....part of me wants to tell her my "plans," how badly I'm feeling, how scared I am, etc, and it doesn't all have to do with her....I think if at least one other part of my life was going well, I'd have something to hold onto, but I don't, so, losing the one person in my life who I have such an intense closeness with is bringing down the house of cards.
>> But I told him enough that he understood it was important to arrange protection for me.
--Maybe he put it in the very back of his head. Maybe he needed to block it out in order to keep functioning with you. Imagine having a weight like that on the forefront of your mind while trying to objectively and ethically help a client in the present?
>> I'm not trying to tell him what to do. My more rational self is trying to save my life. My less rational side is happy he forgets.
--Yes, I understand this too. I guess that's why part of me posts here, and say the things I do when I know I shouldn't; why part of me wants to email the link to my recent post to my T (the rational self part).....Yet I don't (the other side and, as you mentioned, I don't want to seem manipulative, etc, which I think is how my T would see it at this point, and that would be much worse than anything).
I'm sorry your T forgot, I know how that can hurt, especially something like this. But he is human too, and a T (T's can be sneaky)....so maybe he did forget or maybe he needed to keep it in another space in his mind so he could still function with you the way he needs to.
By the way, I hope you never terminate with him.....the world would be lost without you. :-)
Take care,
SV
poster:shrinking violet
thread:488013
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050428/msgs/493290.html