Posted by raisinb on March 27, 2008, at 18:38:20
My T and I have had sessions exactly like this before, and it feels like a horrible repetition.
Usually, I can believe that she cares, but I have to get this from her tone of voice, things that she does and says, because she has never directly said "I care about you."
But occasionally, I go in there and she seems cold and distant, which is what happened today. Then she told me that my insurance called, and that they want her to justify treatment further, or something. She gave me a consent form to sign so that she could discuss my treatment with them. I asked her if she thought they'd cut me off. She said, no, and if they did she'd raise "holy havoc," and that the worst they'd do was to cut me down to once a week, she thought. (This is a big deal to me, and it was upsetting. I don't want to go back to once a week--it was too hard).
I got upset and withdrew, and didn't talk any more. She kept asking me questions, but they felt halfhearted. Eventually I said that she seemed cold and distant, and I couldn't understand why she seemed so warm and involved and caring sometimes (like last session) and now like this.
She said that she felt as if I was trying to figure out if she cared, and that I put too much weight on that. This was horrible to hear, because I needed to hear that she cared, and not only was she refusing to say it, but also that she was telling me that I was too needy to want it, and that I should simply go in there for analysis of my problems. It made me feel as if all the caring I'd felt for her in the past I'd made up in my head, that it was my fantasy, that she really didn't care that much, and that I had been living in a dream world the whole time.
I was very upset and couldn't talk, and broke down a little. Throughout this whole time, she felt very distant--she just sat there and occasionally asked questions about how I felt. I couldn't tell her, of course, because how can you open up and tell someone how you feel when they don't seem to care about you? It was horrible, to feel her just sitting there doing and feeling nothing, while I was in pieces. It was like she was a brick wall.
We've gone around and around about this before. I feel she's inconsistent--emotionally warm, caring, and we have this intense connection--one day, and then like this the next. The last time, it culminated in me writing her a letter telling her that I needed to know that she cared about me, would miss me if I left, and that I was important to her. She never said any of those things; she just said that she wanted me to stay and that we would work through it. She also said that she thought I needed something she couldn't provide--reassurance that I was good, worth it, okay, lovable, and that some of that she could provide, but the rest I had to do for myself. I nearly left that time, but she sucked me back in with a voice mail message in which she said she was upset about the way the session had ended and how much she wanted me to stay.
I feel caring from her so often, but then sessions like this make me doubt the whole thing. I *knew* today that she was just doing her job and that it didn't mean that much to her. It felt like the most horrible slap in the face and now I want to quit.
Sometimes I read threads on here, where people's Ts say directly "I care about you," or "you're special to me," and I feel that if she felt that, she'd say it, and that she is just hedging because she really doesn't feel that much.
I feel like I need a T who does care deeply for me, that I can't open up and be completely vulnerable to one who doesn't, and I feel like I am repeating a terrible pattern--trying to get love or recognition, acceptance, from somebody who just doesn't feel it.
She's calling me tomorrow to talk about it more, since the session ended badly, but I don't know what to say. To me, the whole thing is simple; there are people in my life who care and who love me, and with them, I feel like I can open up and talk because I am secure in that. I feel like there's no way I can ever be vulnerable with her.
Maybe the whole therapy setup is wrong for me. Maybe this is just the wrong T for me and I've refused to see it for three years. Three years is a really long time to feel alone and uncared for, and I feel like maybe I have just refused to face it all this time.
poster:raisinb
thread:820191
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080321/msgs/820191.html