Posted by Annierose on December 15, 2008, at 18:41:45
... and it felt okay.
First of all, it's always hard for me to start talking in therapy. I might have ideas or things that seem important to share but it's always hard for me to get started. My therapist understands this and gently tries to get me to share whatever is on my mind ... no matter what it is or where I'm at in the process.
Today was especially difficult. I'm not sure why but I told her it felt like I had been gone for weeks, even though it was our normal schedule, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Nothing major happened over the weekend, nothing emotionally important but of course I felt like I had lots to share. But when my brain scanned the thoughts that kept popping up, I started editing ... "no, don't talk about that," "nope, this isn't a good road to go down either...".
Well, I know this isn't how a "good" client does therapy. I should tell her whatever pops in my head without editing, but I couldn't today. I shared that struggle with her and mentioned, "It seems the thoughts that keep popping up our my taboo subjects here." Well that got her attention and of course she hoped and wished I could talk about "anything".
The one that seemed the "safest" was an evening out with friends on Saturday night. My husband and I are democrats and our friends are republicans. I believe my therapist to be a republican - so I try to stay clear of politics in therapy. Our past conversations haven't been helpful to our relationship. And I was reminded of that today.
My republican friends believe that they are going to change my mind. They are the ones who are going to show me how wrong my views are. Over and over they tell me stupid accusations and worse of all, send me racist and hateful e-mails about Obama (and during Clinton's adminstration ... I got fax after fax). I finally told them to stop the e-mails as I found them destructive to our friendship. I reminded them in the past eight years with Bush as "president" (at least pretending) I NEVER EVER sent them one hateful e-mail, never sent them "Can you believe that Bush did this?" type of story, or this or this or this ... and I think I had plenty of opportunity to do so. But I kept quiet, not wanting to do to them what they did to me with the Clintons.
SO now Mr. Obama isn't even in the White House yet, and the mean hateful comments have begun. I told her about the dinner and how uncomfortable the evening became.
And what does she say? "Annie, not everyone is going to have you viewpoints. How boring would the world be if everyone thought the same thoughts." Umm, "excuse me? I know that and I respect that. They are the ones throwing the rocks. They are the ones telling me I'm wrong. I am just the person receiving the information." This type of non-constructive dialogue went back and forth. She decided, "We need to understand why this makes you so angry. Why it's so hard to have a political conversation." OMG.
I finally got up and left telling her, "You are preaching to the wrong choir. I am open-minded ... I can accept other people's beliefs."
Once I left her office, I thought I would feel aggitated. Instead, it felt right. And I figured out why she upset me. She wasn't supportive of my hurt. It was like a friend was throwing rocks at me and she was saying, "but Annie, everyone expresses their anger differently. We need to understand why getting rocks thrown at you upsets you."
poster:Annierose
thread:868978
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081205/msgs/868978.html