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Jul 20, 2013, 05:41 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ultramar
This makes a lot of sense to me. It sounds like she's 'meeting you where you are,' you've discussed this issue and negotiated it together, and it's working for you.
This is true. She met me where I was at even when I didn't realize where I was at, or what I needed. I feel so lucky in this regard. I was very resistant to attachment and trust for quite some time, and literally thought she was nuts for even bringing it up (and I've told her that, too..) but I started sending emails which slowly got more frequent. The frantic, meltdown emails (which occurred when I was attached but wouldn't/couldn't admit it) have actually decreased substantially since we started having a little bit of contact every day. There was a process going on that I just wasn't aware of until pretty recently.
My question is -how is the transition made to less contact (say, once a week, or only in crisis, whatever)? It seems that if you (or anyone) has become accustomed to daily contact, whether you learn at some point to 'carry her with you' or not, you may still want the daily contact *nonetheless* because it feels good, immediate 'gratification' (responses), to whatever is going on, etc. In other words, what if the purpose behind it lessens or goes away, and yet you (anyone) still yearns for the daily contact anyway? It seems like it would be a very difficult thing to give up.
Very interesting point, and I agree, I can see how it would be difficult to give up for some people. At this point, I would say I will be eager for the day when I don't need to contact her every day. I do feel quite a bit of shame over it and still have to push myself to get that daily contact because I know right now it does stabilize me. However, I judge myself, but I realize that my own judgement isn't going to change how my brain is handling things right now...if that makes sense. She makes me feel safe right now, but I do look forward to a day when I can do it myself. I have been reluctant to ask for help for most of my life and now I see how it's been slightly damaging. It's just that now, with her, I'm experiencing a level of safety in a relationship and that is something that is somewhat foreign to me. I have no template for this type of transferential-safety. I have some learning to do.
So (this is not critical, I'm really curious as to how the process would work), how will you know when it's time to change the frequency of contact and what would that change/transition look like? I also feel like it would be human nature to perhaps prolong (unconsciously, of course) the inability to carry her with you, in order to continue the daily contact.
Funny you mentioned it...because I bring this up basically every time we discuss our relationship (which is almost every session lately.) I ask her "will it always be like this?" and "when will I know? How will I know?" She says I just will. (In that special, vague, therapist-voice of hers.) I have to trust her on this because, as I've mentioned, I have no template for this type of relationship. It's a need that comes from a very child-like place for me. I see the same kind of behavior in infants who need to know their primary caretakers are still around, just "because." Eventually those infants grow out of it and become teenagers who want nothing to do with their caregivers, and hopefully independent adults who carry the lessons of their caregivers with them forever. I assume the same process will happen with me someday. I assume it won't take 18 years because I'm an adult and can rationalize quicker than an infant. But, I don't know when or how long or what it looks like. She (my therapist) seems to trust that it will happen eventually, so I guess I should, too...
I see how the daily contact is for a specific reason, and part of your attachment therapy. But what happens when that reason goes away, and the contact becomes an end to itself, rather than a means towards an end; a situation in which you could maybe tolerate therapy without it, but it's become such a daily ritual and part of your life and part of your therapy relationship, that it becomes too difficult and too painful to stop?
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I guess my only thought is that I'm grateful that we talk about this a lot in therapy because by keeping it out in the open, it will never become a ritual for me. In the end, she is a professional providing a service and I am an adult, not a child. I know this logically but in this somewhat difficult emotional time for me, I am learning (slowly!) that it's okay to lean in when someone is offering. However, I recognize that this type of situation may not work or be in the best interest of others, for sure.
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