My Support Forums - View Single Post - The unconscious set-up

searchingmysoul · Mar 14, 2009, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peaches100

(((Searching)))

I'm sorry you're struggling with these feelings! When I read your post, it seemed notable to me that this incident of feeling "not worthwhile" and "not of any value" happened right after you'd had a discussion with your brother about your childhood. When you think back to your childhood, was this a prominent feeling you had about yourself? That your parents did not really care about you, and what you wanted or needed did not matter? If so, then talking with your brother about your past most likely brought up a whole host of these "yucky" feelings of being worthless and unimportant. It would make perfect sense, then, that if you called t afterward and did not get a reply, those feelings of being not important and not cared about might arise in connection with your t, even if you did not ask for a call back.

Babies and very young children can't always say what they need. So it's very important for a parent to be attentive to their baby or child, to notice their signals. To realize when their child is distressed or needs something. Then to respond. When that doesn't happen, the baby or child begins to feel "Nobody cares.

Thanks Peaches!

What you are saying makes a lot of sense to me. The reason I didn't want a call back at the time was because I need a lot of time to sort through my feelings. A LOT of time. This I do know about myself. So trying to talk at the time I called would have been full of barriers because of how long I take to emotionally process. I was suprised at my reaction that I posted about though. I do think you right in two ways I did want to be checked on in a "developmental" sort of way- like a parent anticipating a childs needs and the feelings that I felt from not being checked on were a recreation of very old childhood feelings. I also think this unconscious set up was an after effect of the conversation with my brother but my feelings after that convo were different. It is also an old thing to want to make the world against me so that I have to work everything out on my own... Which is what I did in that situation too... I really appreciate your insights in this...Thank you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunrise

Once I started telling T a lie, in session, and caught myself mid-lie, and suddenly just said, "no that's not true, what happened was..." T didn't bat an eye. I have also learned not to "make nice" when I don't feel that way, or say, "oh that doesn't matter," when it really does. T says this is being more authentic--having what you present to the outside world more in sync with your inside world--the real you. I remember one time T and I were riding the elevator to his office together and he said he had been really worried about me because of our last session (which was very volatile). In the past, I might have been embarrassed for my behavior at the session, but not any more. In that session, I had been feeling angry, upset, volatile, and I let T see that. AFter all, why not? He is the therapist, he is supposed to hear that stuff. So I was really proud, in the elevator, that I didn't respond to his comments about our last session with a lame apology, such as, "oh, yeah, sorry about that last time." Instead all I said was, "last time was really intense." I was so proud of not apologizing for that session! That doesn't seem like much, but it is big progress for me not to minimize my feelings and not to always feel like I have to smooth things over.

Sunrise- you have said so many great things here- I bolded the part about authenticity because I said once that I want to be "congruent". That I want to match my inside to my outside and that what I say and do is true to myself. I have not been able to catch myself in session being incongruent yet. But I am able to think over it after and go to the next session and reflect on the places where I have not been authentic or told the truth or minimized. I guess I will be working on doing things more in the moment. Thanks Sunny!