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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 14 of 14. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by mair on February 3, 2005, at 7:54:12
My husband, 19 year old son, and I went into a restaurant last night. As soon as I walked in I thought I could spot my therapist across the room. WHen we went to be seated, the hostess seated us at the adjoining table. My T's back was to the table so I don't know whether she knew we were there or not. The woman she was having dinner with is also someone we know, not super well, but our kids used to play sports together. My son was furious with us over something too involved to recount, and he was really kind of berating us in a way that was easily going to lead to an argument. Maybe he wasn't particularly loud in the grand scheme of things but he sounded loud to me and he had a pretty awful tone of voice. I don't know if my T could hear him but I of course imagined that she could. I actually handed him a note telling him to please tone it down since I knew someone at the next table, but that barely mollified him. Eventually my husband basically cut him off, and he calmed down, we moved on to different subjects and managed to get through dinner fine. But it made me incredibly tense for the rest of the meal and therafter. I felt bad that I was somehow intruding on my T's private space - that I should have asked to be seated in another section of the restaurant, and mortified that she may have heard what was happening with my son. Although I certainly couldn't hear any of her conversation with her friend, her back was to us; my son was facing toward their table so he might have been easier to hear. And she might well have been able to hear my husband because their chairs were backed up to each other. When she and her friend got up to leave, she acted surprised to see me (maybe she was, but I wonder) - she did say hello to me because I've told her that's ok. My husband and I had a fairly brief conversation with her companion and then they left.
Later that night, I had trouble sleeping because I was really pretty shaken by this encounter. I mean if she did hear it all, it shouldn't make a difference because she knows my son is a high maintenance, sometimes demanding child - he's been the focus of lots of sessions. Still I really wish this hadn't happened.
Ordinarily I'd have therapy today but it got switched to tomorrow. I don't particularly want to talk about this, maybe because it was awkward and embarrassing, if she got the drift of what was going on. If she did hear what was going on with my son, she may think it strange that I don't mention it. If she didn't hear anything, she may still think it strange that I don't at least mention having run into her. We've been discussing in detail lately things she can do differently in a session to make it easier for me to feel more connected to her and for me to feel that she understands me better - this arose out of a discussion about notetaking which is mentioned in a thread up above. One of the things we discussed is that she feels she needs to get a better sense right from the start of how I'm actually feeling when I come there, so she thinks that's maybe how we should be starting sessions - by talking about how I'm feeling. (I tend to disguise my feelings well behind a veneer of composure and stoicism) I'm sure tomorrow my anxiety level will be off the charts, all the more so, because I'm going to be anticipating her desire to talk about something I just as soon not discuss.
I'm really dreading it. I don't know if I should act as if she couldn't hear us or act as if she could.
Mair
Posted by Dinah on February 3, 2005, at 9:23:15
In reply to Embarrassing Encounter, posted by mair on February 3, 2005, at 7:54:12
Tell her you feel uncomfortable, hadn't been sure what to do to avert it, and assure her you couldn't hear her conversation and could she hear yours? She's probably a bit anxious too. :)
My therapist and I live fairly near each other and running into each other at local shops isn't that uncommon. There are a couple of restaurants that he's mentioned he eats at frequently that I just don't go to. And my radar about him seems far more finely tuned than his about me, so I can generally see him first and avoid him.
The other day I thanked him for "not seeing" me at the post office. He asked for a couple of details, I suppose wondering if I really had seen him, then confessed that he had really not seen me, not that he "didn't see" me. :)
Which led into what is now a tired, for me, discussion about why I don't want to see him in public. As good as his memory is, he seems to have a block on that issue.
Anyway, my point is that there's no point in not mentioning it, since you're positive she saw you. And reassuring her that you couldn't hear her conversation might ease any lingering fears she had, as well as open the topic of whether she could hear you.
Posted by Shortelise on February 3, 2005, at 12:25:09
In reply to Embarrassing Encounter, posted by mair on February 3, 2005, at 7:54:12
How complicated.
Isn't therapy difficult enough without the fates throwing this sort of thing our way?!
If I were in your shoes, I'd ask myself in what way I filter my life so that to have my T listen in would be a problem. I mean, of course I present myself in a certain way to him - I wonder if everyone does this? - but what is it about this situation that I'm ashamed of?
This must be really hard. Yikes. I'd suggest, if I may, that you ask yourself what would most advance your therapy, and that's what I'd try to do.
