Quote:
Originally Posted by moonlitsky
Hello Jeff
Yes, I have experienced a deep love for my therapist. It has been very regressive, fearing she will be gone and I will die in the pain. It has been erotic and we have worked with what that means, I have raged and kicked and fought and hated, envied and shouted - and she is still there. Now it is (normally!) quieter. I have never felt loved so deeply, nor have I loved so deeply - it has been profound. I, like you, often tell myself I should be done by now, but I also know that such work does take many years, because it can only be done in little bits because of the pain and us having adult lives to lead too.
Truth is, if we knew them personally, the transference wouldn't be there so powerfully, and we couldn't do this work. The frame needs to be that way to enable healing but I hear how painful it is for you.
All I can do is assure you that it does get worked through and gradually the transference becomes resolved. Then the love you feel will be more inline with a comfortable adult love, rather than the desperate and frightening feelings we experience when we are intouch with infant survival/attachment needs and fear of annihilation.
I remember saying to my therapist it would feel easier if my own mother died than her - what you are feeling is absolutely normal.
Fortunately (not for her though!) my therapist has been through it too - so she is able to understand how painful it is - especially the longing that you describe.
Hang in there Jeff
Moon  |
Hello again Moon,
Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to send me such intimate, thoughtful responses. Are you still in therapy with the one you had such overwhelming feelings for? If not, were you able to have a friendship with her after therapy ended?
Here is a poem I recently wrote. I haven't written poetry in many years, but I was inspired by some sad songs I heard on the radio. I'm not much of a poet, but I found that writing it gave me some comfort and focus. If you would like to read some deep feelings and understandings that I express in bad poetry, please proceed. It reads like a pitiful torch song.
I know
That loving her doesn’t make sense.
It’s so ‘textbook’, I know.
But I love her even so,
Even though
I know it doesn’t make sense.
I tell her:
I know it makes oh so much sense.
It’s so typical,
So predictable,
So par for the course.
Dwelling on this just makes me morose.
She tells me I seem to now understand,
That my mind is mine, at my own command,
But it feels like it has control over me,
Regardless of how much logic I see,
Emotions have me drown in quicksand.
Something strong stands so firm in my way,
That keeps me so tightly snared in love’s sway.
So I can’t overcome,
My feelings succumb,
And the logic has no more to say.
It makes loads of sense
To love this sweet dear,
Who only says what I need to hear.
I can say what I want
Be who I am,
Without any fighting or jeer.
But this "friendship's" not real,
It’s her profession, a deal,
She’s not what a friend or lover would be.
This I can see,
It is all about me,
I know this,
But it’s not how I feel.
I want to know her,
What’s she all about,
What came before,
And why does she pout?
Are her secrets too sacred and sore?
How can I think that she’ll set me apart?
I’m not young and handsome or particularly smart,
Not really skilled in living or art.
Not very nice, if I want the truth told.
In fact I’m quite nasty and grumpy and old.
I hope that by now she can see through my heap,
See who I am underneath, and knows why,
See who I am, as if through my own eyes.
If my nastiness stems from roots old and deep,
I hope that she knows I’m not just some creep.
I dread the day that will finally be last,
Our sessions will end, and I’ll miss the past.
Our friendship never was and never will be,
It will leave a great hole deep inside of me.
In her mind at last she'll be done with me, free!
- Jeff