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Originally Posted by Petra5ed
I've wondered all this time if therapy is inherently flawed for people with childhood trauma... i.e. people whose core issue is feeling unloved. Therapy has helped me realize that is my core issue, I feel unloved, unwanted, unworthy, and I'm sure it goes back to feelings I had as a child. Therapy has helped me realize this, but it doesn't solve anything, in fact it's like salt in a wound because you're primed to fall in love with a therapist who often won't even give you a hug let alone ever say I love you back. It is yet one more one-way relationship of you loving a person who doesn't really care all that much about you, with the only difference being your therapist is hopefully a lot less abusive.
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Hello. I have thought about this and have osrt of figured out that most everyone in my life betrayed, abandoned, and hurt me over and over again and that as a result I have never been able to trust anyone with my feeligns and life expereinces. When My DID got so bad I found myself in therapy after enough time feelings came out and I could talk about things and feelings and experiences for th first time.
I think it was a natural consequence of my finally being able to confide and learn trust (over a very long period of time) that this therapist would not exploit me or betray me --that what I began to feel for him felt like love.
Before I went into therapy, I was missing so much for so long. There was so much pain, so many empty spaces , so much confusion, fear, and outright grief. My therapist represented someone good. He represented someone who cared.
Saying that, I also have to say that like you, I got to a point where it made me very angry that I was basically paying someone to be nice to me. Then I felt like such a waste because this 'love I felt and my relationship with my doc was basically artificial, and I knew that. I think it also made me angry that I had no real friends. I wasnt close to anyone at all like my therapist.
Therapy takes time and our relationships with our therapists only work when based upon trust. Frankly, now that years have passed and my therapist has retired , I realized I never really knew him. I saw what I wanted to in him because I had put so many things on him, attached so many feelings to him. I was discovering and sharing things about myself and my life. It was so real, so stripped down and real. Sharing my most intimate feelings, fear, sins, crimes, whatever- made me feel so slose to him.
Being able to bare your soul wihtout fear of being rejected or made fun or or trivialized in any way is what makes therapy work. Feeling as if you are in love with your shrink somes with that. What I have found helps to put things into perspective se we can recognise this 'love' as being part and parcel of therapy is to ahve other things helping keep me on track. I have used yoga, meditation, journaling, painting, and dance as some of the means through which I have been able to express myself and grow stronger as an individual. As I grow stronger as an individual I feel stronger in myself and my worth as a person.
I wish there was more I caould say to make you feel better. Just remember that therapy can help you know and find and love yourself so you can embrace life and make a palce for yourself. Its really hard, but it pays off. Give yourself some credit for having the courage to want to fix things.
Also, in defense of shrinks, being a therapist has got to be a real trial. Some of the things they hear are absolutely heart rendering. they can only do so much. It cant be easy.
And while it is true, that our therapists cant love us patients the way we sometimes want them to, we need to admit that they show us love in other ways --thorugh a true dedication and commitment to helping us and accepting us no matter what .