If any of you read my other thread on shutting down, you will know what I am referring to. I totally shut down completely today. No emotions. Minimal talking. Stared at the walls. Looked out the window. I was empty and void. Numb. I felt absolutely nothing at all. It was almost an out of body experience.

I gave her my journal notes to read. At the end of them, I wrote, "Please don't let me sit here and do nothing. This will cause me to go home and be miserable." She tried a little to get me to open up. But mostly sat there in silence. WHY! I asked her NOT to do that! At one point she asked me if I was going to go home miserable. I did not say this out loud, but I was thinking, "Not if you do what I asked you to do in my notes!"

She asked me, "Are you wanting me to make you talk?" and later, "Do you want me to make you mad so that you will open up?" I told her, "YES! If that's what it takes, I DO want you to make me mad! I do want you to make me talk!"

I explained it to her like this. I am a teacher. If I have a student who comes in one day and sits there with a blank look on his face and says he doesn't FEEL like working today, I would say something to the effect, "I am sorry you do not feel well, but you are going to work today." I would give him the assignments and make him do them. I would stay on him until he got them all done. He may get mad at me, but it is my job to make sure he does what he needs to do for that day.

She said, "But you are not a child. I am not going to make you do anything. You have to want to do it. What do you want to accomplish in therapy today?"

I replied, "I disagree with you. YOU are the one who should have an agenda of what we need to work on. I write you several emails every week. You KNOW what I am going through. YOU should take over when I cannot. YOU are the expert. I came to YOU for help. When I am in a desperate state, are you just going to leave me like this?"

I was SO MAD! I need for her to be more aggressive!!! She said that me wanting her to make me mad, or pounce on me (attack me), was my way of using avoidance and projection as a coping mechanism. In other words, I wanted her to bring up the painful things so that I could blame her if they caused me to get too emotional and upset. She said this is common with clients who are going through major issues in therapy.

I told her, "For one thing, I am sick to death of you talking about FEELINGS! Just how many textbooks did you use on FEELINGS? Do they have FEELINGS 101, FEELINGS 102, FEELINGS 103, etc...in college? Is that all that you learn in psychology? Can we talk about something else!! We have gone over these same things 100 times!! The horse is dead. Can we stop beating a dead horse!"

Her response was, "Yes, we talk about your feelings a lot. They are important. You have not faced your feelings and that is why we continue to work on them. You are going through anger right now. You have not addressed anger in therapy. I WILL continue to 'hound' you about anger until you get to the point that you allow yourself to FEEL anger, work through it, and let it go. That is my job! It is not my job to make you feel good. It is my job to see what is hindering you from having that successful, happy life that you wrote in your goals. You must work through this anger if you ever want to achieve that goal."

She went on to say, "What can you do today to let some of your anger out? Can you yell or scream? Is there something you would like to say to me? You said in one of your emails that you wanted to tell me to 'shut the f** up!' Is that something you would like to say? Go ahead, say it!"

Of course I said, "No, I am not going to disrespect you by saying that to your face." She went on, "Do you FEEL like saying it? If you do, I want you to say it. You can say whatever you want/need to say in here. What is holding you back? Therapy is where you dump out all the ugly things in your life. You are not going to offend me."

I just sat there like a rock. Completely closed. No expression at all.

She asked me if I felt that was I cycling out of the mania and going in to the depressive phase. I told her, "I don't know. What do YOU think!"

Her response was, "How do you feel? Do you feel like you are depressed?" She makes me so mad! Answers my questions with a string of her questions!!

I was so aggravated by the end of the session. I got up and slapped my check on her desk and waited for her to give me my receipt. As she was writing out the receipt, she said, "Your assignment for next week is to explore where all your anger is coming from. Try to identify the source. Work on how you can release that anger in a safe way. I want you to continue to work on being able to express your FEELINGS while IN therapy. You do a good job of writing them in your emails, but I want you to be able to show them in our sessions as well."

I was like, "Yeah, whatever." Another stupid assignment on anger and feelings. Blah, blah, blah,.......

I kinda snatched the receipt without looking at her. Normally she would walk me to the door, but I beat her to it. As I walked out, she said, "I also want you to explore why you are mad at me."

Whatever! I didn't even look at her. Just walked out. It was horrible!!! I felt like I wasted my time and money today! I am so mad at her right now that I never want to go back. Why can't she be more aggressive? I am the type of person that needs that! I told her I need for her to push me. Why does she make me sit there being swallowed up in my emotions?

I am sure she thinks this is good for me in some way. Sitting with my anger, fear, and whatever else I have wrong with me. I am a basket case. Much worse than I was when I began therapy. What is the point of all of this? If I am going to have to do all the work, why bother? What is her role? Sit in that leather chair and look at me???

Our session was about 90% spent in total silence and 10% actually talking. What a waste!! Maybe I need to take a month off from therapy to re-evaluate if this really has any validity to it. Right now I am thinking it is a bunch of crock!!