I was going to write this IST but it was the hardest session I've had for a long time and I wanted to do a thread.
I went in and told him i wanted to read something I wrote after my last session which explores my feelings right after the session and I read him last week's ist post where I talk about feeling he was distant and not present, and that he shut down an exploratory conversation I wanted to have about whether or not on some level I desired a different kind of relationship with him.
After I finished he said "that's more of a recap of the session than your feelings". Then he sat and looked blankly at me. I said "What the he11 kind of a response is that?" He just stayed quiet. I said "I feel like you're looking at me as if I should say something but I've been talking for the last five minutes". I told him i was angry with him. He said he wasn't quiet because he was withholding, but because he didn't know what to do with this. I said I just want him to give a **** and so far this session I haven't felt that he has.
We sat in silence for a while. I said "I don't know what to say T said "so we're in a situation where neither of us know what to say.".
I looked at him and said "I don't want to be angry with you" he said "you don't want to be, but if you are you are."
A little later he said he was confused about what is happening. I said "what are you confused by?" He said he feels like I need something from him to do what I want to do. I said that I want to scream at him "I JUST WANT YOU TO CARE!". He said okay.
He asked me what from last session stood out. I told him the thing about moving house and the way he shut down the conversation about whether or not I, on some level, want a different relationship with him. He said let's deal with moving house first. I said okay. He said he had just wanted to make the connection that I was thinking about endings at a time when I am experiencing lot of endings. I said that it felt like he was responding to an idea of how things go rather than to me. He said that's possible. I said I didn't feel heard and he nodded.
Then he said right shall we move on to the conversation about wanting a different relationship.
I nodded. Silence. I said "Yes". Silence. I said "I've already told you why it bothered me".
T said "Okay, what sort of relationship do you want?" I said "Oh, we're doing this are we? We're just ignoring the fact you shut down this conversation last week and having it now instead?".
T stopped and looked at me. He said he had wanted to make sure we were on the same page about the boundaries. I said "and I have done what to make you think I could be on any other page?" He went quiet for a while and said "nothing.". I said to him that if he was supervising someone who had thought this way about a client he would be willing to explore it with them but he shut me down, it felt like he didn't trust me.
He said that the funny thing is that he feels like I don't trust him right now. I said Yeah, because I made myself really vulnerable and when he withdraws I am really sensitive to it. I feel like I want to defend myself against that now.
T said paradoxically he thinks that I want to be respectful of boundaries with him but I also want to affect him, though he trusts me "not to do the second bit" (which I didn't understand at all - he trusts me not to affect him wtf?)
I said I don't even know what he means by affect him. He said "I think you want me to show you that I love you". I said "I never even asked you to tell me that". He said "I know".
I could see time was up. I said I felt sad and confused. He asked what would help. I jokingly said more time. He said we could agree to an extra 15 minutes. I said okay. So I'll owe you an extra tenner. He said that felt awkward but also part of the frame. I said I didn't want to spend the 15 mins taking about that.
I said to him I don't even know what he means by show me he loves me. I said you show me that all the time, just in the way we work. He said what do you think is causing this rupture then? I said that you haven't been showing me for the last two sessions. (Because he's been withdrawn) I said he went from using the metaphor of us roped together climbing a mountain, To cutting the rope.
He said perhaps when I raised the question of wanting a different type of relationship with him it had scared him, though he wasn't conscious of it.
He said he faces a dilemma with me (he put his hands on the back of his head when he said this which I've never seen him do before.) He said a long time ago I asked him a question like "do you know what to do with this, because I don't" and he felt that he did know what to do, and he knows what to do when the relationship is intense but sometimes he doesn't know what to do "at the top of a f***ing mountain.". And sometimes he gets scared, which is okay, but it isn't okay if he shuts down when he's scared. He said he feels like we need to keep going up the mountain. That conversation felt honest and genuine for the first time it felt like we were communicating with each other. I felt a lot better in those last few minutes.
The time was up. I asked for a hug which was tight and warm. I don't see him for 9 days now. I'm exhausted.