Now, if I can just apply that to my life!!! It's SO EASY to write things to other people,isn't it.
Keep us posted.
ShortE
Posted by mair on February 3, 2005, at 15:18:56
In reply to Re: Or just ask » mair, posted by Dinah on February 3, 2005, at 9:23:15
You make it sound so easy. I've run into her before, like in the grocery store or on the street. We've acknowledged one another and that's it. She's really a naturally friendly person. I don't mind running into her particularly and we've had the discussion about whether or not it's ok for her to acknowledge me. Curiously, I had the same discussion with my pdoc and she agreed to acknowledge me (which is less awkward for me than acting like we don't know one another). However, in spite of that agreement, she deliberately looks right through me whenever we run into each other which is tons more frequently since her son and my daughter are in the same grade, and very frequently have been in the same classes.
I guess I can raise it in the context of being sorry to intrude on her space. That's a harmless enough conversation. If she asks me how I felt about seeing her, I'm sure I'll act as if it was fine, while basically wanting to wail about my son. We'll end up talking around this issue and not about it. It seems to me that she can't really admit to having heard my son since she acted surprised to see me when she got up to leave. Of course on the other hand, maybe she was listening to my son and just not realizing he belonged to me. I'm not sure she would recognize my husband unless she saw him with me. She's only met him once, and he certainly didn't recognize her.
Of course, now that he knows who was at the next table he teasingly suggested that I created the time conflict today so I wouldn't have to face her.
Mair
Posted by mair on February 3, 2005, at 15:29:44
In reply to Re: Embarrassing Encounter » mair, posted by Shortelise on February 3, 2005, at 12:25:09
Thanks shortE - sage advice although as you admit, tough to follow.
I don't know why I filter my life; but I do. I'd be mortified to have her wander onto this site, and I've always been impressed with the people who can share what they've written here with their Ts. I'm sure it would advance my therapy immensely to talk freely about my embarrassment, but she considers my reluctance to reveal things to be my "big issue," so it really doesn't come easily. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive anyway. I've heard plenty of other 19 year olds acting belligerent around their parents - it's pretty much of a know-it-all age anyway, and his behavior probably bothers me more than it does others.
Of course when she was leaving and we were having this discussion with the woman she was having dinner with, the woman started asking my son about college and he couldn't have been more polite or gracious.
My father was always big on pretense, and he was so old fashioned about alot of stuff that we used to jokingly call him the last of the great Victorians. I think some of my protective veneer probably comes from always having to be on my best behavior around him.
mair
Posted by mair on February 3, 2005, at 15:30:35
In reply to Re: Embarrassing Encounter, posted by mair on February 3, 2005, at 15:29:44
Posted by Dinah on February 3, 2005, at 16:42:13
In reply to Re: Or just ask » Dinah, posted by mair on February 3, 2005, at 15:18:56
I guess that's the sort of thing I *could* talk about easily. In fact, I don't think I'd be able to do anything else until I did talk about it.
My first concern would be to assure him that I didn't hear anything from his conversation, so I'd frame it that way. I think apologizing for invading her space would be similar.
I may be open about sharing posts from here, but I choose what posts to share. If he came here and read without my choice, I'd feel absolutely violated. It's not that I keep anything from him; I don't. But I probably frame things differently with him than I do here.
I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that. My therapist says I have some mighty strong boundaries myself, but he says that's not a bad thing. It's healthy.
Posted by judy1 on February 3, 2005, at 21:10:47
In reply to Embarrassing Encounter, posted by mair on February 3, 2005, at 7:54:12
you know what is really interesting here- how we as mothers of teens (especially boys) really react to how others perceive their behavior. in my case I cannot be objective about my son- but my husband sure can. what I perceive as horrific behavior, my husband just shrugs his shoulders, and so does the family therp we saw. so I wonder if your son's behavior was as bad as you felt, maybe your therp wasn't even aware of him- can that be possible? I know seeing your therp in public is not a comfortable situation- but that has got to be a normal feeling. it sounds like you aren't all that comfortable discussing this with your therp, do you know why? sorry, I don't know your present therp relationship.
take care, judy
Posted by mair on February 4, 2005, at 6:29:02
In reply to Re: Embarrassing Encounter » mair, posted by judy1 on February 3, 2005, at 21:10:47
I know our kids tend to seem worse and act worse around us than around other people. It's a little bit of a revelation to me that this is as true of young adults as younger children, but if I really think about it, it's probably true of most of us for as long as we have living parents.
