My Support Forums - View Single Post - Discussing with a T the cause of or blame for ruptures

Brown Owl 2 · Sep 04, 2022 at 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oliviab

I have struggled with this with my T, as well. When he triggers me (usually by saying something thoughtless), I want him to own his part in it. He says that we co-create what happens in the room, but I am always dissatisfied with how he handles the ruptures. It always feels like he's not owning his part, that he needs to do more, to accept more responsibility, to feel worse than he does about it.

But I think the desire for my T to own that he hurt me and somehow make it all better is a re-enactment in itself. Because the abusers always denied any wrongdoing, I want my T to own more than he really should, to kind of "make it up” to me, to give me what I didn’t get in the past. Although he hurt me deeply, all he did is accidentally bump an old wound. He is not really responsible for the deep pain I am feeling in that moment, although it feels like he is.

It's possible if this is a pattern that has happened with all your T that it really has more to do with you than with them. (It's also possible that Ts really suck at this, that they deflect blame too much—that is a very real possibility.). Or maybe it’s some combination of the two.

I don’t know what happened between you and your T, so I’m imagining it to be like the ruptures between me and my T. So I’m imagining that your T didn’t truly “fail to keep you safe.” I’m imagining that your T did indeed keep you safe in the room (i.e., that you were not being abused or assaulted), and that it’s more that you didn’t FEEL safe. And I’m imagining that the feeling is because your T triggered a time in your past when you actually were not safe, and so it's easy to project that onto your T.

Like you, I have an internalized sense of blame and shame. And that feels so awful that sometimes I want to flip it and make is someone else’s fault, just so I can relieve myself of the burden of blame for a while. But I’ve come to believe that these situations are no one’s fault. My T calls them landmines. Neither of us put them there, and the only way to avoid them is to not move at all, which is no way to live. So we tiptoe around as best as we can, and he occasionally steps on one, and I can’t really blame him for it. Although I sometimes want to, and then we get stuck there and don’t really do the work that leads to healing.

I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say or if this has been even remotely helpful. Just know that you’re not alone in this dynamic.

Thanks. I identify with a lot of what you wrote. I remember you replying to me on a previous thread I started, and what you wrote then was also helpful.

You said that you can see a re-enactment in what happens with your T. I’m puzzling over that same thing too, as my situation feels like a re-enaction too, and that’s hard to make sense of. Now I’m pondering this, and thinking about what I’ve read about re-exactions, I’m wondering if the way I was talking to my T, somehow led her to respond in a way that is the re-enaction. Perhaps that explains it.

I also think that T’s do seem to suck at this, generally. I had one T who was brilliant at it, unfortunately she stopped working due to ill health.

There was someone who used to post on here who seemed to have a brilliant T, her T spoke of failing the client, that’s what gave me the idea that a T might take that approach.

About the question of whether my T ‘failed to keep me safe’. What you wrote is thought provoking. However I’m conscious that therapy can be re-traumatizing, and that if the trauma feelings are repeatedly triggered, that isn't going to be helpful, and that it’s possible that in that moment that triggered me, I wasn’t safe from emotional harm.