i think i might print your response off alex... and maybe give it to T, but i will definitely bring up some of your points with him
last week was kind of that way, except instead of silence i challenged and pushed him into frustration, which he admitted. It was that honesty and self-disclosure of feelings that changed everything. Instead of him walking away all pissed off at me (like everyone else does), he talked about it. It put me in a different place and the second half was the best ever.
silence.. not so good. i think i would get up and leave.. my head would explode... right now anyway. i hope i can get to the point at which i don't feel that need to perform and then i can cope with silence sometimes. Right now he rescues me.. and that's ok.
and yeah, those feelings wear off.. the good ones. T says it's because they go against your beliefs, and if you could change them quickly then they wouldn't be beliefs at all.
that notion os progress/performance.. it's huge. i am always performing for someone.. it's how i have survived at all really. The real me is so dysfunctional, so unlikable that i drive people away... performing is how i manage. It's no surprise i would try to please him... and he has unwittingly helped that along... offhand comments that he won't even remember but that impacted me. He asked me one day a while ago what i thought i was getting from therapy... innocent question right? Nope. To me that says "you need to prove to me that there is progress or we are done, i can't help you."
he has tried hard to repair various ruptures in trust... and i have been as honest as i can be about when they happen. We had a huge discussion about how i was making a baby step that i had been proud of, but his expectation raised the bar too high and robbed me of that accomplishment. He felt pretty bad about that... and it still affects me.
not good enough, fast enough
he knows i feel a lot of this, but i think he is really getting just how bad that is... especially in therapy.
god... why does he have to be so %#@&#! nice? It would be easy if i could just get mad at him... but he sidesteps my attempts. Damn him