Posted by 10derHeart on May 20, 2005, at 23:42:31
In reply to How'd it go? (nm) » 10derHeart, posted by Dinah on May 20, 2005, at 21:48:21
Thanks for asking. I suspected you might ;-)
We talked really openly. I mean - I always do, but with my eyes staring down and just about my stuff. Not much directly about his behavior until now. It took on a different tone. I was clear about almost all the stuff I wrote in my long post. And more stuff I thought of at the time.
He said all the right things. He was more engaged today. He said he truly can't think of a thing that was bothering him from outside life, in his head - nothing at all the other day. I'm glad he kept steadily saying that, instead of seeming to hem and haw and agree with my perceptions just to "over-validate" them, which I told him I would pick up as a form of dishonesty, and probably come close to a mini-tantrum. He seemed to get that.
I'm glad he stuck to his position (though he kept stressing how it was WAY more important to find out he did things that made the room feel unsafe than whether or not we both could tell he was doing it) because that gave me the opening to let myself just dissolve in tears. Which I pretty much did.
I said that if he didn't see it AT ALL, then I didn't trust my perceptions, or interpretations of a d*mn thing going on in the room. Because how could we see it in such utterly opposite ways? That I was a big idiot. That one didn't get by. I was deemed NOT to be an idiot.
That led to a good talk, I know. But darned if I can tell you about it, because therapy-amnesia has nicely erased it. I so hate that. But the remaining vague memory is that he said nice stuff and I felt better.
I don't know. It was still a little odd. It's okay not to be totally fine in one session. I made a LOT of eye contact today, and felt like I was making sense and had a good "flow" in explaining to him all the stuff that happened to make me feel so alone last time. That felt different and good.
But there's still an emotional distance that feels sad to me. We even talked about that, and it stayed the same. I suppose I was imagining it would go away, and we'd feel closer the minute I talked about it. Uhhh - no.
It was jumbled a lot. My ex-T came up many times - that is unusual. At one point I answered a question (forgot what it was) by saying something about that I couldn't tell him certain things with the "wrong" words, because then he "wouldn't like me." The second I said it I wanted to take it back. I heard myself say it in a small, soft voice. And - big surprise - he started to say something like, "That sounded like an answer not from the adult sitting here with me, but..." I cut him off and told him he didn't have permission to go there.
He backed off right away. He's said before he feels it borders on abuse of his role/power to ever push a topic or a path. We only go if I start first, or, if I tell him explicitly to push me. He is VERY nondirective, obviously. I liked that moment. It felt very safe and powerful for me to decide NOT to talk about any child-part of me today.
Maybe the best thing was right before we stopped and changed to, "here's your check" mode, he scoots to the edge of his chair and asks, "Are you okay?" Sounds so dumb and simple. But he usually doesn't say that. It seemed to bring full circle the fact I wasn't last time, or when I came in today. I told him I was 90% okay, but would have to process the session the rest of the day to get a better sense.
I feel a whole lot more settled, so I guess that's pretty important.
There's more, but I should get a PBC for post length. It's uncivil to subject you to a missive this long. And poorly written at that. It feels awfully good to write about it, though.
Maybe in coming days I can post little bits of the "rest." Provided I get a clue how to be succinct like you are.
poster:10derHeart
thread:500036
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050513/msgs/500623.html