Posted by ElaineM on August 27, 2006, at 19:04:17
TRIG's about T relationship, maybe sex stuff/abuse, I don't know. I tried to keep it vague.
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I've been trying to let some of this out for awhile. I don't know how to throw this together in one post, so I make sense...Okay, my T has been pushing me for a couple of months to talk about relationships I've had in the past. For over a year and a half I've only ever mentioned my family (mostly my mother), LadyT, and LadyDoctor. So I guess I've been touching on maternal transference and whatnot, lately. I never really mention men at all. Never my abusive past with my father (though LadyT touched on it in her referral letter, so he's not completely oblivious even if I don't talk about it). [I have briefly mentioned about physical violence with my mom.] I've briefly referred to an inncident in highschool. I've never spoken of sexual relationships in terms of dating..etc. After ALOT of pushing (saying I was hiding, in denial, or not trusting enough to communicate...) I wrote out a big narrative about Scott -- the last guy I was involved with (the longest I've had) before the anorexia. Hmmm, I don't know how to start all this...
I went into that relationship willing to be a thing -- I had no real expectations. I hate myself so much, and don't see myself as a person, and so was (am) "happiest" being treated poorly. I always think of myself as a tool for others to use to create their own happiness. I can be a cook, a maid, a punching bag, a listener, a whore ... whatever. All that matters is if the other person is pleased. I want to buy permission to inflict myself on the world -- pay for tolerance. And I'm so ugly and socially inept (and now somewhat crippled) that I'm extremely lucky if a man can touch me, even violently -- I want to thank them for pitying me enough to overlook all my faults. I have a hard time not asking for people to hit me (I did my T, and even ED Pdoc). It feels like love -- more than love feels like love. Anyways...
I was basically Scott's thing. It didn't start out that way, but it's what it turned into. He wouldn't let me touch him, or speak friendly to him in public -- he yelled at me once for trying to hold his arm when we were walking. I had to pay for everything we did. I wasn't allowed in his house, only the backseat of his car. We had a running list of rules and how I could improve myself for him -- how to wear my hair, the color, clothes, what I shouldn't eat, how I would earn the right for him to do me favors, I wasn't allowed to have his home number, only pager and cell....The list went on. It's so hard to explain why I was with him. I know it's hard to understand how it's possible to not only be content living like that, but to feel privledged. I was so grateful that he could pick me -- I was chosen. And he'd still say lovely things inbetween all the questionable stuff.
I have an achilles heel for wounded people, especially if their woundedness contrasts with the rest of them. Scott was a rugby playing big-shot TA at my university. Right before we got together he had heart surgury to fix a congenital defect. I was kinda hypnotized by the idea of it. He had the strong aggression, and protectiveness of a male, and the safe, weak woundedness of a female, all in one person. It was a combo I couldn't resist. I wanted to be the one to make sure that his heart never hurt again. Stupid.
The whole thing degenerated from somewhat regular dating, to me being a thing that he could collect whenever he liked. To put it nicely, I went to more parking lots with him, than restaurants and bars combined :-( But it's complicated. He had a way of being both affectionate and protective, cruel and condescending at the same time. And for someone who spent most of their teens isolated in shame and depression, and full of self-loathing, it was just the right amount of love and hate to be intoxicating. Even the first time he kissed me, he said, "There! Is that what you've been asking me for?" But he'd be wearing a half-smile, and he did kiss me afterall. Kissed me instead of not. Kissed me instead of hit. Kissed me first before everything else. And he didn't need to be drunk to do it. Was he not actually being wonderful? It was always so easy for me to re-write -- he was better than me.
Sometimes I'd forget and walk up behind him just to touch his back and he'd push me back and look around to see if anyone saw, and then he'd come right up to me and say, "Look at you! Who knew you were such a little slut". But then he would smile. I got variations of that one alot. It was confusing. I'd feel so stupid. I've never wanted sex in my life. Never ever. Not a single time did I want it. I don't want, or need -- I only comply. I'd only wanted to touch him to show I cared. And I guess I wanted the same back. That's not what he wanted though. I always ended up looking stupid. Anyways, I could go on and on giving examples, but that was the gist of how we were together.
It ended in the blink of an eye. Once he was driving me home late at like 3am and he pulled over, and instead of being how I was supposed to, I had my first real dissociative (I think that was the word, maybe depersonalization? not sure now) episode. And I remember I couldn't even register what he was doing, and couldn't really even feel anything. It was frightening -- I felt very disoriented. I couldn't stay inside my own head. I felt like I was inside whatever I was looking at. Basically what it came down to was that I couldn't even perform minimally. I don't know how to explain it appropriately -- He was upset and made me feel humiliated and said I had to go home then -- I felt like garbage. When he dropped me off I apoligized again, and he drove away. He quit work before his next shift, and didn't return anyone's calls. He didn't even pick up his last pay check. I never saw him again. I mean, he had to have left for more than just that -- I only messed up once. But I came to always connect the two in my head -- being sexually withholding equals abandonment.
Still, it was sad belonging to no one. I was so mad at myself for acting so strange (when I didn't mean to). Why did I have to have a mind that one time? Why did it happen that way after weeks and weeks of being his "slutty little girl". I couldn't figure it out. Anyways, that's a slightly abbreviated (slightly clean-up) version of what I told my T -- I thought it was relevant cause this was the only thing I mentioned this week, before everything else.
