Quote:
Originally Posted by ElectricManatee
I don't understand him trying to convince you to trust him. I don't have nearly the trauma background that you do, but overcoming childhood stuff for me has involved trying to hear my own voice and trust my own instincts. My T is consistently very warm and kind, and I still get the urge to run the other way sometimes. Instead of telling me to trust her, she waits, sits patiently, gives me a chance to doubt her, lets me run away and then come back if I need to. Over and over. Lots of flexibility and empathy and encouragement but never pressure. It's 99% show and 1% tell.
I also can't imagine my T ending the relationship over some kind of messiness that happens between us. I have said some things to my T that would probably cause your T to lose his mind (including calling her smug and implying she is a bad parent), and she's still right there. Deep healing demands deep trust with somebody who can demonstrate that they are worthy of trust and who is confident that they can use your trust in the service of your own improvement.
I don't think your hesitation here is a CPTSD overreaction, but even if it is, you deserve to be in a safe space where you can take apart that reaction and see which parts serve to keep you safe in your present life and which parts of the reaction you can start to set aside.
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I agree with this. I have issues with trusting my T, particularly because of what happened with ex-MC (and a bit with ex-T). But my T seems patient with me and, particularly in the past few months, has been giving me the reassurance I need. Like, when we had the conflict about the stone a few months ago, and I worried he'd kick me out over that or for some things I said/reactions I had. He told me that even if I say something that bothers him or makes him uncomfortable, he'd never just get rid of me--that we'd talk about it and work through it (the one exception being if I physically threatened him, but I assured him that I'd never threatened anyone in my life). And letting me know that if anything gets close to bothering him (like, if I were to e-mail him too much), he'd tell me early on, not let it get to the point that he's angry or that it's the last straw, so to speak. He's vowed to be a "straight shooter" with me, which at times can be difficult because I'm not used to that from people, but which I also appreciate in some ways.
I feel like a T saying "trust me" puts it all on the client. Like, "Why can't you trust me?" Like it's something the client is doing wrong, a failing in them. When many of us who see T's have big trust issues and abandonment fears for various reasons. It's not easy for us to trust people, especially authority figures. It's like they need to show they're trustworthy and reassure us in other ways, not just say "trust me." (Pretty sure my T, for all of his faults, has never said those words to me, and I'd be bothered if he did.)