Posted by Tamar on June 25, 2005, at 11:09:16
In reply to Re: Confusing Session (long) ***TRIGGERS*** » Tamar, posted by daisym on June 25, 2005, at 0:49:31
> <<<<All this is true. Especially the part about the secret from mommy. The child has to then protect both parents, by holding on tightly to the secret. And there is a deep, deep secret fear that this is all her fault. So she works hard to make it up to her mommy by being as perfect as she can. But being perfect makes her attractive (an easy target)? for her dad, because if HE tells mommy, then she won't be perfect anymore. So she then tries to please daddy to keep him quiet. She believes that if she can please everyone, no one will get angry.And, sadly, she doesn’t have that power; she can’t stop people from getting angry. And she doesn’t know that daddy has his own reasons for not telling and (in some cases) mommy has her reasons for not knowing.
> And if this isn't complicated enough, there are sweet memories of a loving daddy who made her feel special in appropriate ways. She was his girl, and he made her feel safe and beautiful in a way her mother never did. So she goes back time and time again thinking this daddy will reappear. And since he does often enough to keep hope alive, a vicious cycle is set up. And how can the little girl help but believe that she is the one driving all of this, so she becomes afraid of her own sexual power. And there is a faint bell ringing that I can't marry someone who is already married -- daughters can't marry their fathers because they are already married. And my therapist is married -- very married -- and his wife is right next door during some of my sessions! So perhaps while I don't think I'm hyper-aware that she is there, maybe I'm more aware of this than I think
Yes, and even if his wife weren’t so close as right next door, she’s always there. And you know you can’t marry him because he’s already married, but you might have learned that there are ways of being close to him despite his wife. The difficulty is knowing which are appropriate ways of being close to him, and which are not so appropriate. Well, obviously you *know*, but sometimes feelings and knowledge don’t go together. And the idea of wanting him sexually is particularly dangerous because it’s hard to imagine that he can accept your sexual desire for him without acting on it. Maybe it’s hard to imagine him loving you in a way that accepts your feelings of desire (both child feelings and adult feelings) without rejecting you. Maybe it’s hard to imagine him feeling something like, “I love her very much and she’s beautiful, but I won’t be sexually intimate with her because it would hurt her and it would be wrong.”
> You used the word merge above. This strikes a cord, as well as the attempt or wish to rewrite the story with a man who will allow her to have needs and not be repulsed by them. In therapy, we've talked about merging and separating as a development task that I need to work through. I was afraid for so long to allow myself to merge with my therapist. And now that I can let myself do this, separating at the end of sessions is excruciating. It feels so empty and lonely to pull away again. Maybe the adult developmental task is to recognize my own sexual needs and be OK with having these needs. Right now I think I have no right to have these needs, or any needs for that matter. My "job" is to satisfy the other.
Yes, finding a safe way to merge is wonderful and it’s so hard to separate again. I felt that way in therapy too. I think it’s hard because it’s difficult to believe that the separation is temporary and the merging will be possible again in a few days. Each time we separate it feels like forever. And of course the merging is so comforting that we want to stay merged. It can be hard to imagine how we can be fully ourselves without being merged.
And I know what you mean about thinking you don’t have the right to have these needs, and that your job is to provide satisfaction. I’m still struggling with that too. It’s hard even to recognise that needs are there.
> I think I want to have space to ask and have answered questions about sex. Truly. Like a 12 or 13 year old would. But not about the body parts, but about the emotions and the right and wrong of it. The idea that it is supposed to be mutually wanted, or consented to is totally foreign. I want to say, "is this OK?" What if I want this and not that. Does that make me weird? Or how do you negotiate a sexual request? These are things I never learned and never had any safe person to ask. So perhaps some of these feelings are an attempt to explore this side of sexual relations.
I know! When I was pubescent I was only told about body parts; no one mentioned the feelings. I had no idea how the feelings were connected to my body. As far as wanting one thing and not another goes, I don’t think there’s *anything* that’s actually weird. Different people like different things; the important thing is to know which things you like. I think first a person needs to discover how she likes to be touched, and then she needs to consider how she likes to touch another person.
The weird thing about negotiating a sexual request is that so many people don’t do it verbally. So many people seem to make love without much speaking, hoping their partner will guess from the occasional ‘oh yes’ whether it’s working. Sometimes people ask, “Do you like this?” But it’s hard to say, “No, actually, I’d rather you did that!” I didn’t even realise it until I had a partner who was very chatty and talked all through sex. It was fantastic! It was just so easy to say, “Left a bit,” or whatever.
