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Old Apr 11, 2007, 04:04 PM
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sunrise sunrise is offline
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Member Since: Jan 2007
Location: U.S.
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Quoting myself from another thread:
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I have my session tomorrow and once again I have this huge amount of stuff to cover, and I just feel it's hopeless. I guess we'll go over the legal stuff. Sigh. Forget the really disturbing SI fantasy. Forget my feelings. Forget my fear. That stuff has to take back seat. Just stuff it all inside of me again. Where does it go? Who knows. I hate this. It was so satisfying to have my lawyer willing to spend the time with me to get through what I needed to get through.

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Session with T was today, bright and early, and surprise there was even someone before me (starting at 7 am!).

I feel so much better. Very good session today. Of course, I was unable to get through everything but I feel like I touched on a lot of issues and at least got them out on the table. I was able to tell him about my confusion in past sessions, how he seemed to be saying one thing and then the next minute the opposite. And I felt we had not been on the same wavelength and that at times, like when I told him I was planning to do X, I felt he had been appalled. He looked at me a second, then said, "I was appalled." But he explained it was not because he was critical of me for choosing a different path from what he thought was optimal (the "like father, like son" mantra I was feeling that I was not fulfilling when my plans deviated from what he thought was best). He said it was because he was worried about the fallout of my actions and that they could backfire. He in no way thought less of me or was disappointed in me, etc. That was good to hear. And since my lawyer cleared up a lot of stuff for me in our meeting, I have since changed my plan anyway. I also liked that T admitted to me that he had been appalled. It made me feel that I was not imagining or misinterpreting his reaction, that I could trust my perceptions of what is happening in therapy between us.

We spent a lot of time on the legal stuff and what that means for our own approach in therapy. He is very sensitive to all the dynamics. Yes, it was very nuts and bolts, which I tend to hate, but it was so useful. Each time, I feel more able to talk about this stuff with him productively, and that ability is hard won. We're talking about various scenarios now of individual and couples therapy and who would provide each and what would be the goals of each and how to intertwine them to help me progress toward my main goal. It's complicated! After he presented one possible scenario to me, which I guess he thought sounded very appealing, but scared me s**tless, I looked at him and said. "That sounds really... scary to me." And he looked surprised for a second, and then smiled and said "you're so cute." What? He explained he thought I was going to say "That sounds really great" but I said practically the opposite. And then I totally cracked up and he did too, and we laughed and laughed. It was a great moment. It is good to laugh with your T.

A big accomplishment for me was also telling him how I was trying so hard to hold everything together, and I had a mountain of hurt inside that I was trying to control so I could get through this crisis. He said he knew. And that made me want to hug him. He sees the hurt in me, knows it needs to come out, and he said he will help me heal. My voice cracked a couple of times as I talked with him about this, and I was glad I was able to let him hear that. He said he'd like me to hold it together a while longer until we get some indication how things are going to play out with my husband. Then T and I can either do the healing together in therapy and then proceed toward the goal. Or proceed and do the healing simultaneously or after. But we need to know first, so hang on a while longer, sunny! It felt so good to share with him that I have this "mountain of hurt," which he knew about but we'd never talked about openly. I did not tell him my "sharing the hurt" metaphor/fantasy of cutting. What I shared seemed enough to me today; maybe later I'll tell more. I also told him I don't know how to get rid of that mountain of hurt inside of me, and he said he will help me with that when the time comes, and that we will deal with it through EMDR---comparatively fast, and very effective.

I'm feeling great!
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