Posted by JoniS on August 13, 2007, at 8:58:40
In reply to ***** Long, tedious and triggery *****, posted by Tamar on August 12, 2007, at 21:52:23
Tamar,
You were brave to write this post. You are going through a lot of stuff. I think I understand all of your feelings.
You are working harder to keep the boundaries than your T is. I think common sense and your intuition too is telling you that wont be a theraputic relationship if it continues. You are having to put your needs after your T, and that is very wrong and your T knows that.
>
> "...Anyway, I want to keep working with him because when he’s there he’s brilliant. But when he’s not there, I feel humiliated and rejected. Certainly his absences reinforce all my negative thoughts about myself. And at times I think trying to do therapy in this way is damaging me..."
You see, right there you know that it is damaging to your emotional health.
> "...I can’t talk to him about it because he wards me off at the first sign of discomfort and I can’t cope with it. I dissociate and then cry later. I’m terrified. I’m so desperate to talk but if he keeps hurting me I’m afraid I will kill myself..."I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean by "...he wards me off..." But if you keep getting stuck at "terrified" and then feel like you will kill yourself how can this become healing for you? How long should you wait for his life to get back to normal so he can do his job right?
>
> "...I’ve always believed love is a gift. I’m so ashamed of feeling love for someone who doesn’t want my love. It’s like… making an effort to choose something really nice for him, something I think he’d really like, and giving it to him, and then it turns out he thinks my gift is cheap and nasty; he thanks me insincerely and later, after I’ve left, he throws it in the trash. Why do I want to give him something he has no use for and that isn’t to his taste? ..."I believe love is a gift too. But it's my belief that your perception of your feelings and how he would feel about them is very distorted. I have had similar thoughts and worked through a lot of them with my T. It is so not good for you to have to put off dealing with your feelings because of him. If he is a good T he will listen tenderly (and he already knows how you feel, he's an expert on feelings) and he will validate your feelings of love and help you to get rid of the feelings of shame. He definitely wont throw your "gift" in the trash!
I guess I'm making an assumption here that he is a well trained PhD and experienced T
>"... I hate myself for thinking these things because it seems so overdramatic and irrational, but it won’t go away. I’m certain I’ll eventually talk to my therapist about loving him, and he’ll respond by reminding me of the professional nature of our relationship, and he’ll say nothing about what my feelings of love mean to him, and that will be that..."Please don't hate yourself for having normal feelings . I suspect that he will remind you of "the professional nature of your relationship..." but that does not mean the feelings are wrong or bad. He should let you know that your feelings are valid and the boundary is just a reminder that neither of you will act on the feelings but they are there and need to be dealt with. That is a very healing session - builds trust and helps you to feel better about yourself.
I hope you can work through these things with your T, but in the meantime, I relly believe you need to find a new T that you can build a healthy theraputic bond with. It would be ideal if you could transition from your current T to a new one. Deal with the feelings you have (which are so normal and OK) and move on to a T who will respect the important boundaries of t and help you work on the trust issues.
You can take my opinion with a grain of salt. I hope it's helpful, but if not that's OK. I would like to at least let you know you are supported.
I know what it is like to cry in the bed loving your T but getting no reciprocation. I just did some of that yesterday for a couple of hours myself. I believe they still love us, just in a different way. I think that dealing with all this is a big part of therapy, so I'm looking forward to the day I can deal with this and not cry full of pain and sadness.
I'll be thinking of you and wishing you well.
Joni
poster:JoniS
thread:775888
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070807/msgs/775951.html