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My T always takes responsibility - in all our years together we've only had two really big epic failures on her part (we've had minor misunderstandings but they've usually been mutual.) In the first case, we did a lot of work around processing my mother's death, right before Christmas, and then T left for a 4 week vacation. It left me an absolute mess - talk about feelings of abandonment, and I started cutting again, after 15 years really badly. When I told T about it, she was completely apologetic saying she should never have started the work knowing she was going away or she should have at least spent some time helping me deal with the abandonment issues. Now she uses it as a case study in what not to do when she's training other T's. LOL I'm a case study.
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This is very similar to what happened with my T. That is, I did serious cutting when I was in my teens, stopped when I left home, and then, decades later, about six months into therapy, I started again. And I spent about a year cutting, and now have gradually pulled myself out of it. I haven't cut for over a year (although I still fight urges).
My T (in the few times I have brought this up) has always said that it wasn't about her, it was about issues I couldn't handle. But I still feel that she in some sense is responsible, because I didn't cut for decades, and then only started again when in therapy. So how could it not be about her? How could she not be involved?
I thought I had accepted her thinking -- of course I realize that cutting is my own chosen response, and as I say, I have now chosen to stop. But I am realizing through my posts here that I am actually still really upset by this. I am upset by her not taking any responsibility for my reaction to therapy.
I had no idea what was going on. I was so shocked and scared. She was the therapist. She was supposed to know what was going on. She was supposed to be managing all this, in a way. And she didn't. And then she said it was all because of me.
And I get that, OK, she has a zillion clients and they don't all cut. So if I choose cutting, then it is about me and my issues, and not about her. But I guess that, on a deeply emotional level, I don't really believe it. Because if I didn't cut for a decades, and then when I get with her, I start again, then in some sense it
is about her.
And I guess I am just realizing that I am more angry and hurt than I had realized.
I want her to take responsibility. I feel she owes me that.