(((Echoes)))

I can't tell you how many times I have experienced this very thing you describe--the inability to connect, HUGE chunks of silence, coupled with hearing things differently from the way they were intended. It is a difficult thing to endure but alas, I have found it is part of the process. When T and I are on different planes (him saying something he thinks is helpful and me interpreting it as negative) it is excruciating. I have found that the only thing I can do in these situations is to keep coming back and trying to explain how his comments make me feel, because all feelings are valid. It is important to try to allow your experience to exist. Journal if you can remember and try to move those feelings through.

You know, another thing I have found is that sometimes .... T is the one who just doesn't "get it." And again, the only thing I can do is keep trying to help him get me or decide that the issue isn't that important after all, experiencing both the give and take in the relationship. As much as we love our T's they are human after all.

I recently said to T that there were two of us in the room and sometimes he is grouchy!

Therapy is such a difficult proposition--a command to sit down at a moment's notice and have a most intimate conversation--as if we can just plop ourselves down and spill our guts, with reflective insight. If you think about it, it's amazing that we can EVER have a connected session. Not being able to "do it" doesn't make you a zero--just someone who has difficulty connecting in that particular moment. Keep trying. It will come.

(((Echoes)))