I decided when my kids hit those wonderful teenage years, that if i reacted to every act of rudeness, selfishness etc, I'd spend the entire day yelling at them. So I sort of pick and choose what I react to. But then I second guess myself constantly about whether I allow myself to be steamrolled too much. It's just tough to know. I also think parents develop a certain immunity to the slights of their children. My son has something of a Jekyll and Hyde personality. Equal measures (well maybe not quite equal) of devotion and sweetness, and belligerency. Although he's constantly telling me to chill or calm down, in fact he's pretty high strung and edgy himself. He's never been a go-with-the-flow kind of person. My husband and I have gotten to the point where we laugh among ourselves anyway, about my son's sometimes very demanding nature. But it may seem horrific to someone else that we can be so sanguine.
Why I don't want to talk to my T about this incident in particular is another issue. Maybe talking to her about him in broader terms is alot easier than to have her see the detail.
I have an appointment later on this morning. I don't feel quite so panicked about it as I did yesterday. Maybe it's like alot of other things - once I've written about them here first, the issues seem more manageable. My T complains that coming here allows me to remove all the emotionality from issues before I bring them to her, but my point is that she might never hear about them at all if I didn't filter them first anyway.
Thanks
Mair
Posted by judy1 on February 5, 2005, at 19:25:53
In reply to Re: Embarrassing Encounter, posted by mair on February 4, 2005, at 6:29:02
Posted by mair on February 6, 2005, at 16:29:33
In reply to how did the therp session go? (nm) » mair, posted by judy1 on February 5, 2005, at 19:25:53
My therapist raised it as soon as I got in the room, so I didn't need to worry about dodging this issue. She didn't raise it in the context of my son's argumentative nature, but more asking me if it was ok for her to have acknowledged me when she got up from the table. She insists she had no idea I was there until she got up to leave, and says she was unaware of any conversation going on at our table. She seemed to feel genuinely badly that my worry about all of this kind of ruined the night for me. So of course it wasn't all as bad as I imagined.
All of this led to a broader discussion about how much clients should know about their therapists and what gets triggered sometimes by people running into their therapists outside of therapy. I understand the theory of the blank slate, but I don't think it would work for me, and I don't think it works particularly well where I live. I know alot about my T but only some of it is stuff she's told me. I probably need to keep talking to her about some of this, because I have this gnawing sense that it's very relevant to how I respond to her, but it isn't anything I can put my finger on.
Boundaries are not a problem for me. The bigger problem I have is that I fight against feeling some connection to her; I have no sense of dependency although I'm pretty sure that not being able to meet with her anymore would create a real crisis for me. I tend to associate non-revealing with distance, aloofness, and coldness, so my knee jerk thought is that knowing a little about her, helps me develop a sense of connection and that I wouldn't fare well at all with a blank slate T. But I don't know if that's true. Knowing things about her hasn't made me wish for a different kind of relationship with her, and it hasn't made me long to know even more than I do. I get pretty confused trying to puzzle all of this out.
It's interesting. She knows I worry sometimes about not nurturing friendships and she wondered if me seeing her having dinner with a friend made me envious in some way. It really didn't. To the contrary, it made me happy that she was out doing stuff. I know she's going through a divorce - I have a much bigger concern about her not being socially active.
Mair
Posted by Shortelise on February 6, 2005, at 23:04:45
In reply to Re: how did the therp session go? » judy1, posted by mair on February 6, 2005, at 16:29:33
Thanks for writing, Mair. It sounds like a productive session - I hope it felt like one.
ShortE
Posted by Dinah on February 7, 2005, at 14:42:23
In reply to Re: how did the therp session go? » judy1, posted by mair on February 6, 2005, at 16:29:33
I think it's great that you can talk so openly with her. In some ways that conversation sounded more open than any I would have with my therapist.
Posted by judy1 on February 7, 2005, at 20:45:03
In reply to Re: how did the therp session go? » judy1, posted by mair on February 6, 2005, at 16:29:33
I guess I wasn't surprised that she was unaware that you were in the restaurant until she was leaving (your reaction just sounded so much like me). I have tried a blank slate therp and I hated it- but- like you I fight against being dependent. although my fight is because of a previous boundary crossing, I don't remember you ever having that problem? If not- do you know why you are afraid of dependency?
Take care, judy
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