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Old Dec 23, 2011, 12:41 PM
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Perna Perna is offline
Pandita-in-training
 
Member Since: Sep 2006
Location: Maryland
Posts: 27,289
Quote:
Originally Posted by so80 View Post
She's more or less saying if she was in my situation she'd think about ending it. That hardly makes me feel over the moon, though if I'm honest I'm more annoyed by her saying such a stupid thing then depressed.
Why is how your T feels "stupid"? Why are you worried about what your T is doing, feeling, saying more than what you are feeling and doing? Do you think it is appropriate to seemingly have no resources, not be working on getting any and to be "annoyed" at another's shocking statement instead of looking at it and thinking about it and why a person in those circumstances might feel that way?

I don't know if your therapist was trying to shock you out of your seeming complacency (which is more deadly than your situation could be; think of shellfish and how they're put in cool water and it is gradually raised and they die instead of scrambling to get out of the pot!) or what she was thinking/doing because I only have your part of the interaction (and wasn't there, even if I had your therapist's part of the interaction). But if it were my T who said something that made me feel something, anything, I'd be examining heck out of my feeling and reaction versus what was said and wondering why someone who I'm paying to help me would say something I find annoying and I'd be trying to see how I could make my annoyance work for my betterment.

Anger is a wonderful emotion that one can use to help galvanize one's self into action. Depression is sometimes called anger turned inward because, instead of outward action to change the circumstances so people cannot say or do what they said about or did to us again we just simmer in our own angry juices. It's the "I'll show her!" and the "You cannot say that to me, Mom, because I'm getting my own apartment and running my own life from now on!" reaction. It's feeling the sting of the trigger mechanism and acting on our own behalf to disable the mechanism so it is no longer a trigger (instead of telling the other person not to push that button anymore; we can't control what other people do so that rarely works and moving away from the person, "quitting" being their friend, client, employee, etc. doesn't solve the problem because they can move too, might stay with/around us or another, next person might find the same button).

Don't worry about your T and whether she is competent or not; she's another person and just did you the favor of pushing a trigger of yours. You going to work on figuring out how you can make some friends and maybe get to know a special someone, or find a job, even if only volunteer so you could get some contacts, or admit that, yeah, you're feeling like you're kind of in a corner, "would you help me try and figure out how to get out?" Or are you going to argue about what your T should or should not say, according to you?
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