Last night's session was spent dealing with a new crisis that arose over the weekend. So no ego state work this week, just putting out forest fires. The situation had to do with the family--my girls and H. Serious stuff. I so appreciated being able to dump this in T's lap, because I just did not know what to do. I am so glad he is a family therapist and that he has done couples work with us--he understands our family system. One thing he said after I explained the situation was, "let's take care of your feelings first, and then try to deal with the rest of this mess." I really liked how he called it a mess, because it sure is, and that validated my concern. And I liked how he put my feelings at the top of the "to do" list.
Now we have an action plan. It involves him calling another one of my professionals today and then calling me back and letting me know how to proceed. He promised he would call today and that he would write himself a big reminder note so he wouldn't forget. But he has done this in the past and not called. He is terrible with anything to do with the phone. I'm wondering if he will call today. I predict a 25% chance he will call. We'll see....
He made a lot of interpretations. He doesn't always do that. He's making a lot of connections between my abusive childhood and my present, the failed marriage, and the behavior patterns that I've brought forward into this relationship and why. I've heard some of this before from him. One thing I had misunderstood was that he had told me before that I had enabled my H's behavior in the marriage, and I had readily agreed, very willing to take the burden of the failed marriage upon my shoulders. (I so readily accept the blame for everything.) I thought he had been telling me that by failing to stand up to my H, that I was an enabler and that I should have stood up to him and enforced my boundaries. But it turns out he did not think this at all and apologized for the misunderstanding. He agreed I had been an enabler but he didn't think I should have stood up to H. He said the thing to do in a continually abusive relationship is leave, not stand up to them. As a child, you can't leave. He said now I was leaving, it was hard, but I was doing it. I was breaking a lifelong pattern of taking abuse, and he was proud of me. He said, as he has before, that we seek out relationships as adults that re-create our dysfunctional childhoods in an effort to surmount them and finally resolve the childhood pain and feelings of powerlessness. I guess that is what I am doing now and explains why I unconsciously chose this abusive relationship. I needed to get it right. While we were having this discussion, it was really sinking in, even though we have gone over much of this territory before. I was listening very carefully to him and
hearing him. Something was different. I think it was because he had moved from his couch to his desk and I had moved from my couch to his couch so I could be closer to him. I was very quiet as he spoke, processing. He and I were in different positions than our usual and it enabled the information to penetrate my brain differently. I changed places and the information just flowed in. Does that even make sense?