|
Dec 01, 2009, 12:04 PM
|
|
|
Peaches, how did you do that?   You totally, completely summed up how I've been feeling!
Quote:
Originally Posted by peaches100
Wow! What a good job -- in that you had something you needed to say to t and then “just went for it.” It takes SO much courage to speak your true feelings like that, especially when you don’t know what the response will be. Even though your session was painful, just the fact that you put things out on the table is a tremendously big step!
Thanks, Peaches! I feel like I need to bring that courage with me to my session tomorrow when I read these very painful letters!
In reading your post, it sounds like there were two levels of anger going on for you. On one level, you were aware of some adult anger you were feeling toward your t, likely related to your earlier misunderstanding. And you responded to this anger by pulling away from your t by not “fully listening” or allowing connection. Then, your action of pulling away from your t prompted anger from child parts of you who wanted to feel close to t, but could not because your adult self prevented it.
I think that's exactly what happened, only I didn't see it when it was happening.
It sounds like your t picked up on some anger and/or distance on your part, but that she was speculating that it was coming from child parts of you and not from your adult self.
I didn't think I was still angry at T yesterday, but I guess I was. T even gave me a chance to tell her more about the anger, but I insisted that I wasn't angry anymore. So maybe that's why T thought it was coming from my child parts, and I wasn't aware of it
Later, your t noted that it seemed easier for you to write to her from your little ones' perspective and not from an adult perspective. This seems to fit in with the idea that your child parts are open to communicating and connecting, but there is perhaps some hesitancy on the adult’s part to allow this.
It's strange - this ability I've tapped into, to write from my child parts, has been a gift in many ways. It just never occurred to me to write a letter to T from my adult self. Maybe that was my way of holding back more from T.
In telling her about your fantasy of being held, you mention your fear of being rejected or pushed away. Is this the reason for the adult’s hesitancy? Did her response make you any more willing to risk asking for more closeness?
The thought of being utterly, completely vulnerable like that leaves me shaking in my boots. My child parts want so much for T to hold them and comfort them. The adult me thinks that it's asking too much of T, that it's inappropriate, and also that it is risking rejection from T - I don't know if I could bear that right now. T didn't really respond with any reassurance that she wouldn't reject me. I don't remember what her response was exactly. That sometimes happens for me. 
By the time you journaled, it sounds like the picture was all coming together for you, and you had an understanding of what had happened. You (the adult) still felt hurt and angry from the previous misunderstanding, so you had distanced. In doing that, you had also put a barrier between the child parts of you and your t (maybe as a protection). But instead of feeling protected, your child parts felt angry with you for being restricted.
They really are angry with adult me, and I was taken aback by how much that really upset me. Maybe that's why I felt the need to write T that letter from adult me.
The result was that the adult part of you stopped distancing from t, and instead, opened up and wrote t a letter (something that your t noted earlier was not so easy for you to do). In it, you expressed your true feelings of pain and self-hate.
You accomplished a great deal here. You came to your session with your adult self distancing and walling off your child parts from t. But you ended up with your adult self reaching out to t and sharing some very powerful feelings.
Thanks again, Peaches - I wish that I could process more in the actual session, but I think that's why I really benefit from having 2 sessions a week every other week - it helps me keep processing it all. And often, my 2nd session of the week ends up being deeper and more intense than the 1st - it's like we open up a big box of issues on Monday and start to pull some out, and then we finish sorting through the box and decide what to keep and what to throw out on Wednesday. Not a great analogy, but I hope you understand what I mean.
I hope your session goes well today.
|
Thank you! It's actually tomorrow. I hope it goes well, too. 
|