My Support Forums - View Single Post

Crescent Moon · Jan 31, 2013, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seventyeight

as i was talking today, i looked over at my therapist and saw her looking/picking at her nails. it was very disheartening. i felt embarrassed for some reason, and like i was interrupting her or something. she looked up as i was looking at her, almost as if i had "caught" her.

My therapist is generally very attentive. This past summer, however, I'd been doing pretty good for several months, and it started feeling to me like she was somewhat distant. Like she was only half there. Your therapist being distracted by her nails would feel that same way to me. (Yet, on second thought, someone can pick at their nails while their mind and emotions are totally absorbed in the interaction - but it's not gonna send that message). Anyway, over a period of months, I felt more and more distance. Since it coincided with me holding my own and being consistently steady, I interpreted it to mean that she was withdrawing because she thought I was doing "fine." Like I lost her without my having given her permission to "go."

By the time I started trying to say something about it, I was so afraid of finding out that what I came up with was true, that my voice was almost imperceptible. Before it was over with, a huge rupture had taken place (at least from my perspective) and I nearly crashed and burned. I started canceling sessions with little notice, and when she texted me to ask "Are you ok?" I gave her almost no response. I think that was what told her I was in big trouble.

Anyway, it took her a couple of weeks, but she finally coaxed me back into her office. The best I could manage was to tell her it felt like she was real far away. She apologized and blamed herself for the rupture that she hadn't even realized took place. Turns out, over that summer, a close family member harmed herself, and another close family member lost their baby because the husband (a physician) had gone to work (in the summer) and forgot he was supposed to drop the baby off at the babysitter, and the baby died in the hot car. So there was plenty going on to preoccupy her. She told me that there were indeed a good number of times that she came to work hoping to goodness that her clients were in good shape, because she wasn't.

My point is, that if your therapist is normally more attentive, there could be something going on in her life that has her understandably preoccupied that does not mean that you are boring.

I think you might just hold off on letting yourself seeing it as meaning anything about you, and wait till next session. If she does something that indicates she's preoccupied, bring it up right then and there. Maybe say "Am I boring?"

One thing my therapist and I agreed on during our "repair the rupture" phase was that especially when I'm doing well, it's important to not neglect checking on our relationship, making sure the connection feels secure. She sees herself as being primarily responsible for that, but she told me that it's really important that I feel comfortable calling her attention to it right away if she seems distant.