I was reading some stuff recently about how couples behave as they’re getting together. Most of it is non-verbal. It starts with increasing the length of eye contact. There’s a point at which eye contact is broken if there’s no chemistry; if eye contact is held beyond that, both parties may believe there’s a chance of intimacy. Even that first kiss is usually negotiated in a non-verbal way: the man leans in a little, and moves away. Soon afterwards, he does it again. If the woman reciprocates by moving her head towards him when he leans in, then he gets non-verbal ‘go ahead’ cues, and they keep moving together and away, getting a little closer each time, until eventually they’re close enough to kiss. If the woman doesn’t move towards the man when he moves towards her, the man is supposed to understand that she’s not receptive to a kiss and he should stop moving towards her. Problems arise when one of the parties hasn’t learned to read the signals.
And those non-verbal signals are also used for getting more intimate. Touching starts in places that are fairly neutral – arms, shoulders etc – and if reciprocated, the touching gets more intimate. Of course, the difficulty with depending on non-verbal signals to get sexually intimate is that some people haven’t leaned how to read the signals properly, or they ignore the don’t-go-there signals because they don’t want to believe the other person doesn’t want them. I think it’s particularly confusing for people who have been sexually abused or assaulted because they may give out ‘go ahead’ signals without intending to, or they might give out ‘don’t-go-there’ signals even when they want intimacy because they have emotional conflicts about sexual intimacy.
> >>>>But it’s extra-confusing because at the same time she wants to sit on his lap while he reads to her.
>
> Totally. Or rock together. Anything safe that is bonding. I think this is the competition of frozen age states, longing and protecting at the same time.Yes. And as an adult that’s confusing because those safe bonding activities often involve a lot of the non-verbal cues that lead to the expectation of sexual activity.
> Perhaps this is where the physical arousal comes in. The body competing with the brain. I tell myself I can't have any needs in this area. And my body is feeling a different truth. I also think the body remembers. So when I strongly enter a younger age state, those body memories respond to anything that makes "her" (me) feel special. And the intimacy of the situation, so private, with secrets spilled out all over the ground, simply sets up this body response to a situational recreation of the past.
Ah, I’m familiar with the battle between my body and my mind. I agree that the body remembers things. And I think there can be a lot of confusion when an adult body remembers things that belong to a child body. It also makes sense that the intimacy, privacy and secrecy of therapy would evoke a physical reaction or memory, which can (confusingly) be expressed in adult terms.
> This is a very old conflict and I have it so many ways. I loved my dad and I didn't want to love him. I wanted to hate him. I trusted him to keep me safe and yet I also knew that I wasn't safe from him. Physically he hurt me. I didn't want that. But I wanted to snuggle close to him, to feel him. And I didn't want to tell my mom but I desperately wanted her to know. I think the conflict plays out with my husband too. I want to feel close to him, to be taken care of a little. This inevitably evolves into sex. So I have to choose having what I want and doing what I don't want to. *sigh* I bet I have a hundred more examples.
It’s so unfortunate that physical comfort with a partner is often seen as a prelude to sex. It’s hard to know how to deal with it if your partner doesn’t know about the abuse. Partners who know can be sympathetic because they can learn about the difficulties. But a partner who doesn’t know might feel rejected if he doesn’t understand the reason you don’t want sex.
> I'm going to try to talk about this. I did tell him that my feelings of self-loathing were increasing again and that I had my list made of my insecurities and things I hated about myself. I also said I wasn't prepared to tell him what was on the list. It was too dangerous, with too much potential for rejection. Why would I give him ammunition against me? He said we needed to look at the list together, slowly and very gently. I want to tell him about the size thing but I'm afraid it won't make sense to him.
I imagine the size thing is pretty common in all sorts of situations. I expect he will have heard it before.
I suppose you might well see your feelings as ammunition if you think he might reject you. I think good therapists somehow manage to walk a very fine line where they can accept our feelings without acting in response to them, and they can explore the feelings together with us without rejecting us. I think it’s an amazing skill. Part of it, I think, is about acknowledging that it’s OK to have these feelings; another part is about providing a safe environment to understand the feelings.
