Peaches, I'm so very sorry you feel so sad and alone. I'm glad you felt able to post.
I wanted to respond to this part of your post, just in case it's helpful:
Quote:
Originally Posted by peaches100
Last week, my t had me switch chairs, and pretend to be both the hurt child part of me that feels so alone -- and the adult caring me who can give that child the love she needs. It was hard, and i didn't like it. I've come, over time, to have some empathy for the part of me that has been rejected and hurt in life, but I don't "feel" like a loving parent who can give myself what i needed back then as a child. It doesn't feel the same. How do i give myself something i never really had?
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When this is used for specific memories, it is called 'imagery rescripting'. You basically imagine the childhood memory and feelings, but instead of it ending the way it did (with you as a little child all alone, for example), you and your therapist intervene to give the little-you what she needed. However (and to me this is the important bit which matches with what you're experiencing), you may not be able to do this for yourself immediately...
"During the first part of [schema therapy] the client does not yet... understand normal parent-child relationships and is not capable of imagining how a parent should react in a given situation... The therapist must therefore represent a model of good parenthood. In imagery rescripting exercises the therapist has to think how a healthy parent would react... and do anything and everything necessary to protect and comfort the Little Client.... Once a client has moved further along in the therapeutic process... she herself can carry out the rescripting (i.e. the Big Client intervenes to protect and comfort the Little Client)."
(this comes from a book called Schema Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder by Arntz and van Genderen. I'm reluctant to write that in case you think I'm trying in any way to label you, but I'm truly just using it to talk about a technique, and just giving the source in case you want to find out more about the technique. I really hope you're ok with this)
It's understandable if you don't know yet how to protect and comfort yourself. And it's reasonable to ask your T to do that for you in the context of imagery.
