Quote:
Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
I know it is so important to feel understood by your T. I have gotten stressed out about this many times. It feels like a pre-requisite to them giving you the empathy you crave.
And… here’s the But:
I mean impermanence is a fundamental existential truth, right? We are not permanent beings. Every relationship ends. There’s a lot of freedom in accepting that. What if your job here is not to learn that things are permanent but to accept that all we have is now... and become okay with that?
You are okay. You love people even though they may die or otherwise leave temporarily or permanently. You are building security within yourself even though the world is uncertain. It’s no use telling yourself that there is permanence and security; there isn’t. But there can still be trust and okayness.
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I don't think this is about permanence. I'd say it's about continuity. Or lack thereof. It's about the difficulty or even inability to differentiate between a temporay absence of someone who's still out there and still cares and can be trusted to return, and a permanent loss.
For me, it's like ... I tolerate being alone in the sense that I don!t freak out and I can find ways to occupy myself. It recently came up in therapy that I could do so at an age when some mothers report that they can't as much as go to the loo and shut the door without their child despairing. BUT that doesn't mean I was or am dealing well with it, but ... dunno, hard to put into words. I might somehow dissociate the feeling, which means I'm not dealing with it but I'm also not dealing with anything else - I might succeed in forcing myself to do stuff, but it doesn't feel like anything matters or is even real.
As far as object constancy I ... kind of have issues I think. I have a vague concept of people I know being out there, but it's hard to take their existence seriously unless I meet them regularly. With xT, I'd form some sort of image of her in session, then in a couple of days I'd start struggling to hold onto it, doubting the reality of it and reverting to seeing her in therms of my fears and hopes. There was a lot of anxiety involved for a number of reasons. With current T, the overall anxiety ;evel is far lower and I've been semi/consciously keeping my distance from her so far ... will have to see how that changes. Also, xT is still my main attachment figure, so the longing and aching for her is still there.