Quote:
Originally Posted by Kacey2
I am wondering what else was going on with your t that day? On one hand yes she is a professional and needs to be doing her job which requires an abundance of patience but she also is human. I believe it is hard for us therapy goers to see that it is not always our fault or our trigger. What I am trying to say is, yes you may have done a certain behavior that triggered an emotional reaction from her and there were probably other factors that influenced her emotion. Was she hungry? What else did she have in the back of her mind?
Before I had tons of therapy I always thought it was all me, I am the one that was at fault, etc... there wasn't ever anything wrong with anyone else. Now I know that yep I probably contribute (sometimes more than others) but it is not always my "stuff" that created the rupture. Let her own a little bit of this.
My t has gotten very irritated with my behaviors at times but he always makes it a point to say, "KC I do not like it when you do....... this behavior." He has emphasized this so much that I know he can separate how he feels about my doing x, y and z than how he feels about me. It was a valuable lesson for me to learn because before any relationship in my life was so black or white. It was on and perfect or it was over and never to be again. Every t relationship is different, however, I know for myself personally my own relationship with t has deepened immensly due to the whole proccess of rupture and repair.
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Oh yeah, when T and I talked about it back when, she was very kind and gentle and explained that being annoyed at a behavior does not mean that she disliked me. She said we must all learn that we can have these different responses to each other and it doesn't change the core relationship.
When I heard her say that it all made sense and it felt good at the time. But now that I'm entering a stage in therapy in which I'm opening myself up to an extremely vulnerable place, that incident has popped back in my head.
What I will tell T tomorrow is this, "Yes, you're right about relationships need to allow each person to not like something that the other person might be doing. Yes, that would be the basis of a healthy strong relationship."
"But that's in real life. In therapy, everything, EVERYTHING, is different. You really can't compare therapy with RL. I'm being encouraged to let down my defenses with you. I'm being asked to trust you and let myself be exposed. I'm being challenged to go where I've never gone before."
"If I must take such giant leaps in courage, I must be able to know that you will not judge me nor criticize me nor be annoyed with me. You know that is one of my biggest issues. If I am scared of you, how can I proceed down this path of self-discovery? How can I continue to peel off the layers one by one?"
"I know I will be very wounded if I keep pushing myself hard to overcome my natural resistance to exposure and I detect even a whiff of condemnation from you. You know how I reacted when I accidentally crossed a boundary. You would have thought I had murdered someone I felt so bad. My heart leapt out of my chest, I began to hyperventilate, my hands and knees were shaking and I began sweating. And that was nothing compared to what I hope to accomplish now with you in session."
"So, please, dear T, is there anyway you can explain to me which behaviors I must avoid to prevent you from being irritated with me? Please be clear about the rules. I can follow rules if I know what they are. It will so help me if you can do that for me."
Anyways, that is some of what I will say to T tomorrow. My anxiety is quite high at the moment but I'm trying to do breathing exercises to calm myself down.