Posted by Racer on May 8, 2007, at 15:28:33
In reply to Crying. Help me., posted by ElaineM on May 8, 2007, at 14:04:41
Elaine, honey, I only have a second here, so I can't say all that I wish I could. Here's a brief preview of what I would say, though, and please feel free to babblemail me if you'd like. I'll have more time later.
> I know I've been absent, and I'm sorry -- I had to take care of me seperate. And I'm sorry to turn to you all out of no where.
And? That's got nothing to do with anything. You're one of us, with full rights. If you show up once in a while needing support, there's support here. If you have support to share, you share it. No one is keeping score.
Besides, I know you. When you are here, no matter how bad off you are, you always do manage to offer support to others.
> But also, that she'd tell him about the assault in Dec. I TOLD HER SPECIFICALLY that I was only trusting her with that. THat that's all I could deal with. HER alone!!! Now she'd go back on that promise that she made. She said I could trust her then -- could safely tell her about the antithesis of trust that I had to go through.THAT is a betrayal of trust. I think it's worth telling her, in a return email, how you feel about this. Not the part about throwing up, but the part that is clear as crystal: "I told you specifically that the assault was something I was only comfortable sharing with you, another woman, and that I was not willing to discuss it with my male T. You agreed to that, at least implicitly. That you now say you would tell my male T seems like a betrayal to me." Let her try to explain how it isn't.
And ask her what it is about the email communication that makes her so uncomfortable? There are some legitimate liability issues, but if it's not that, then I'd be, shall we say, curious about that.
>
> I can't take this. I don't know what I did to make this change come about. ???!?! What did I do? WHy does she want to throw me away too. I knew she'd come to hate me like everyone else.Uh... Elaine? {smack} You do know better, I know you do.
You didn't do anything. You have a lot more power than I think you know, but you don't have the power to make anyone else do anything. Did something happen? Probably. Did you do something to show her that you were so [fill in the blank] that she should discard you? No. First, because you're many things, but you're not some sort of awful creature who deserves this sort of thing. I don't know what's going on, but whatever it is it's not something you did.
> Then she ended it with, "I hope you understand". :"( Ten sentences ending our communication - I DON'T understand at all.
OK, so tell her that. "No, I don't understand. I told you my boundaries, including that I wasn't comfortable discussing much of this with my male T. It seems as though you have changed the rules, and I don't understand that. Please clarify."
And Elaine? All that I've said comes because I care about you. (In fact, I was thinking the other day of finding one of your old posts so I could babblemail you, to see how you were doing.) The one thing I would say is that you probably do have some behavior patterns that make it possible for this sort of thing to happen. I know I have situational and behavioral patterns that make me more vulnerable to certain sorts of things. Usually things that recreate the sort of trauma that made me nuts in the first place, in my case. It's worth exploring those patterns, to see if there's something you can do differently, but then again -- that's what a GOOD T would help you with. Even just a Good Enough T.
I'm so sorry, and I wish I could just wrap you up in a big blanket, and protect you from all the [you know what] that's come your way in the past year or so. I wish I could do more than type words to you on a computer. I hope that knowing I care helps, because I do.
All my best to you.
poster:Racer
thread:756826
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070505/msgs/756846.html