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Originally Posted by BudFox
Hi MP, yea I feel that way too. I pretty much knew what was there, but this whole thing brought it out as nothing else had. But, and this for me is big, the experience itself created emotional pain. The relationship with my T was paradigmatic (to borrow from a book I read). It is the source of suffering and trauma, not just a recapitulation. Some other T's tried to sidestep this. One said: "It's painful to see how old wounds are affecting us in the here and now". Yeah, ok, but I am saying there are new wounds, and they were inflicted by your colleague and by the system of which you are a part. And the trap here is that the main thing I needed was to rail against the system and my T, but I was attempting to do so with agents of that system.
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I understand the distinction you are making here and I have felt that way as well. That's pretty maddening. I think those therapists completely misunderstand. It is the
patterns that are familiar--that doesn't mean the situations they lead to are any less harmful or any less real. If someone gets stabbed traumatically, then becomes obsessed with self-defense in the aftermath, trying to conquer their PTSD, and in the process of all this exposure to weapons and fighting, ends up being stabbed again, certainly the chain of events that led from the first scar to the second does not negate the misfortune of the fact that there are two scars.
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I'm with you on nearly everything you said. Very much so. Do you mean you pointed at the unconsciousness and dysfunction out loud to your T, and she then turned on you? Because that is exactly what I went through. She needed me in my previous role of compliant worshipper and partner in collusion. I mean she really needed it. And I really needed to break out of that role, could have been healing. She won. Rigged game.
As for the cruel joke thing -- I had intense romantic interest in her, and she was dangled in front of me, everything I ever wanted, then snatched away. Not literally, but who cares, that's how it felt.
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Yes to your question....
I guess I was in the opposite situation. I don't think I really had romantic interest in my T, but I was afraid to categorically exclude it being romantic out of some nagging sense that if I clearly excluded romance/sexuality as a possibility, she would no longer care about me or treat me the same.
I should have listened to my intuition very early on. But those were childlike, vulnerable, desperate feelings that she reinforced and encouraged over and over and over again as long as I didn't question why. I couldn't be reasonable about it. I so desperately wanted her love and warmth and comfort, but she gave it to me for all the wrong reasons.
Yeah, it's really sad to pay for the protection of therapy only to realize as soon as you try to rely on it that it doesn't protect you from a damn thing.
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Originally Posted by BudFox
I dont hate my T either. But I do blame her. She had a bunch of chances to do the right thing. I think she was hurt herself so I do understand her behavior, but that doesn't make it right. She is supposed to be ever mindful of what is transpiring, not me. I paid for that privilege. I don't mind if a T gets tripped into their own defenses or needs, but they have to be able to recognize it and make a correction.
I felt thrown away also, expendable. Told her just that. Left in a ditch by the side of the road with a list of referrals.
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Yep, I get you.
