Hi LT

I have only been reading and not posting on the forum. I always read your thread though because I am always amazed by your self-reflection and can only hope I am able to do that in my own therapy. I won’t pretend to know what I think needs to be done in your situation, because I really don’t! Also, there are more people here who have better advice and who “know” you and your situation better than I ever could.

But I just wanted to share this. Your recent fallout with your T struck me because I feel like we both struggle with the same thing - just on opposite sides.

I don’t look for reassurance from my T. i’m the opposite. I dismiss it whenever he does offer it and I get frustrated that he’s not more direct and straightforward with me. I keep telling him to be honest, just stop being nice already, and just tell me what he really thinks. “just be brutally honest”, I would say every week.

For some reason, I reject anything he says that’s remotely encouraging or reassuring. I thought I wasn’t being needy because he didn’t have to prove to me that he cared all the time. But I actually was needy, just in a different way.

We have now gotten into discussions about why I feel like I need him to be “less nice”. He has told me how he feels about my demand of him to say certain things, but not others. In my mind, I thought I was giving him the freedom to say whatever he wants, but I realized later that I wasn’t. I was unconsciously trying to micromanage and control the things he said to me. He has shared his frustration with having to prove his honesty all the time. It was really only then that I realized that just because he is reassuring and supportive, doesn’t automatically mean that he is being dishonest.

It’s still such a struggle for me and it sometimes does get in the way of actual therapy, but I’m getting there. I can now identify when I’m about to ask him for a specific answer. I am now learning how to pause and ask myself if there really is a need for me to challenge what he says, or is it my insecurity talking again? Sometimes I wonder aloud and T helps me figure out where it is coming from.

I don’t think you’re doomed at all and I hope you find the right T for you.