Posted by raisinb on October 22, 2008, at 13:09:43
In reply to unanswerable questions, posted by happyflower on October 21, 2008, at 1:33:58
Hi Happyflower--
(Like the fact that you've gotten back to your old name btw).I am sorry you're hurting so much. It is hard to have so many intense feelings and not be able to work through them with the person involved. Not just "hard," actually--almost impossible. Just try to remember that despite that, people do it every single day. Otherwise, nobody would overcome CSA or any other terrible trauma inflicted by someone else. And you certainly have the "fight in you," as my mom would say, to do it.
Try not to generalize from what your old T did to questions about people in general. It's hard not to, I know, but eventually, maybe you can put him in his place--just one guy with his own issues who f**cked up your therapy. Other therapists--and other people--are going to be truly different from him. They can't help it; they're different people.
I don't know if this is true for you or not, but I realized late in my therapy that it wasn't really that I believed all people were like my parents. It was that I believed I carried something in me--some disease, or flaw--that *made* everyone do the same things to me that they did. It was this core belief, not necessarily what they did (though that caused it) that caused me a lot of terrible pain. I guess what I'm saying is, with your new therapist, try to work on that feeling of being "damaged," because that is a belief about you, not him, and that is something you can absolutely change.
Take care, I am sending you good thoughts.
poster:raisinb
thread:858533
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081018/msgs/858742.html