Quote:
Originally Posted by Asiablue
I feel like you spend way way wayyyyyyyy too much time making excuses for others at the expense of yourself. You are far too focused on boundaries. Everyone else's boundaries are not your problem, you are not the boundary-keeper. Everyone is responsible for keeping their own boundaries and letting someone know if they've been over-stepped. You don't need to be worrying about it so much.
I've also noticed a lot of black and white thinking in your posts. You say that you couldn't find another T who is both caring with looser boundaries AND who is good with all the other issues you face. That simply isn't true. A truly great therapist can be flexible with contact when needed, and can deal with subject they didn't necessarily train in specifically but can learn about and approach with empathy and understanding anyway.
You do have to respect that your T is short on time now, and she is right in the respect that a session the day after might not be enough time for both of you to process. I know these feelings are uncomfortable to sit with but it's not really an emergency, even if it feels like it. Also she may not want to flood you which can happen in trauma work, she might be trying to pace you.
I feel like you're denying all your own needs a lot of the time and as someone said before not allowing yourself to feel negative emotions about things. You reason it all away.
Your email... i don't know, it feels quite passive aggressive to me, it's a whole bunch of words and reasonings all wrapped up in a polite bow but there's a real undercurrent of anger in it. There's a lot of words in there which could be summed up in about 2 paragraphs; " I AM angry the way you make me feel" " i am angry that i feel unsupported in times of need" " i am angry that you make me feel responsible for your boundaries" " i am angry that i feel shamed just for needing more time." etc.
I challenge you to write a letter how you really feel, using " i am angry" or "it pisses me off" etc, use angry volatile words, express in a childish way if needed exactly how you're feeling, write as if there are no repercussions to being really mean.
Don't send that version tho! Unless you really want to that is. But i think you need to be led by your emotions and stop pretending they don't exist or packaging them into a nice mature little box that is pleasing for others.
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To be fair, there aren't a lot of therapists in the world who are not only LGBT friendly but are well-versed in LGBT issues, and that is really important to me at this point in my life because straight people, no matter how well-intentioned and flexible and open-minded, just don't get it most of the time, and who also work with anxiety and abuse survivors, and whose offices are convenient to get to (can't drive yet because of a vision problem and I'm not doing a two hour bus ride to get to therapy - 30 minute subway ride max) and whose fees are not outrageous (insurance doesn't cover therapy, only psychiatry, and I don't need a psychiatrist). That's the thing about universal healthcare - it covers most things, but the things that it doesn't cover are ridiculously expensive (ex. my vision therapy for my eye problem is $250 a week) and the cheap/free ones have insane waiting lists. But who am I to complain about OHIP?
And the thing about anger - I'm not angry. I'm really, really not. Or maybe it's there somewhere but I don't know how to access it. I'm not pissed off. I'm not mad at her. I'm just sad and hurt and feeling really frustrated with myself.
Sending an email to begin with is a bad idea and I KNOW that. But I'm trying to decide whether or not I care. And sending an "I am angry at the way you made me feel" email would solve nothing because there wouldn't be enough information for her to actually solve the problem...I know if I'm going to send anything I need to cut it way, way down; it's just that it's 4:42 in the morning and I wrote out every single thing that came into my head. But yeah, I can see the passive aggressive-ness of it (although I really dislike that label). But I can't just say, "I'm angry," a) because that will solve nothing and b) because I'm not.
Also, the thing about boundaries is just conditioning. I've way overstepped people's boundaries before and they ended up leaving me. I don't want that to ever happen again.