Thread: Closure
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Old Oct 01, 2013, 05:00 PM
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likelife likelife is offline
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Member Since: Feb 2012
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SallyBrown View Post
I think it's really natural to want to tell the person who kept you down that they aren't keeping you down anymore. For me, when I have felt that way, that I need to make a point of directing my "revenge by living well" right at them, it's often because it feels like they're cheating me out of one more thing by not letting me get the last word in. As if they "win" somehow, or get to pull one last nasty trick by being allowed to believe that I am not better off without them.

The thing is, though, I can't really change the way someone rationalizes to themselves about our relationship. It might bring you some sense of closure to have this session with exT -- but if it has no impact on her whatsoever, will it really help you? Or will it do nothing, because even putting it right there for her hasn't impacted her thinking, and she still "wins" by actively keeping herself in that zone where she believes she didn't do anything wrong?

In fact in some ways it can really look like desperation on your part -- for instance, ex-boyfriends that have to come back to me and throw in my face how much better their current relationships are... it just comes off as sad and bitter a lot of the time. I'm not saying this is how YOU are, but I am saying that it may be the way your T interprets it to herself, regardless of where you're really coming from.

Do you think there's an element of that for you? That she gets off easy somehow, or gets the unfair satisfaction of still having some kind of power over you, since she doesn't know otherwise? Do you think maybe you run the risk of walking right into that trap -- where you SAY she has no power over you, yet you go to her for closure, so in the end she can still tell herself she does?

(I don't mean to assume anything about what your T thinks. I'm kind of painting the picture of the worst case scenario, because that's something you have to consider here, with so many sensitive emotions on the line.)
Ah! Yes, exactly. I *know* the "best revenge" is living well, and I think I'm doing that for the most part. But I want her to know it, damnit! That I'm just fine without her.

I laughed when I read the part about ex-boyfriends. I think what I'm trying to do absolutely can be perceived as desperate. If I can just drive up to T's office in my new fancy car, with my arms around two new hot Ts...

Seriously, though, my new T and I have talked about what if exT doesn't respond in the way I want, or responds in some awful, stubborn kind of way. I think I've come to terms with the obvious idea that I don't get to control how exT perceives anything about our therapy. But at least I get to know that I did everything I could to not play into my pattern of shutting down and allowing others to dictate my reality.

Idk, maybe I'm deluding myself into thinking that a closure session will be the thing to evict exT from my head once and for all. I mean, obviously it doesn't work like that, but...
Hugs from:
SallyBrown