Posted by Dinah on April 24, 2009, at 17:37:55
In reply to Re: Feeling melancholy » Dinah, posted by SLS on April 24, 2009, at 17:06:57
> Yes. I thought that perhaps your notion of finally "earning" being liked by your therapist was some sort of fulfilled desire of yours, and that having obtained it, you find that it was quite anticlimactic and not of profound significance. If it doesn't apply here, I guess the metaphor can be of use in other aspects of your life where you have chased something that never needed chasing. In general, I think it can be melancholy to realize how much time and effort was put into something that really didn't deserve being such an obsession. Lost years.
Chuckle. I feel like you really have grasped that aspect of my character. I have worked, in my own convoluted and strictly scrupulous way, to earn love from my therapist. I've always valued love earned more than love freely given. My therapist says I'm very bad at accepting grace. I daresay that goes back to my relationship with my parents. I always laugh that I was well compensated with love.But having gotten it, I think I value it very much. Love from someone I care a lot about, and who really has very little in common with me in any way, could never be considered by me to be anything but profoundly significant. I do occasionally worry that that particular achievement can drain energy from therapy.
In other aspects of my life... Perhaps. I've always been a person with very realistic, and not terribly challenging, goals. I'm quite lazy, I'm afraid. Perhaps my problem is that having achieved this goal, I'm at loose ends for another one. I suppose home improvement is not the same sort of goal.
I could aim to have my husband approve of me. But *that* is an impossible dream, and I'm not given to pursuing impossible dreams. At least not outside the safe haven of therapy.
poster:Dinah
thread:891996
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090421/msgs/892603.html