Quote:
Originally Posted by autotelica
It sounds like you are fluctuating between detached-not-detached. In other words, you're not feeling very strong emotions. Just bland or mildly unpleasant ones.
Am I right?
Like, maybe you enjoyed it better when you were feeling something, even if it was negative. Because the feelings stimulated your sense of self and made you think.
Being detached is an okay place to be, TC. Consider it a holding pattern of sorts. You can use the space between you to be cerebral and questioning. What do you want to change about yourself? Why are you in therapy? What would you like for your therapist to do to help you move forward? I know that you think the attachment is the therapy, but there is no rule that says it must be like this. You can still get something out of therapy feeling "blah" about your therapist and just let the feelings develop naturally, while you're distracted from them.
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No. Been vacillating between completely out of control wild emotions and (medicated) temporary calm. My mom was here for a few days so I had to try harder to be calm when un medicated, without hurting myself because she sneaks in when I sleep to check my arms like I'm 15 years old. I had to go sit in my car when it got bad so she wouldn't see or hear me.
Feeling connected to T was unsettling, but it felt good at the same time. Now I don't feel connected, just untethered, orbiting a place I can't reach anymore. In the beginning it just felt more intimate, but I think its because I was talking about a recent assault, and also T told me she had been abused by father/brother as a child and I assumed she meant sexually (like me) but I heard what, at the time, I wanted to hear (she was not sexually abused, just "terrorized" by a sibling" and her dad was mean.) I think a LOT of the "bond" I felt was due to my misunderstanding that she could understand how I felt bc she had been there and not bc she read about it or had been told.
I suspected later, when I stopped to think about it that I had misunderstood, so I e-mailed t confirm. She beat around the bush for awhile but ultimately confirmed it. So I bonded with her based on a misconception, and I think I'm upset that she KNEW I had misunderstood and did not correct me. For months. I feel a little betrayed bc there is a LOT I wold not have told her if I had known sooner.
I've been trying not to let go of the connection regardless of how it began, but it is slipping away anyway, and what felt like it could have been a special relationship now just feels like "whatever" like any other therapist and not anything special (I never attached to any previous therapists.).
So... I don't know.
Edit: As for letting feelings develop naturally, she says shes trying to give me space and patience to form an attachment to her, but that I am interpreting that as abandonment. (I'm not sure I agree)
But I think something that was there before is missing, and I am always on guard. Nothing is going to develop bc I was distracted from it. Before I could imagine she had opened a door in my wall and had a foot through. But now, there are no openings, no cracks, no way for her to get in again. She had a foothold and then decided I needed "space" so she stepped back and closed the door and I don't think its ever going to open again.