***
Last week with my T I had got the lecture about how I shouldn't disrespect good news (MRI) by not seizing the day (telling him about guys regardless of being scared), so Monday I went ahead and told him this one part of my past. I don't know if it's what he wanted to hear, but I didn't know what else to say.After telling him the Scott story, he said it sounded like I was trying to ask him something else -- like implied questions, in my words. I kept denying, saying I was only answering his questions. But to be honest, I did try and do it all nicely -- I don't want him to feel bad, or silly. I don't want him to hate me. Then he said that I was being coy (and in an email, he said I was Sly) And I know it's dumb, but it bothered me cause I wasn't trying to be that way, and he was saying the same words over that I had told him that Scott said -- that used to bother me so. And he'd use some of the same phrases in his examples that Scott would say. I realize I'm probably making that part bigger in my head (because it means something to me) but it was still making me upset and confused.
And then after telling him that story, and how anxious I was saying it, and how I'd only ever mentioned men briefly to LadyT, and that I was feeling ashamed of how I was and felt then, but also for recounting it now....I asked him in one of our emails if he saw me differently, or what he thought of me revealing an uglier part of my past. And when he wrote back his answer to what he thought of my story was that he was jealous! Jealous of the men who've had me, but not jealous enough to send me away. I almost fainted when I read it -- my head started spinning. It made me cry. That after so long, when it was so hard to tell that honestly, his first thought was that he was jealous?!?! Then he said that as long as I was having fun and not being hurt that he didn't think anything about sexual promiscuity or liking it alot, or letting yourself be used. But that's not what I was saying!!! He wasn't listening. He couldn't have been. I was not having fun -- and I know it doesn't count as much as a black eye or broken arm, but my heart was hurting. God, theres so much to remember and say. I can't do it. I've been having the worst time creating sentences this week.
Then the next session he came with a long print out saying all this stuff about how if I don't change myself I'm going to stay alone and that I need to learn to change better or I'll die. That change will keep happening in my life and if I can't adapt it will make me need to die (and he listed the likely ways). The two that made my hearing and vision go wonky when he said them were that..."Likely, one or both of your parents could die from illnes", or, "Your illness could get worse without anyone to take care of you". I almost threw up. He said I've ignored all his outreaches to help me be desensitized to acting like a functioning adult, and rejoining the world. He said that he knows that ativan and alcohol "are pointing the way for me to rejoin the world". That if I took more benzo's or would drink more that I'd do more, even if I was only able to do them under the influence. But then he said (and he does it saying my name, like talking about me in the third person)...But Elaine won't do that. Elaine refuses to accept others advice. Elaine wants to stay content in her isolation.....on and on. I hate when he says my name so much. But he was also saying really nice things too. And saying how I deserve comfort and help.
Then at the end he said, "I know I shouldn't do this to you considering everything you're going through, and that it may not be fair, but I
need to do this for myself..." And it disgusts me to say this, cause it makes me feel foolish, that someone could say this about me....he said... "Elaine, I love you. I have for some time now...". Then he started talking about how he had tried to ignore it cause he's had these feelings come up before in all his years working in practice and hospitals, but never as strongly and uncontrollable. That he tried to push the idea of getting what he wanted from me out of his head, cause it couldn't happen, but that he can't control his feelings, and needed to let me know. He asked if any man has ever said "I love you" to me before -- and they haven't. Not one mentioned love at all. He's the first. How sad is that. I suppose it's nice of him that way. I don't know.Then later that night, in an email, he told me how sad I made him that I didn't even verbally reciprocate, and that his heart is breaking, and he's soooo sad and disappointed. I HATE hurting people. I can't stand other people being in pain. I hate that I'm the cause. I did this!! I even asked him what I did to make his feelings happen this way. And he said nothing but "Being you". Being me? I don't get it. The horrible disgusting, condemnable thing was that (during the meeting he told me, when he'd said how hard it was to see me) I so almost was going to get physical for him -- though I just can't imagine that he, or anyone, could want that. Do that, or cry my eyes out, or faint. It's just the room was all spotty, and fuzzy, and I thought my brain was going to burst, and I didn't know what to do. But then that idea passed, and all I wanted to do was throw up. I was so nauseated. Even now at home, my mind will wander and think of the other day, and I'll feel sick to my stomach. I cancelled Friday because of my doctors appointment and my brother's news. I'm afraid to go back on Monday. But I'm more afraid of being alone. Oh god, I'm so alone in the real world.
I don't have any questions really. Not anymore. Except, do you think that if I reciprocated (even if it's pretend) that he'd leave me? [and I don't even mean leave me like a couple splitting up, but leave me professionally instead) He's said he never would. I know that if I had to go through all my medical, dental, financial, family stuff alone that I probably would've killed myself by now. What can I do? ...There's nothing. I can't steer my way out of this. It was so much better when he was still keeping it a secret. As long it was unsaid, I could ignore as much of it as I wanted. But now it's out there. And so are the expectations. And fears..... I can't turn back. It will never be the same between us again. Or can it? Can I fix this with words without destroying either of us? Can I use words? I'm scared. I want LadyDoctor, I MISS HER, why did I have to leave her at a time when I need her the most! I don't know what to do. I can't stand being afraid of the person and place that have been my only source of safety.....tell me what to say. HELP ME.
I'm sorry for being so vile and not strong, and I know I don't deserve anyone's help when I can't grow a backbone (what's wrong with me), but I feel so seperate from the world. I'm scared you guys will hate me now cause I'm so stupid and disgusting and slutty. I just want so much to not feel this alone. I'm sorry if this was gross for people to read. Please don't hate me. I'm so sorry this is really long -- I couldn't make it any shorter. Sorry. I'm afraid I've written this.
And now this other email. I'm afraid to go back and read it again...what will I do?
=:::(
poster:ElaineM
thread:680627
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060826/msgs/680627.html