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Originally Posted by tealBumblebee
I mentioned it to T but explained to her how I couldn't tell her what I did because I promised myself that I would not in order to prove to myself that i'm not attention seeking. She understood and didn't press the issues but says that i'm the opposite of an attention seeker/ I tend to withdraw...I wish I could believe her.
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I think the fact that she says that, coupled with you pulling back around this is pretty good evidence against the attention-seeking theory... just someting to think about. I know you work in the health field, so you get to see the "behind the scenes" attitudes of people. I know being in a similar position working with some pretty judgemental people cemented the judgements in my own head about myself. I know my old boss would have said that self-harming and crisis after crisis are negative-attention-seeking behavior from the clients we served. so when that happens with me, I see it the same way. I have yet to have a therapist say that about it though. When I mentioned that judgement to my new therapist recently (in more than one session), she made a point to ask if maybe it was all just a defense mechanism and a result of feeling hurt without having a better way to express it or deal with it as opposed to being attention-seeking in any negative way. It's just a hard line of thinking to give up...
Quote:
Originally Posted by tealBumblebee
She did, however, point out that she wasn't surprised it happened as something that I think doesn't bother me has recently come up. She says I tend to shut down instead of allowing the feelings to come, and she may very well have a point.
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that would make sense. I know it's something I do myself when distressing things of a similar nature come up. My go-to for body memories is self-harm. If I ever let them play out, they end up being full-on flashbacks of the events. I try to always cut it off at the beginning, (quite literally... huh, bad choice of words there)... what would be the implications of not giving in to the self-harm urges/desires for a bit? is your T available enough to try that experiment in case it becomes overwhelming or too uncomfortable?