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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 7 of 7. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Wittgensteinz on November 22, 2008, at 20:04:15
On Thursday evening I was nagging (again) about the status quo between T and I. As I wrote before, I had the image of a child with a plaster (band-aid?) over a wound, wanting to peal it off and take a peak.
So, Friday it's very windy, black skies - a storm, looks like there could be lightning. I decide against cycling across the open fields to the station and take the bus. The direct trains are all delayed because of broken tree branches and leaves on the lines, so I decide to take a different route. Long story, short, it backfires and I end up arriving for my session half an hour late. I start my 20 minute session by saying that perhaps it is a good thing I am so late as I feel a need to bring it all up once again - how on the one hand I feel a warmth and affection toward him but on the other I feel confused and uncomfortable about the way things have been left since the incident - that things don't feel resolved or healed after what happened - that I still feel silenced. I said that it was hard for me not to dive into one strong feeling over the other.
I don't know what it was, but this short session went so differently than the previous ones we've had trying to resolve this rupture, perhaps because I had more time to think it through while sitting on the train. Finally, it felt we were back in the same space again. I told about how what happened made me feel but more importantly why I think it made me feel that way - how it brought up some deep, painful memories from my childhood - feelings of being invisible, being minimised, treated as an object, a feeling of no longer existing. Voicing all this and being heard also enabled me to join the dots as to why this has had such an impact on me and why his response hurt so much - why I find it so hard to trust him when something like this happens - why at that moment it doesn't matter what has gone before us, of all his gestures of trustworthiness and caring becoming 'lost' or 'erased'.
We ended the session with him fretting over whether I had my rain coat (the rain was pelting against the windows by this point). He wished me a pleasant birthday and I wished him a nice weekend. I did have a good birthday - I didn't cry - and I don't ever recall having a birthday before now where I didn't cry(!) - it's something about birthdays, the nostalgia perhaps, that makes me very sad - I'm not a big crier but this one day in the year does it for me!
Witti
Posted by Dinah on November 22, 2008, at 23:41:30
In reply to Feeling at peace again, posted by Wittgensteinz on November 22, 2008, at 20:04:15
Happy birthday!
Although I understand not really liking birthdays. There is always such a feeling of expectation and reality that makes me melancholy.
I like that he fretted over your raincoat. That's a form of expressing caring, I'd think.
My dad used to say the most awful things to me. Certainly he never said the warm fuzzy things to me that one might expect. But he *did* love all the time.
Maybe your therapist *did* caring for you today?
Posted by lucie lu on November 23, 2008, at 1:37:59
In reply to Feeling at peace again, posted by Wittgensteinz on November 22, 2008, at 20:04:15
Hi Witti,What an evocative and detailed your picture-story is of this session! And happy birthday, by the way. As always, since the rupture, I am struck by how much you are still trying to mend it and at least of late, your T is trying hard to meet you. I agree with Dinah, the fretting about your coat may be his means to convey to you how much he does care about you and about what happens to you. Metaphorically, he knows he is unable to do anything about the storm, but he wants to make sure you are prepared to face the elements. I think that is lovely and caring.
I hope that you two can continue on the healing path. An important part of loving and caring is to learn to tolerate and repair even major ruptures. And you know what - I would even guess that he may be learning something from you about rupture repair. There are few skills more important for people who are important to one another.
Take care,
Lucie
Posted by Wittgensteinz on November 23, 2008, at 3:26:29
In reply to Re: Feeling at peace again » Wittgensteinz, posted by Dinah on November 22, 2008, at 23:41:30
Thanks Dinah,
I felt it was him caring - it was nothing huge or spectacular but it came as a little warmth in a bit of a dark period.I'm glad you were still able to see and feel your dad's love toward you despite his exterior. My mother, I can't say she loves me - my father does but he is a very distant person - he has never been able to embrace me (physically or emotionally). His way of showing he cared was often in the form of a 'rain coat' - I remember as a student him going on at me for ages about having lights on my bike. However, I could be in the kitchen with him and accidentally pour boiling water over my hand while making tea and yelping and he would not even notice - or as happened on one occasion, I jumped and smacked my head hard on a wooden beam, concussing myself and he was sitting there in the same room as I rolled about on the floor, head clutched in hands and he hadn't even noticed!
Thank goodness my therapist is a little more warm and attentive than my father - small doses of warm fuzzies help but if I would arrive one day to find him dressed as a cuddly pink rabbit, I probably wouldn't know what to do. I told him the other day how my partner's therapist (he saw a lady a handful of times to help process the grief at the loss of his father) had candles burning in her office and always made tea or coffee for him at the beginning of each session. I think his eyes almost popped out of his head - "Oh... really she did?! I couldn't be doing with all that!"
Witti
Posted by Wittgensteinz on November 23, 2008, at 3:46:28
In reply to Re: Feeling at peace again » Wittgensteinz, posted by lucie lu on November 23, 2008, at 1:37:59
Thanks LL.
I needed to write it down, to run it through my head so to speak - perhaps I should get a journal!I like your interpretation of the storm as a metaphor. There is a little sky-light in his office, just above the divan. So the weather has quite a presence - either the rays of sunlight flooding the room with light or the pattering of rain on the pane.
Witti
Posted by Dinah on November 23, 2008, at 11:48:29
In reply to Re: Feeling at peace again » Dinah, posted by Wittgensteinz on November 23, 2008, at 3:26:29
My father isn't quite that bad. He would have likely bellowed at me for clumsiness and called my mother to help me. :) Once I passed puberty any cuddling ended.
I don't think I'd like fluffy bunny therapists myself. I went to an overly empathetic psychologist once, and everything inside me revolted. Some strange mixture of humor, practicality, and caring seems to work best for me.
Your therapist does strike me as a bit cooler than would be my preference. And many therapists strike me as a bit warmer. While mine is just right for me.
If yours is just right for you overall, I'm glad you're able to work past those moments when he's not.
Posted by JayMac on November 23, 2008, at 16:28:51
In reply to Feeling at peace again, posted by Wittgensteinz on November 22, 2008, at 20:04:15
Happy Birthday!
I'm glad you could reconnect. I think the reconnection amongst a storm is a big part of therapy and one's happiness in relationships. It's great that you could express that you felt disconnected, but that you wanted to reconnect. For him to worry about a rain coat is such a loving way for him to show that he appreciates you and cares for you. I think such moments are precious.
=)
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