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Old Jan 27, 2008, 04:30 PM
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sunrise sunrise is offline
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Member Since: Jan 2007
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Wow, mckell, that is a really BIG assignment. I wonder why she gave you that? Did you seem to be stuck and asking for a way to get unstuck after having tried everything? It just seems HUGE and SCARY to me. But maybe smaller steps, face to face, were not working? Maybe your T wanted you to find out about how you felt about your H, but instead you came face to face with parts of yourself you don't like. I can understand why you might not be ready to share that.

Maybe this is way off, but maybe what you wrote is truly honest and perhaps it included some of your needs. That are not getting met by the marriage. And when you look back at what you wrote, that person inside we tend to train for decades to not have any needs, read those words and was horrified. Maybe it sounded like you were being selfish or saying "me" "me" "me". And maybe that is not so bad. Maybe you need an objective therapist to read what you wrote and reassure you that you are OK and it is OK to have needs and express them.

I think at the very least, you should share with your therapist why you don't really want to share what you wrote with her, and what this assignment brought up for you. Maybe you can just share verbally the gist of a few of your entries, instead of having to let her read all the entries. You can protect yourself a little this way, but still discuss some of the important content. One step at a time.
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