Quote:
Originally Posted by SoupDragon
My T said something to me yesterday, which I am trying to get my head round - there are some things that have been "named" but not talked about in the sessions. They are there to be talked about at some point when it feels safe enough. T told me the significant thing is not what the things are, but being able to talk about them with T. I'm sure I grasp this completely, but I think the significant thing therefore is feeling safe enough and being able to trust someone enough to share - so the process rather than the content.
I say I am struggling to grasp because those things that have not been spoken about, for me are huge and there remains this bit of me that things they are the most important thing, so not the process but indeed the content. But T's words stick in my head and I am trying to understand them.
So it therefore follows, the fact that you shared this with your T, means you have taken demonstrated that you can take a massive step forward - the fact that it has taken you so long to share, shows how brilliantly you have done - you achieved something that was really, really difficult for you - so hope you feel suitably proud of yourself.
I also realised from my session yesterday - that maybe the real work starts when we can get to that place of trusting deeply - so you're probably not done - you have just succeeded in laying some really solid foundations from which to build on.
Huge amounts of respect to you MKAC - Soup
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Not sure how much respect I deserve, Soup, given the nature of what I was telling him.
But, thank you. I have shared things with him before that were intensely difficult but never something THIS bad (at least it's really bad inside my head). The weird thing is that I do not feel awful today or exposed the way I thought I would, or the way that I did with telling him LESS awful stuff before. So maybe this was a huge step forward for me.
My T said also that the act of talking about the shameful things was really important not so much to have him "fix" anything, but as a first step to actually say the stuff out loud, just to get past the shame, pull the stuff out of the dark and into the light and see that it isn't even mine. The shame and the horror AREN'T mine. There is a reason that what happened to me is illegal: children simply aren't equipped to deal with this stuff.
I agree with you, though that the content seem HUGE and hard to get past how it seems to say something horrible about you. My T said he already knew or had guessed at most of what I've had to tell him from the first moment I said I was sexually abused. But if he said those things right when I first told him I was sexually abused -- oh you felt X and Y, and Z happened then also, right? -- I would have run away or shut down completely. And he's right. Your T, if he's any good (and it sounds from your other posts like he is), has heard all of this stuff before. He probably already knows and cares for you anyway. There is some relief mixed in the nausea about having finally told, and my T still treated me the same way, and says he still cares about me and isn't grossed out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sunrise
Do you feel like you're done? Do you want to end therapy now? Even if you have been thinking for a long time, "once I tell T such and such, I will be done," now that it has happened, you don't need to hold to that thought. You're allowed to change your mind or realize that what you had been thinking may not actually be true. Maybe there is more to therapy still than telling this particular thing. There need be no rush to end therapy. Keep going, see what happens.
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Nah, I don't feel like I'm done.
Thanks for pointing out that it's just something that was happening in my mind -- I'm done when . . . It's not like it was ever set in stone that I have to stop at any certain point.
Thank you to everyone for all of the support and encouragement! I actually feel pretty okay today.
Still just exhausted though.