(super long, tbh mostly writing this for myself because I always forget details after a while)
I asked him what he thought I heard from him Monday
he said we talked about a lot of things, asked me to specify
I said it was about my father
He wasn't sure. Reminded me that mind reading is a cognitive distortion. He didn't want to guess, he wanted me to just tell him.
I was silent for like 30 seconds. Then I said "I told you that it mattered to me."
He asked what it was that he'd said that upset me. I said it was what he didn't say.
I reminded him that the whole subject had come up because I talked about having walked out of a recovery meeting because some father was talking about being an "authoritarian" and it sounded more to me like his kid was hurt and angry (the guy was a prick sober, I can't imagine he was any nicer drunk) and the father was just trying to punish his son into obedience. He even admitted to frequently losing his temper and sometimes storming off to drink. But everyone else in the room took his story at face value, agreed with him, told him that kids these days don't get enough discipline, their parents punishing them had made them better, etc (well you're in a meeting for people with substance abuse issues, so clearly you didn't turn out that well adjusted).
I know my father's side of the story sounds a lot like that. I was just acting out, a rebellious teenager, he was trying to instill discipline and obedience and respect, etc.
And if my father had been in that room they would have been telling him he was doing the right thing.
No one in the room asked if the kid might be hurt. No one asked why the kid might be acting out. No one questioned whether the kid might have the right to be angry.
I told T this Monday, then said I needed to know whether it was unacceptable/wrong/abusive and he gave some BS answer about caring about my feelings and how it affected me, not that question.
I told him this today. I told him his answer was the kind of answer you give to someone who's overreacting and blowing things out of proportion but you don't want to invalidate their feelings. He said we could talk about these things, if I want to know if he thinks those things he wants me to ask. I told him I could't ask a direct yes or no question like that because I couldn't handle a yes.
He said if he'd said yes I could have set the record straight, explained what it had been like and why it wasn't overreacting. I told him that if he'd said yes I wouldn't have done that. I would have doubted myself. That no one who hadn't lived with my father or experienced his rage believed it was that bad.
He said that he'd had many patients in abusive situations that no one outside of the situation would have known about, like a father who was a judge, and after a pause I said "or a well-respected mathematician" (my father).T said "yes."
He said I'd told him that my father would get inches away from my face and yell and wave his arms around and be physically intimidating and I couldn't get away. He said that sounded wrong to him, that my father could have calmly addressed the behavior that had upset him.
I told him that they weren't even things I had done wrong. Like my brother and I would get in an argument, my father would completely blame me, and then when I tried to defend myself and explain what had happened my father would get angry about "disrespect" and "disobedience."
T said that eventually I must have learned that nothing I would say would change my father's mind, that I wasn't going to convince him. I shook my head and told him that I never stopped arguing back. That there may have been instances where I decided it wasn't worth it, but there was never a point after which I stopped standing up for myself. That it wasn't fair or right. That my brother used to beg me to just placate my father because he hated us fighting, but that I wouldn't.
He said "good for you" and sounded genuinely surprised and impressed.
Then asked me where that voice that stood up for myself and defended myself was when I was being cruel to myself. I told him only I'm allowed to hurt me.
He said that's what we're working on changing.
He asked me, to the best of my recollection, on a scale of 1-10 how scared I was of my father when he went into those rages. I told him that I don't think I was scared. That I wanted to run away and hide, but there wasn't anything to fear. That my father never hit me. That I'd wished he would so I wouldn't have to go back.
He asked if I had nightmares or flashbacks. I said no. I did tell him about the dream I'd had where my father called my ex-T and he'd managed to convince her of how reasonable he was and she told me about this and that she now "understood" the situation and believed my father's version and that I had just been an unruly teen.
I'd told ex-T about this and she'd assured me that that would never happen, and she wouldn't take a phone call from my father but even if she did speak to him she wouldn't believe him. That nothing he could say would convince her. That she believed me.
