Quote:
Originally Posted by chihirochild
We started ten minutes late, which is a bit unusual--he's often running from somewhere else on the hospital campus which makes him open his door a few minutes after the hour but not like this. It doesn't bother me, especially, because he always makes up the time at the end (though sometimes that means I'm a bit late for group afterwards).
HWMNBN asked what I had for the agenda. I said I'd had a good week, and felt like it might have had something to do with the fact that our last session had felt nice--like some part of me that had been screaming had been quieted, like some need of mine had been tended to. I also had to talk about a scheduling conundrum related to whether or not I should tell some people I'm working with that I've got a mental illness (all the people at my current workplace know, but I'll be rotating at a different hospital; it's complicated b/c I might want to work at the new hospital someday so I have a desire to seem impressive to them). He, of course, wanted to talk about what he so awkwardly phrased "dating updates." (Just to be clear, I don't think he has some kind of prurient interest in my dating life--he just wants me to be doing the sorts of things that other people my age are doing like dating and spending time doing fun things and that sort of nonsense. My annoyance is with his persistence and his sort of awkwardness in doing it.)
Anyway, I told him that that I classified the week as a good one mostly because I only felt really terrible once. (I had an upsetting meeting and felt really awful but managed to hang in there and go to a movie with a friend instead of cancelling or worse.) We talked about the dates I'd been on (one okay, one really kind of lovely).
Ack okay wow the NyQuil just set in--to be continued (hopefully tomorrow if this stuff makes me sleep through the night)
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Okay, I'm back--that stuff is stronger than I remember!
I'd forgotten to add that about five minutes after the appointment was supposed to start, HWMNBN stuck his head out of his door and said, "I'm sorry, I've got a situation and I'm going to be late." And then at ten minutes after this other patient left, and HWMNBN came to fetch me. He apologized and I said, "it's okay--people don't tend to fall apart on schedule."
Anyway, we talked about the guys I've been dating: M (the guy who I liked talking to but wasn't really attracted to) and J (the guy who at the time of the session I was really starting to like... though I've since gone on a third date and decided he's not for me, but that's a different story). HWMNBN commented that I was making the guys work for it a little (e.g. not responding very promptly sometimes). I said that yes, I knew I was doing that--I feel, in some part, un-loveable and un-wantable. Every time I go on a date I am a little shocked that they don't flee as soon as they catch a glimpse of me. (He looked really sad when I said that--looked like he had tears in his eyes.) I feel more secure if I have evidence that they actually like me and want to spend time with me. I'm not, like, playing hard to get, but I do recognize myself allowing the guys to pursue me a little.
And then things went wrong. I don't remember anymore how we got onto this topic but he said something about how I wouldn't have stayed in therapy with him if I had thought that he was only working with me out of professional obligation. I wondered aloud what feelings he might have towards me outside of professional obligation. He gestured towards me to indicate I ought to answer, I rolled my eyes and said something that I've now forgotten. It was very difficult to say but I eventually spat out that I wanted him to care about me as a person. I didn't say I wanted him to say that to me, I just said that I wanted it to be the case. (We were also talking about other stuff like how I care about my patients outside of professional obligation etc.)
His response to this really didn't feel good. He said that this conversation felt something like me asking for a hug (which, just to be clear, I have NEVER asked from him, and don't even want from him; that's something that I've wanted from other therapists and talked with him about). I startled a little when he said that and he asked why. I said that was because conversations where I ask therapists to do something that might qualify as "meeting needs" tend not to go very well or feel very good.
Aaaaand it didn't. He basically was like, "I don't think I should tell you how I feel." His reasons included, "I don't think that how I feel is important" (to which I wanted to scream, "COUNTERTRANSFERENCE CAN BE USED AS A TOOL TO BETTER UNDERSTAND PATIENTS YOU DING-DONG"), "can't you tell how I feel?" (which is just stupid), and some other stuff I don't remember. He said that this was an awful way to end a session to which I agreed but I had to leave because I was late for group.
I was still feeling hurt all through group. I told the group what had happened, that it feels like every time I start to feel safe with him and say something vulnerable, I end up getting hurt. The group leader said she really thought that our sessions needed to be audited (that's not the word she used, but that was the idea of it), and she was going to make that happen. (HWMNBN and the group are both part of a bigger program so they work closely together--like, she watches some of my sessions, and HWMNBN watches some of the group sessions.) She didn't say it in a punitive kind of way, but said something like, "we all have blind spots, and we all sometimes fall into re-enactments." I think she's right.
(LT, I thought of you during this last part of the conversation--similar to that conversation you had with your therapist a while ago about wanting him to say, "I care about you.")
ETA: He also said something about the fact that our sessions are very intense, which tbh I hadn't noticed, especially. (I mean, yes, they can be intense in the way that therapy often is... but not more so than other kinds of therapy I've had.)