Quote:
Originally Posted by feralkittymom
I think you need to cut yourself some slack, too. You haven't built a relationship for that long, and now you're faced with it ending which is a time of increased vulnerability. It's natural that your need to protect yourself would be stronger now. It doesn't seem fair to me to use this one action as the only measurement of the success or failure of your therapy. Can you consider other measures of success? If not, perhaps you can ask your T to help you reframe how you're judging your experience.
I do understand the torn feelings of wanting eye contact yet being paralyzed to initiate it. I went through many years with little eye contact. Not at the beginning, but as I let go of the false self, I felt far more vulnerable, and that made me withdraw from eye contact. But I never felt disconnected (though I know my T experienced it in that way) because for me the connection was through his voice. Is it possible that you experience connection in some other way--I wonder about some sort of spatial relationship because you felt more comfortable sitting on the floor.
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Thanks feralkittymom, I am probably being too harsh. I do tend to push myself and to get frustrated with myself. But I have actually been seeing her for 3 years now, so I don't know if that changes your view of things. It's not exactly a short period of time. But I hadn't even really considered that my need to protect myself would be stronger since we're coming to an end. You're probably right that this is contributing somewhat- I know it will hurt very much, and worse if I end up looking at her. Though I still think it would be worth it.
I thought I would try to make a list of my successes:
-Telling my T all that I did: I did tell her some very difficult things that took a lot of courage. That took an enormous amount of trust in her.
-Trust in my T: I have steadily increased in this, and even made a lot of gains this year after going through some difficult moments with her.
-Being direct with my T: There were a few incidents where I was direct with her, which is usually very difficult for me.
-Working through a rupture
This is all I can really think of. I will try to keep these in mind, but I'm mostly just upset with myself. I think I should talk to my T about it.
I can really relate to what you said about having difficulty with eye contact when you let go of your false self. This is when the problem got a lot worse for me. Thanks for your suggestions!