My Support Forums - View Single Post

sunrise · Jul 25, 2010, 01:07 AM

We had 90 minutes and T immediately sat opposite me and said we were going to work on grief about my father (he had suggested this last session), and then said, “go ahead.”

He was the one who had the idea to do grief work, not me. I don't know how to do it! Ever brilliant, I sat there a while and then said, "I don't know what to say."

Then he tried asking me a question about my soul and what place my father held in it--and I couldn't answer. Too hard! My brain was in reptile mode. I told him it felt like he was asking me to do this really difficult mental activity and I wasn't up to it--I was struggling with my feelings. So we went to something more concrete--some examples from his own family. That approach worked for me--it is one we often use.

We had a very intense session talking about our families, what it means to love a parent, how we can tell if a parent loves us, what the "evidence" of how people act and what they say tells us, how to prepare for finding out what we don't want to hear, how to start now to try to have the relationship you want in spite of all the years before. It was really hard work and I cried many times, even when T was talking about his own family. I asked him a lot of personal questions, and it felt good to have such an unhindered give and take and not worry about whether it was OK to ask “my T” those questions. At one point he said something like, “you know me pretty darn well by now, as well as most anyone.” I do feel I know T really well, and I like that he said that. His acknowledgement of that made me feel that our relationship is more reciprocal, instead of me just feeling like I know him really well.

I told him several times, when the going got tough, that I didn't want to do this. It was too hard and hurt too much. He said now is a time of growth for me. My soul is cracked open--with pain, with love--and there is the opportunity to dive into my grief and really explore it and know it, instead of running from it. I told him it was too hard, and I lacked the courage. He said I was doing it there with him that day. Going in and out of the sadness, as much as I can take at a time, then coming back out. I don't have to do it all at once. He said having courage is sitting with him and talking about this just like we were.

I have this feeling that I shouldn't be sad about my father's end of life because we are not close. T doesn't like me to use "shoulds," but I do feel this way. Like I have to earn the right to be sad by having a good relationship with the person. Why mourn someone that one is not close to? There is something that seems false about that. T suggested that perhaps part of my sadness was mourning the relationship we never had. That is probably true. I said I felt like I was the only one in the relationship with my father—just me and my imagination of how it was, based on my wishful thinking and making lots of excuses for my Dad. (“he must treat me that way because...”) But maybe I truly am the only one in the relationship. I have done that before—tried hard and hoped for the best and given the other person lots of leeway, only to have to face facts in the end that I was the only one ever there. I said that I didn’t feel like I should always have to be “the one.” Why can’t the other person in the relationship ever do their share? It is always me. Especially with my parents. I am just a child and know nothing. I come into their lives and they should be the ones who know how to have relationships. I shouldn’t have to do this. Why do I have to do this? I’m the child. They should do it! I was a bit indignant, perhaps as close to angry as I ever get, but really just weary with this whole relationship thing and feeling that the burden for success always falls on me. T said “now we’re getting somewhere”—I’m not sure what he meant but probably something to do with my being able to find some anger. T said I wouldn’t know if I was the only one in the relationship with my father unless I invited my father to have the kind of relationship I wanted, and that I thought we might have—perhaps just by sharing my feelings. He said if I don’t try, I won’t move closer to my father. If I do try, there is no guarantee—we might become closer or at least acknowledge our feelings from over the years, or my father might brush me off. I told him it would be very hard to say anything to my father, as there is no model in my family for how to talk about feelings or express or show love. T said if there is a good time to break all the family rules, it is now, before my father dies.

We ended up talking a lot about relationships in general, like about how having close relationships is not easy—the other person may not want to be close in the same way that we do, and it hurts to keep trying. T said he was really only very close--in the groove--with a few people in his life: his wife, three friends that he listed by name, a colleague, and me, a client. He named ME as one of the people he is closest to in life.

He has told me before that I am one of his favorite people in the world, but somehow hearing myself enumerated in his select bunch was very, very touching. (Picture me grabbing my

as it thwomps in my chest.) He is the person I am closest to in my life right now, and I feel honored he would name me in his group. I told him I would like more people in my life that I am close to. I have never told him that before. I do feel a hole sometimes, a place that loneliness may live inside of me, but I don’t go there or talk about it. So this was a big deal for me to share this. He had some ideas about that, and we will probably pick this up again later, when we are not doing the grief work.

So it was a hard session. I did do some grieving, and did grapple with painful feelings about my Dad and our relationship, both past and present. We got a lot of work done--it was exhausting. At the end, I told T that it was a good session, and he said he was glad I felt that way because he thought so too. This is his favorite kind of work (helping adult children with their relationships with their parents). Afterwards I felt some load lifted--a bit more free. I felt tired but good. My mind felt like my body does after a long swim.