Posted by antigua3 on August 15, 2011, at 19:03:21
In reply to Re: help - feels like an impasse » antigua3, posted by lucielu2 on August 14, 2011, at 10:24:56
Yes, I do feel more of a sense of mastery. I would credit most of it to the work I have been doing in therapy, dealing with abandonment issues and learning to trust that my pdoc will really be there to help me through it. He doesn't provide answers. I have to find them within myself, but opening up enough to trust him, to believe him when he says he won't abandon me has made the difference.
I work so hard to check myself when I find that I'm seeing things in absolutes--in absolute black, really. The "white" that I have sought all my life doesn't exist and I'm learning to see things more in gray, that yes, my pdoc cares, but he will never care in the way I want him to do, but if I listen and look carefully, and see that he shows up time after time and that I can show him my anger (so often directed at him) and my tears without it being too much for him.
We still spend time talking about how scary it is for me to trust a male adult authority figure--my immediate reactions are so often based on how my father treated me. My first instinct, always, is to run. (I can't tell you how many times that I've told him I'm quitting therapy!) And while I struggle to see the difference between my father and pdoc, it is still hard to trust that he won't hurt or abandon me. I'm not entirely comfortable with accepting this, always on the look out for a sign that will spiral us off into that terrible place, but more often now I can take the step back (usually after the session) and see that this situation is different.
Coming to accept that I will never have that which I long for is so very, very difficult, to understand that I have to find much of the solace within myself. But for all his faults I have described over the years, he has provided me with something I never had from a male adult, consistency, and for someone who grew up in such a chaotic world, this is very difficult to understand and even harder to accept.
As he says, old patterns are so hard, if not impossible, to break if we aren't aware of them. The change comes so slowly, though, and I still don't often see the change in me, but he surely does. Despite outward appearance, I still don't believe him because the Believing him is a whole different story, but if I look from the outside, my life, my life (both interior and exterior) is so much more manageable.
Best of luck with your daughter and know that we are here.
antigua
poster:antigua3
thread:992867
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20110706/msgs/993940.html