One of the biggest questions for me was: how could my therapist possibly respond to my feelings about him without rejecting me? How could he refuse to touch me without making me feel completely ugly, depraved and worthless? But I was amazed when I eventually talked about feelings of desire. I never mentioned that I desired *him* so of course he would never have guessed :) But he asked questions in such I way that I never felt disgusting or rejected. I think if I’d come right out and said, “Actually, although I know it’s unethical and impossible, I want to tear off your clothes right now and give you every pleasure you can imagine and then a few you haven’t thought of,” he would have reacted with no more surprise than if I’d said, “Actually, I’d like an ice cream right now.” Well of course I want ice cream; why wouldn’t I? Ice cream is delicious and comforting. He doesn’t have any ice cream to give me, but there are other places I can get it. It’s just a matter of finding the ice cream shop. But we can talk about the flavours I’d choose.
> And no way, yet, about the hug. I sort of have this idea that I will know I'm ready to leave when I can hug him without worrying.
That makes sense.
> I keep thinking about this. I don't yet know how, but I do need to find a way to practice safe touching that does not lead to anything sexual. I realize that among the reasons that touch is so hard for me is that I have a lot of confusion about what is appropriate. Is the idea to take turns? If I get touched, how much pay back do I have to do? If someone hugs me, do I owe them a hug back? Is it OK to take and not give back when touching, or when having sex? If so, how long is it OK? 5 minutes? An hour?
Yes, these are difficult questions. In an ideal world (or a good relationship) people don’t keep score. There’s no need to keep track of the number or duration of the hugs. In a good relationship hugs are given and received according to want and need. And of course they’re usually comforting to both people. As for sex, I think it should be OK to take and not give back, for as long as you want it. Ideally, two people having sex want both to experience pleasure and to give pleasure. And giving pleasure is also part of experiencing pleasure. My partner is willing to focus entirely on me for hours if I want him too. He enjoys what he’s doing. Sometimes he wants me to spend a lot of time doing things for him, and I enjoy doing it so I’m not watching the clock. Sometimes I particularly want to focus on him, even if he hasn’t indicated a desire for it, just because I like it. It just depends on what we’re in the mood for. But this is a recent thing for me; until recently I couldn’t stand to be touched so sex was rather one-way, with me focusing on him. He enjoyed it, but at the same time he found it difficult because he wanted to give me pleasure too.
> I almost never have on open neck stuff. I wear a lot of jewelry at the throat, pins that close my blouses. I'm not small breasted either and I wish I was! I'm very careful about what shows. I wear very nice executive clothes to work and long skirts or jeans on the weekends. I think I choose my clothes so that people will notice them instead of me. And note: shoes are safe. I have small, cute feet (size 6 1/5) and I think they are my best feature. I refuse to wear flats unless they are sandals or tennies. Keep people looking down is my motto!
Yes! Shoes *are* safe! And I like your idea of keeping people looking down!
> I'm going to have to think about this a lot. I'm sure you are right, it just feels impossible to integrate any of this. I think right now I need to learn how to listen better to the arguments in my head. I still think my therapist prefers the little girl parts of me. I know this is really old stuff.
I think the integrating might be ultimately useful, but first it’s important to discover what might need integrating. It’s interesting that you think your therapist prefers the little girl parts. Is that because he’s always prepared to hear them? Do you think he listens to them at the expense of your adult parts?
> I'm getting clearer on what I'm feeling but it is obvious I have so much work to do still. I wish I could move through this faster.
I don’t think there’s much advantage to going faster. I think it’s more important to do it effectively. I tend to think of it like learning to play the piano. I could learn to play pieces of music quickly, but I learned better if I played them very slowly many times. And in almost every piece of music there was a four bar passage that was extremely challenging. I had to keep working very slowly on those four bars, over and over until they sounded just as good as the rest of the piece. If I didn’t play the piece for a few months and came back to it I needed to give those four bars a little extra work. And if I never dealt with those four bars slowly they never sounded as good as the rest of the piece. I’ll never be good enough to be a professional pianist, but with enough work I can play well enough to enjoy it immensely.
It seems to me that therapy just takes as long as it takes. Sometimes we have to come back to things we think we’ve dealt with. It’s hard work, and sometimes it feels just too difficult. But every little bit of work we do is a step towards freedom.
poster:Tamar
thread:516928
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050622/msgs/518646.html