Posted by Daisym on May 5, 2007, at 16:54:59
In reply to Re: Extreme Honesty -- really long (trigger?) » Daisym, posted by Dinah on May 4, 2007, at 9:29:10
>>>>>don't think there's any such thing as too extreme honesty when you have a well established relationship with a therapist. I don't think that there is anything you could say to your therapist that would be too much for your relationship to hold. I'm not actually enormously fond of my therapist's oft repeated statement "I didn't run screaming out of the room" although it's become an inside joke, and therefore valuable to me. But it does represent something. I've given him the ugliest, the neediest, the most Dinah's motherish of my thoughts, feelings & behaviors, and it didn't affect the underlying relationship. I think you have the same type of relationship.
<<<<Mine says, "proof's in the pudding. I'm still here." He has been using that term "our relationship" again a lot. Is he trying to remind me that we have one, that it isn't my imagination?>>>>Yet still I test and push, because it doesn't seem like this could be true.
<<<<<Why is this? Do we read too much? Is it being involved with Babble where we compare therapy stories that make us have to see if they will do any of the same things? I sort of understand that every time I test him and he passes, we go to a deeper level. But I'm frustrated with myself for "playing games" - you know?>>>>>>As far as suicide is concerned. My therapist has said that he'll care if I'm gone. He's said it softly, he's said it angrily. But the one time that got to my gut was when he said nothing, but winced. That's the time I promised to let him try to help me first, for as long as he's my therapist.
<<<<<Our conversatinos about this have ranged from "it is a sin" to simply "I'll miss you." He has tried to interpret the urge as a message, as the desire to kill the pain and as self-anger. He also just says, "I know it is hard. It sucks." He handles it much more calmly now than he did three years ago. Which isn't to say he is any less available - he just seems less freaked out by me. Is this a good thing? He tells me I have to train him around certain things - I never wanted it to be this!>>>>Of course your therapist cares! He cares about you, Daisy. He's invested a lot into you, and you know what they say about where you invest, that's where your heart is. How could he not care? About you, Daisy, not client 463 and not his professional reputation.
<<<<<I think that is what he was trying to say on Thursday. While keeping it within the context of the theraputic relationship, he talked about seeing me 4x a week and what a hole that would leave. And how he has all these connections to other people in my life through me, like my boys. It was very touching, the things he remembers. Sometimes I forget how long we've worked together and how many hours.>>>>>>>>Although I've never talked to my therapist about sexual dreams in which he had a part, because I don't think of him that way, we did discuss it in terms of posts. I'm sure it occurred to him that I may be, in a veiled way, talking about him and his answer probably kept that in mind, but he conveyed more or less the same thing your therapist did.
<<<<<<<<Still red faced about this. I talked to him today and didn't bring it up. He asked if there were left over feelings from Thursday. When I said, "lots but I don't want to go into it" he said (again), "it is totally fine. I'm glad you find a way to tell me things, especially things that feel like 'bad' secrets. I don't want that between us." Make sense, given my history.>>>>>>>The other day, I told him that I got upset sometimes when he talks about his family in terms of his future, because to me *he* is my family. I reminded him of how I used to call him during the evacuation with any bits of information I thought he might find useful because I learned he wasn't listening to WWL radio, and told him that wasn't *entirely* to have a reason to talk to him. It's because I saw him as much of my family as anyone else. And I told him how ashamed I was of feeling that way, and how intrusive of me it felt, and how I never ever wanted to tell him. And he said that he was really touched to be thought of that way, and how could he possibly be upset?
<<<<<<I agree, Dinah. It *is* touching that you think of him that way. But have the same hesitation about revealing stuff like that because I don't want him to feel like he has to reiteriate the boundaries or the limitations or whatever. I *know* what those are! And it does feel intrusive and almost presumptuous sometimes. And yet, how else are we supposed to feel after being so intimate with someone for so long?>>>>>I confess that there may have been some fallout, in that he seems reluctant to mention his family now, and I think he misunderstood the context of my being hurt when he talked about his family. It wasn't *all* the time. I'm not jealous of them or anything like that, and I don't get in a tizzy if he mentions them. This was a particular type of mention. Something about priorities or something that rather clearly excluded me... Which is right and fitting and I shouldn't have been upset. Drat. I'm doing it again.
<<<<<If I've learned nothing else, at least I can recognize that any sentence that has a "should" in it needs to be examined. Why shouldn't you be upset about not being a priority to someone you care very much about? Of course that stings - even if your recognize the truth of it or the reality that necessitates it. I would argue that you *should* be upset about it, it is the appropriate emotional response. You didn't fling yourself on the floor screaming and you don't have any expectation that he will change this particular thing. But it hurts and that is OK. Just as it is OK that he is more careful not to hurt you right now, however unintentional the original hurt was. I think this is practice for when our kids have their own lives, as it "should" be...but sometimes it still sucks.>>>>>>>It's very hard to do what we do as long term therapy clients, Daisy. Very hard. But part of what's hard is that extreme honesty that we really should give. Your therapist can take it. Heck, even my therapist can take it, and my therapist is not your therapist. :)
<<<<<<Levels of honesty came up today in the conversation. He said what you said - "long term therapy results in a knowing that allows more complex interactions. But honesty is required as we unpack things, otherwise we just keep pulling tape off the box and we never look inside. And that is frustrating for both of us and not productive." He also said something about it being so much easier to hear the truth and work with it than to expend tons of energy just to get to the truth. I said I think this was one of the first times he called me "easy." He said, "I didn't say that..."Thank you for understanding and sharing.
poster:Daisym
thread:755643
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070505/msgs/756122.html