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Originally Posted by toomanycats
LT - I've spent the last 45 minutes reading through all your posts to catch up on what happened. I'm really sorry you are going through such turmoil. If I'm honest, it brings up so much of what happened with me and my ex-therapist (S) that I'm not wholly sure I can respond "unbiased." But, I will try.
First - to respond to some things:
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Thanks for taking the time to catch up and comment! I totally don't expect unbiased commentary
It helps to hear from people who have "been there."
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I always thought S's looser boundaries with me made me special. I mean, I FELT special...but I also felt tortured. By guilt, questions, unequal ground...it was a stressful relationship.
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Oh, I know exactly what you mean--MC's letting me e-mail/talk to him outside of marriage counseling sessions made me feel special, too... Yet still wanting more...
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My new T (C) seems a lot like your new T. C will do phone calls or texting at his normal hourly rate - you don't even have to be in crisis to use it. I can email at any time, but he is not obligated to read or respond (he has said that any email responses he supplies are free).
C and I began our relationship by setting these boundaries - literally, day 1. I have also gone through bouts of hating the whole "I have to pay for you to be there for me" thing, but I have also noticed a HUGE reduction in the amount of stress I feel about outside contact. There is no guessing - no waiting game - no "why hasn't he responded" ...ok, maybe not NONE of that (because email), but so so much less. I know that I can reach him, and I don't leave our phone/text conversations feeling that I owe him anything/that he has just done me some huge service that I now need to compensate for.....well, outside of the money I owe. It's freeing!
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Interesting that they have similar boundaries...I feel much less stress about my relationship with T as well. I'm sure part of it is that I haven't known him nearly as long, but in some ways, it feels almost "safer" with the boundaries. And I seem much more able to "sit with anxiety" after sessions if I'm worried about how he reacted to something because I haven't gotten into the e-mail/texting habit with him. But if I really do need to contact him, he's there (though not really between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.--like he won't respond to phone calls or texts during that time--but I can respect that boundary, too).
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I also know far less about C than I did about S. Far far less. And while I always felt "special" because S told me so much, it also put a lot of emotional baggage and weight onto me -- I felt the need to take care of him -- the need to consider ALL of his current life situation before asking for any of my needs to be met. I feel so so much more...safe, really...with C. I don't know every little thing going on in his life, so I don't feel like I need to filter my issues to "lessen the load" for him.
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Yes, "safe" is a good word for it. I also feel like T has a good work/life balance. That he's taking plenty of time for self-care, family time, etc. He also sees fewer clients in a week (hence his ability to fit me in for extra sessions). MC often seems like he's trying to be everything to everyone all the time--packed client schedule, looking at texts he gets during session, answering the phone at 3 a.m., etc. I think he's overextending himself (particularly when his wife was sick) and can't really be there completely for anyone--let alone having time for himself. I really wonder if he could be headed toward some sort of burnout...(or maybe was already there at some point).
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Point is -- boundaries make or break a therapeutic relationship. And, in my experience, a T with blurry boundaries cannot transition to clear boundaries with the client he's had blurry boundaries with. It just doesn't work -- there are too many rejection feelings, too much guilt and self blame.
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I agree here, too--and it seems like it was difficult for MC to understand the effect that his changes had on me. Because he kept saying, "I'm not rejecting or abandoning you. And I'm not saying you can't ever text or e-mail me." Finally, he seemed to understand.
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I know someone else said this, but I had to comment, because this has been a really important thing for me to remember. I have a lot of paternal transference for C. And, sometimes, when he says something highly paternal, I get a jolt of pleasure that courses through my whole body -- and I do mean my whole body. A few years ago, this would've terrified me. But, now, I realize that it's just ALL of my pleasure centers firing. It's a very weird experience.
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That's an interesting way to put it, how all your pleasure centers are firing. That's sort of how I felt after Monday's appointment, where MC had seemed to understand and take responsibility and was reassuring me. It can be like a drug almost (but I guess that's what drugs do to you, too--hit your pleasure centers). The couple times with new T where I've felt something like that, my first thought is, "Oh no, am I feeling this for him, too?" But then I realize that feeling connected to someone--including a completely platonic female friend--can feel that way at times for me, too. So maybe it's just about the connection...and I did ask T what would happen if I ended up getting attached to him, and he said we'd work through it, that he wouldn't just drop me--so that made me feel better. Having my first dream involving him last night freaked me out a bit, too (though...part of the dream was kind of amusing). Like, what does it mean? Do I tell him about it? Will he get weirded out?
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So, now what I do feel like I see... but I also feel like you don't want to see...
Whatever you want to label your feelings - transference, erotic, paternal, romantic, platonic - they have elements of all of the above -- tinged with everything. I agree with the person above who said it's BOTH paternal and erotic/romantic. That was a really really hard thing for me to admit myself about S -- See, I was PETRIFIED of having erotic/romantic transference towards S...terrified of it. I sought reassurance all the time that my transference was NOT sexual in any way (a topic for my own therapy at another time). But, once S was no longer my T, I had to just admit it to myself: no, I don't want a relationship with this man; no, my feelings aren't based in the reality of who he is; but, yes, they absolutely come with romantic/erotic feelings too. But that is not easy to admit because there are so so many layers of reasons why I DON'T want that to be the case... and so it's far better to just reason my away out of it...to prove that it's not true.
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That's really interesting that you were so afraid of the erotic/romantic. I think I feel more guilt about those sort of feelings--especially because he's my marriage counselor. Really, I think it's the romantic feelings that scare me the most, so when T said that e-mail I sent to MC sounded like a love letter, it was like, "Oh no..." But sometimes I think, maybe it's kind of safe for me to have those feelings for him, because nothing could realistically happen. And I know if something would somehow happen, if he crossed that line...it would probably destroy me.
So are you saying it would have been better if you'd just admitted those feelings to yourself earlier on instead of fighting them? I think also, at least in my experience, that if you fight against feelings, it can make them stronger...which I think may have been the case with transference for MC in general for me.
I'm thinking now, in part due to what happened recently and also from a discussion I had with T in session yesterday (and then with H), we may need to stop seeing MC. Maybe not immediately and cold turkey, but to wind down. We're already not seeing him till Jan. 3, so I figure I'll see how I do during that time. T asked me, "Has it already gone past the point where it's effective marriage counseling for you and H?" Like, are we past the point of no return, in a sense? And I think I know the answer to that... (Might write up yesterday's session later, though I feel I'm totally monopolizing the IST thread!).