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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 8 of 8. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Dinah on November 16, 2004, at 20:13:59
Or maybe it's what's going on with my parents. But the last two therapy sessions have been so incredibly intense that I'm almost glad I'm going three times a week, though I can't afford it for long.
I go in all right, almost not thinking I'll be able to access my emotions. But I have been somehow able to go back and re-experience things as I experienced them as a child. Not recovered memories or anything. But not just recounting things either. It's never really happened to me before, and it's a bit unsettling.
But it's also a bit reassuring. I've felt so alienated from my therapist lately. But the last two sessions have been those ones where we're really in sync. I have my eyes tightly closed yet I can detect his reactions so well that both times I've known when time was up without him moving to pick up my file and without my seeing the clock. I can just tell a difference in the level of engagement. It's as obvious to me as if he had leaned back, although he didn't say anything "closing", he didn't move, and he didn't try to end the session.
It's all a bit fuzzy afterwards, exactly what I had said. But the shift in perspective to one of actually experiencing things as I did then instead of looking back is something new for me.
Posted by mair on November 16, 2004, at 21:07:31
In reply to Maybe it's the dolls, posted by Dinah on November 16, 2004, at 20:13:59
You have such a nice way of explaining things; as soon as I started reading your post I realize it's really what I've been struggling with lately.
I've had this real issue about not being able to mourn my recently deceased father and although we've spent alot of time in therapy since his death hashing and rehashing my relationship with him as a child I still haven't really been able to tap into what I used to feel for him. My T's reaction has been to "normalize" my non-reaction, which really hasn't been helpful. We've talked about things in much more depth in the last 2 sessions and she admitted today that she really didn't understand how big an issue it was for me that I simply don't think I feel things the way other people do, and it worries me alot. My Dad's not the issue; how I've reacted to his death is just emblematic.
What I really think I've been struggling with, and couldn't articulate as nicely as you, is that I need to feel as I used to feel. It's not a matter of remembering how I felt as a child; it's a need to experience those feelings again.
Thanks for helping me frame this.
Now unfortunately, I was never into Barbies or any dolls for that matter, so I can't use them to take me back. I can't really remember at all what I used to play - I think I spent alot of time outside; it's not quite the same.
Mair
Posted by Susan47 on November 16, 2004, at 21:22:21
In reply to Re: Maybe it's the dolls » Dinah, posted by mair on November 16, 2004, at 21:07:31
Dinah I experienced exactly the same thing when I was seeing my therapist, but I don't think I ever really did it in his presence. It happened a lot when I was on my own, and it is a very interesting experience, it's like living it again. I can make that happen if I've smoked pot or if I'm really relaxed. It's actually pretty wonderful 'cause it makes me realize that there's more up there than I thought there was (in the noggin).
Posted by Dinah on November 18, 2004, at 17:37:37
In reply to Re: Maybe it's the dolls » Dinah, posted by mair on November 16, 2004, at 21:07:31
Mair, that is very much an issue of mine as well. I see other people emoting and it seems somewhat foreign to me. Then I start feeling like I'm defective. I may be getting better at it, but it's still a big issue for me.
I wish I could say I was reliving warm loving feelings, but it seems to be those small childhood incidents that seem like crises at the time (and in fact are to a child) - ones that have a similar flavor to things that are happening to me now.
Like I am feeling really bad about not being able to do personal care for my father, and I had a whole bunch of memories about traumatic parental bathroom experiences.
Or I was upset at not feeling more distraught over the implications of hospice, and I had the memory of being a small child and how Daddy was "over there" and I was "over here". A geographical truth (Daddy stuck to the bar and kitchen a lot) but also a representation of the truth that I barely knew him and felt alienated from him. It was me and my mother against my father. That changed when I got to be ten or eleven.
There was another one too, but it eludes me at the moment.
I wish I could access the good memories. I know there were ones. I loved being my daddy's little girl at parties. Daddy was always in a good mood at parties, and he'd talk to other people and they would laugh and I'd laugh along. He'd teach me how to dance. Or vacations. We always groaned because Mother would drag us everywhere to these obscure places. Or the time he was teasing me as I was trying to build my Barbie Townhouse (anyone have one of those? they were precariously balanced with few supports and as you were putting them together the slightest breeze would send them toppling). He was pretending to push it over and I turned around before I knew it and punched him in the stomach. I was not a violent little girl - it surprised us both. And it surprised me more because I apparently made a direct hit. He was doubled over, I ran as fast as my little legs would carry me and sat shivering afraid he'd kill me for sure. But when he recovered he just laughed and teased me for a few years about my right hook. :) Or how he'd wake me up by singing "Oh how I hate to get up in the morning" at the top of his lungs.
But I just remember those things. I'd like to re-experience those too.
Posted by Dinah on November 18, 2004, at 17:43:34
In reply to Re: Maybe it's the dolls, posted by Susan47 on November 16, 2004, at 21:22:21
Funny you should say that. There definitely seems to be a trance state involved. I scared myself silly by recognizing that when I quit doing the remembering, it felt the same way as when I move from being emotional me to rational me. I was terrified that there was another ego state involved.
It wasn't until I had left therapy and was driving home that I realized that it was the "how" that was the same, not the "what". Accessing my emotional self involves self hypnotic trance. So does having this sort of memory. It feels the same in both cases when I move a step up out of trance.
But the "what" is different. These are clearly memories. I'm looking at places that aren't here anymore. I'm not seeing what's in the present at all. That's not what another ego state would do.
It's just that I relax most thoroughly and so am able to get in a better self hypnotic state when I'm with my therapist.
Posted by Susan47 on November 18, 2004, at 19:21:46
In reply to Re: Maybe it's the dolls » Susan47, posted by Dinah on November 18, 2004, at 17:43:34
What yous said is so interesting; I've never understood anything about ego states and I guess I still don't, but this question is in my conscious and it's, why are we so afraid of our different ego states? Aren't they all, in their ways, wonderfully intense? I mean, the wanting to die one isn't so great, I guess that's what we're afraid of in having more ego states... maybe it'll be a depressive one? Am I close, or far away? Can anybody educate me?
Posted by Susan47 on November 18, 2004, at 19:24:13
In reply to Re: Maybe it's the dolls » Susan47, posted by Dinah on November 18, 2004, at 17:43:34
intense FEELING involved and SEEING, too, that it's so close to reality. That's what makes it truly eerie and wonderful, for me.
Posted by sunny10 on November 19, 2004, at 8:21:29
In reply to Re: Maybe it's the dolls » Dinah, posted by Susan47 on November 18, 2004, at 19:21:46
could it be the possiblity of psychotic states or schizophrenia that frightens?
As far as I know, I only have two states- logical and illogical (visceral emotions)- but perhaps I'm not quite getting it either??
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