Posted by DAisym on February 6, 2009, at 23:31:42
As I wrote above to Antigua, I've been having a really rough couple of weeks. My therapist had to take a week off, not for a vacation exactly but he was gone 10 days. And he said something to me when he left, which he meant as encouraging - "deep down, you really are OK" - but it turned into an absolute disaster. I felt like he was setting me up to not come back - I was OK so I shouldn't need him anymore. And we'd just opened the topic of my dad moving away - complete with all those conflicting feeling that Antigua has described - missing and loving someone who was brutally abusing me -- it all made no sense. Talk about unleashing the abandonment fears!
He did come back, (in fact, he sent me an email asking how I was doing at the end of his week away) but I couldn't reconnect very well. I was angry and told him so. We talked about the whole "you are OK" thing. But what was happening mostly was that he'd say something that triggered some deep feelings and I'd shut down completely. No words at all. So we spent a lot of time sitting in too much silence. He asked me if I was punishing him - was I withholding from him on purpose - trying to make him guess? I said I was thinking he was doing the same thing - refusing to break the silence because it was my job and he was punishing me for not being able to talk. So there we were. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
I've figured out that there is so much shame and fear for me right now. I want to be special to my therapist - like the MOST special patient. Not in a sexual way but I want to feel cared for and protected. I'm freaked out about where he is and does he remember me...nothing rational in any of this. And all of this brings up the whole list of reasons why I couldn't possibly be special to him - my weight, my looks, the abuse, and on and on. I have finally been able to tell him some of this and he said it makes sense to him. He thinks I felt sent away and it triggered really old "take care of yourself" mantras. He talked about how very fragile connections are for me and how easily shattered.
And then he said, "I see this as a developmental stage of therapy. Being angry with me, trusting that it is OK to need, all this separation anxiety - it is expected in a really deep therapy. I'm OK with it. And I know you don't believe it, but you are special to me."
*sigh* This is all such hard work. But I don't know what I think about developmental stages of therapy - although it seems to make sense.
poster:DAisym
thread:878656
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090129/msgs/878656.html