Read all of this as spoken gently :

.

Isn't there something in between that, though? Between insisting on being accurately reflected and understood, and glossing it over? It seems very black and white to me... correct me if I'm wrong, but what I get from that is, "Either T understands, or he doesn't. And if he doesn't, I either insist that he adopt my understanding, or I gloss over it."

Me, I'm pretty sensitive to being misunderstood, so I can really relate to this in some ways. It's probably one of the biggest consistent sources of conflict between me and my T. When he doesn't understand something it can be, at times, unbearable to me. Our misunderstandings can go from "over in one second" to "drawn out and excruciating".

Still... are you sure you're not quitting to avoid having to confront the likely myriad misunderstandings that are bound to occur between you and T? I know you said your T seems pessimistic, so that can kind of put a cloud over everything, but do you guys really talk about that? Does T offer any assurance that either he's not pessimistic, or has he offered to drop certain behaviors that express pessimism?

And I guess I maybe feel a little bit of what hankster was saying, but not so much about T's feelings... I'm just having a hard time seeing where T IS in all of this. All I can tell from what you said is, that T said you were "surviving" instead of "thriving" -- but I don't know if you followed up with what T actually meant by that. I also know what T said about what your last session would be like. I don't know, however, how T has responded to your telling him you think he's pessimistic, how T responded to your telling him you're actually thriving, whether T agreed that you wore each other out, or what happened when you brought up your interacting with T. I just know you find these all to be disastrous.

I guess in a way, I feel a little like you are trying to make the reader of this post feel how you're feeling and accurately understand/reflect you, but for me I feel like I'm getting walloped by phrases like "put through the wringer" and "feeling really slammed" and "burned out" and "disaster"... yet all I can tell that happened in this appointment is that T used the wrong word to describe your job, and that you discussed what your last appointment would be like. And I feel a little like if I don't agree with you, I'm going to make you mad. Even though I don't even feel like I CAN agree with you, other than just saying your T was wrong, because I don't have enough information to do so, or even just enough information to empathize and validate.

By the way this is kinda out of nowhere by now, but if your T calls you "hypersensitive", then he sucks.


And again, I feel like there is something in between acting like everything is cool, and quitting. Resolving misunderstandings is hard and sometimes REALLY awful, but I think it will help more than quitting and hoping to find someone out there who will always accurately reflect your feelings.