Quote:
Originally Posted by stopdog
I suppose it helps me that I almost never experience the therapist as being nice. At times I can tell there may be an attempt at appearing nice, but I can usually thwart it. At least once there was an exchange where she told me she had been about to say something nice to me but stopped because I had been sarcastic. I was all like "whahoo - sarcasm works" - which is not the response she seemed to expect.
For me it is not bad as long as the cost is known. With my mother, it seemed like to get her to like me or whatever would cost me myself - a price I was unwilling to pay. She would tell me others would not like me because I was not X enough. For me X enough was too high a price to pay to be liked and so I am prepared to be disliked by others because I am not X enough ever. As a 4-5 year old, sex with family member to get to hang around him did not seem too high a price to pay.
Favors or niceness from the therapist seems more like my mother's X enough to me.
Sorry - I keep stream of concious posting on your thread.
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Don't be sorry. It helps me that you and a few other people get it. I think that not knowing the cost or worry that the cost of the relationship will be something unanticipated is what causes my WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME response to certain people. I don't even know why I have that anxiety with my therapist because he has been clear that he doesn't want anything from me except for me to get better. Shoot, he's been clear that I cannot give him stuff I want to give him that he might actually want also because there are rules against that kind of thing.
So why do I have anxiety?
I know the cost of having my mother even pretend like she loves me and I am no longer willing to pay. For quite a while, her mental health issues abated and she was able to have a relationship with me that didn't involve the old prices, but after my sister moved in with her, she seemed to relapse. It has been hard to adjust to the fact that things have gone back to the way they were when I was growing up and realize again that she does not really love me or even really see me.
Thanks for posting stopdog, and don't feel like you need to stop.