I told T that, while there had been egregious boundary issues and all of that, that that was something I'd really needed to hear at the time and that it had meant a lot.
I told him that I hated the smell of toasted almonds, because when my father was drunk late at night he would toast almonds and often fight with my mom and I'd hear them screaming downstairs. And because he was drunk he'd often forget about the almonds and burn them and I could smell them.
I told him that I hadn't necessarily been scared of going to my father's house, but there was this overwhelming sense of dread. That, as I'd told him before, I would SH in the days leading up to it to cope with the feelings. That it had been self-soothing and about escaping my thoughts, not about hurting myself. T said that that says something about the situation, that I was 13 and using SH to cope with those things.
He asked if my father called me names/said bad things about me. I said no. That my father had sometimes criticized my academic performance and then blamed my mom for me not doing better. That I'd had a 2.6 GPA in high school and only got into a mediocre state school for undergrad. And when I told my father about my acceptance straight from undergrad into one of the top PhD programs for my field (a week after I told everyone else, ha!) his response had been to put down my undergrad institution and to say he'd always known that I could do better. And that my response had basically been a "**** you," my undergrad is the reason I am where I am today, and I would not have done well or gotten the research experience that I did if I'd gone to an R1. My father said that wouldn't have mattered if I'd had Berkeley or a school like that on my transcript. And I took delight in telling him that our program rejects plenty of applicants from Berkeley, including ones with better GPAs than I had.
T said I'd really internalized my father's beliefs. I noted that I'd never agreed with my father or cared about his opinion of me, and yet I really had internalized his beliefs. T said it was weird how that works.
I told T that logically I can remind myself that my mother is still super damaged by her relationship with my father, and that my brother hasn't spoken to my father since we graduated high school 6 years ago and used to regularly have breakdowns about having to go to my father's house. So that meant it wasn't just me who experienced this with my father.
At some point T asked me about my reactions to my father, like the dread and SH and all that, and asked what that told me about the situation (clearly looking for the answer that it really was bad). And I looked up at him and smirked and said "that I was weak?" T laughed and said he should have known that that would be my answer.
We talked about the fact that I hadn't SHed, even when I was really upset about this. I told him that I'd seriously considered it, but I didn't. Not because I thought I'd regret it, but because that would make it easier the next time, and the time after that, until eventually I'd be ending up in the ER again.
T said he admired that I resisted the urges and how difficult it must have been.
He asked me about challenging my own beliefs. Whether in those moments I heard his voice in my head. I told him that the times I did think about him I was either angry at him for not truly understanding and trying to get me to do this recovery stuff, or I was convincing myself that he didn't really care and hated me and I'd be doing him a favor if I just gave up. He said there had to be some part of me that knew that wasn't true though. I said yes, but that it felt really true.
That all these hurtful thoughts I direct towards myself feel really true. That in the moment really truly feeling like you're a bad and weak person who deserves to suffer is not pleasant. He kind of gently/seriously acknowledged that that must be really painful.
He wants me to work on believing that I matter. Said that some part of me has to believe that because I'm there working with him for a reason. I joked that the reason I was there was to have an excuse to take the afternoon off from work. Then I said I did want to feel better, but there was a lot of internal conflict about it. He said he knew that.
He said some stuff about eventually empowering myself, not believing those things about myself, etc. I told him that part of me liked beating myself up, that it was comfortable and safe. That it let me feel sorry for myself. He asked if that was what I really wanted and I said yes. I told him that I was worried everyone would stop caring. He asked me what I'd say to someone else, pointed out the people who care about me, and said it might be a different kind of caring or I might experience it differently when I let myself believe that I deserve it.
I mentioned at the end that this was my last scheduled appointment. We scheduled for Tues and Fri next week because I have seminar on Monday afternoons starting next week. He didn't even ask whether I still wanted two appointments, he just kind of assumed. Which made me feel better.
|