Posted by littleone on October 18, 2006, at 20:31:26
In reply to Re: Meeting a nurturing/mothering need, posted by littleone on October 17, 2006, at 21:51:06
Thank you for all your thoughts. Each time I try to respond to everyone individually, I close up shop and want to run and hide, so it’s a bit safer if I respond to everyone all at once today. Please know that all your posts held valuable information for me and all were appreciated.
I do believe that my T partly meets these needs. He brings a lot of these positive mothering qualities to our relationship. A lot, but not all. I guess I’m wary about counting on him for this too much. It would be too easy and wonderful to turn each session into a mothering exercise. But I don’t think that would be helpful. I think that would then get in the way of doing the hard work of therapy.
I think this was part of what I was looking for in my art T. A separate person I could hire to mother me on a regular basis. I didn’t really want the art T for his insights, etc. I wanted him to be caring and encouraging and get on the floor with me and help me draw and be real interested in me and what I was doing.
I think I still prefer the idea of paying someone to do this rather than ask an aunty or my mum. I have a big issue around not wanting to be a bother to people. I think that would get in the way of things if I involved my aunty or mum, cause me to pull back. If I’m paying someone, I still feel like a bother, but figure I’m paying them to put up with me so it’s kind of okay as long as I don’t push my luck.
But in a way that’s kind of a shame really. My mum has been trying really hard to improve things between us. She wants things to be better. But it’s just not working for me because she’s interacting with the adult. So it would be real nice if my own mother did the mothering instead.
Nice but bad. Nice but bad. Think it would be much safer to hire someone.
Li, my mum has never been a hugger, but all of a sudden about 2 years ago, she just started hugging other people and me. I’m still not used to it. Throws me right off balance every time. Kind of freaks me out a bit. I can’t enjoy it yet. Even though your mum’s hugs don’t come often, I’m glad they bring you such good things.
Muffled, I think unconditional acceptance is part of it, but there’s still more too it. For me, I feel like being encouraged is a really big deal. Like I need someone to help me along.
I guess I can see that self soothing would meet these nurturing needs to a degree. The way it’s accepting and caring for the parts. And trying to make things safer for them. I just don’t think I’m able to take the nurturing far enough.
Frida, daisy & anneke, it’s great that you guys have a safe adult who helps you with this. That kind of astounds me. I tend to think the other person would be resentful of having to take on a mothering role when they aren’t your mother. And yet that doesn’t seem to be the case at all in your examples. Blows me away.
I guess another worry about going to an aunty or my mum is that I suspect reading a story or whatever once or twice wouldn’t be enough. It’s something that would have to happen for some time, isn’t it? I guess until you could internalise it? I don’t know. When you go to your safe people and have this need met, is it then satisfied for some time, or does it just make you want it again even more?
And daisy, I love the super-needy super-hero. What a wonderful idea. So I take it the super-hero is a separate character that shows you what’s ok and is someone you can kind of aim to imitate? Or is it actually a character inside you? I’d love to hear how this has been brought into your sessions (eg is it someone you both work on visualising, or do you draw the superhero). I guess I’m asking how your T brings the superhero to life and incorporates it into your sessions.
Also, I’d love to hear more about how you are able to ask your friend for support. You said it took FOREVER to be able to do that (I can definitely relate to that). How did you work up to it, how did you first ask her, how did she react, etc? Asking for support has been totally beyond me so far. I won’t even call my T between sessions.
Madeline, yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. Develop empathy for myself. I liked your questions and how you made lists around them. It feels very scary for me which means it’s probably real important. Especially the bored part. That’s a big trigger from my childhood. I think it’s closely linked to my need for encouragement. I think I need to do some important work with my T around this.
Mind you, I think I’ll have to mindful of not just putting in “doing” things in my lists. I’ll have to work hard to try and put in “talking” stuff in there. Try and build that up a bit.
Thank you all for letting me talk through this. I had been so worried babble would criticise me and my T for trying to work out ways to meet this need. Thought it was wrong and bad to attempt to meet it. You’ve all helped me a lot.
poster:littleone
thread:695580
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20061012/msgs/695907.html