Posted by Solstice on January 6, 2011, at 0:14:41
In reply to Re: My story - long, posted by Daisym on January 5, 2011, at 23:37:49
> When I was a little girl, bad things usually happened at night. And then in the morning, we all ate breakfast together and went to school like nothing had happened.
>
> When I was married, my ex and I would have these horried fights, and he would say terrible things, and then later he'd want (and get) sex and in the morning I'd just pretend like none of it had ever happened.I know what you're talking about - that survival is about never speaking up.. never acknowledging what's happening to you.
> So I have this built in response to bad things which is "pretend like it doesn't matter. Pretend like you aren't hurt and everything will go back to "normal."It teaches us denial of self, doesn't it?
> My therapist knows this, which is why I think he doesn't want it to go underground until I've talked about some of this and we understand it, at least a little. He wants me to express my hurt and learn that a relationship can survive me being truthful.He sounds wonderful! And Daisy - trust me - he is right. I have learned through my therapeutic relationship that relationships really CAN survive mutual honesty about how we feel. I will testify to it being WELL worth the risk to experiment with it. I started out real, real small.. and it took a long, long time.. but for folks like us, there's something almost magical about being so terribly afraid to put a voice to the way you feel.. and then to experience the therapeutic effect of your feelings being heard, validated, and to see in your therapist's eyes the genuine value they place on how you are experiencing the relationship.
> But it is very, very hard because I instantly tell myself that *I* am over-reacting and *I* have ruined everything. I feel so stupid - which just adds even more shame to it all.I did the same thing to myself. I know that shame and self-blame. It tortured me. I'll tell you what made it turn a corner for me. After spending several years in a therapeutic relationship that turned toxic and reinforced all of my previous trauma, the therapist I have now had an entirely different approach. Whereas my toxic T was more than happy to blame me for every misattunement or rupture, the therapist I see now was just the opposite. It was surreal for me to - any time there was a rupture of any kind (no matter how small) - my T Never looked at me. Didn't even try to get me to share the blame, even though the majority of the time I played a role. My T only looked at their contribution. I was all too ready to carry the blame for anything and everything - so it was almost as if my T addressed it by Never allowing me to pick up the bag of blame. T would hold it, and we would conversationally 'walk' with it together. It's not that T and I weren't both wholly aware of my contributions to the rupture - it's just that it was clear that I was not going to be allowed to carry the burden of fixing it. Even if I had misunderstood/misinterpreted something T said and got myself worked up over some erroneously perceived therapeutic injustice or failure - T's attitude about it was that there was a reason behind my misperception, something driving it that it was T's responsibility to figure out and address. For my particular situation, it was the perfect approach. I had carried a heavy load for so long, that my healing elixir was for T to take 100% responsibility for the well-being of the relationship, and then to let me hold onto my parts of it as I was able - but always holding it together. So Daisy, it's obvious that you've experienced the therapeutic effect of your therapist's acceptance of your feelings, and I would really encourage you to experiment with testing it on the really hard things - like the situation you described. It's hard - but the more experiences you have with it - the closer you will get to your more healed self.
Solstice
poster:Solstice
thread:975869
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20101228/msgs/975998.html