Love for my therapist

First off, yes I know there is a special section for therapy and I post there often, just wanted to get other views from different users.

Ok so I've told my therapist I love him. It's not a romantic love, its more friend/family type love. I compared it for him, with how I feel about my dogs. He gets it. He handled it amazing and has been saying the word a lot, because I wont actually say it, I wrote it down to tell him.... and he's trying to get me to be ok with it.

Problem is, the way I grew up, such things are NOT ok.... no emotions or affection in my family and love was only used manipulative ways. I thought I loved my family at a young age but looking back, it was more because I thought that was what you had to do. They don't love me, I don't love them.

I do however love my dog (I had a second dog but he passed) and dogs have been something I've connected with in life more than any human. It's easy for me to say and feel love for them.

I keep emotionally distant from people intentionally.... but this just sort of happened. I'm scared and confused and full of intense shame. I am not used to feeling love of any type for people.... and I guess I just need some thoughts, besides talking with him about it, how can I get myself to learn to accept and be ok with it instead of thinking I am dirty and awful and I have this shame, like if anyone in my family found out, I'd be mortified. I wont tell anyone that I actually know because of this intense shame. I feel trapped and so stupid, help!

Platonic love is great! Be ok with it. I hope you can find more of it. I hope you can find a deeper, possibly romantic love with someone some day.
Was your family emotionally unavailable too?

Yes and still is... it's one reason I struggle in therapy even after a year, I shut down so much because I have trouble expressing emotions and feel tons of guilt when I do.

I wish you could talk with my therapist. He pretty much comes out and says that he loves dogs more than people. I know im waaaay down the line. Waaaaaaaaaaay. Seriously. But thats okay. Plus im glad he understands that i got along better with my mom's neighbor's dog, than i did with my mom. That dog and i bonded, whereas i dont think my mom and i ever did. Eta btw the dog was a pit bull. Idk wth my mom was!

I love dogs more than people too, always will

I want to know what love truly is. I don't think I have so far.

I don't think the problem is the love for the therapist, it's the shame for feeling it. Once you can overcome the shame, or set it aside, then the ability to say the word 'love' will become easier.

^ yes but how do I do that is the issue?

I know it goes back to my childhood and any sort of emotion that was not happy/content was not ok, and love/touch etc was all pushed as sexual in my head so even though I know it's not, that shame of, well maybe my family is right and it is, keeps going on and on in my mind. It's frustrating.

I am sorry you feel shame. Feelings aren't right or wrong, they simply are. You are wrestling with those old "tapes" in your head. What a shame your family taught you how they did. Love and loving others is so important in life. With work and therapy, you can change (those old tapes). xo

Hi. I don't really know how to overcome shame but I'm kind of assuming it can be. Maybe it's something your therapist would be happy to help you with. Yes, mention it to your therapist. I can definitely relate to your negative childhood experiences of expressing emotions, too.

We talk about it quite a bit, it makes me uncomfortable LOL

I think the shame comes from it being him in this case, it feels so very wrong, even though it's platonic and it happens often in therapy, it still feels so wrong to me and In turn I feel like a sicko or a bad person for "allowing" myself to get there

Idk, i kinda wish i had found a t i could like earlier on in my career as a client. It makes things less doctor-official and more human, which is ultimately what t stuff is about. Yeah its painful, but its your pain, and that doesnt make the situation wrong. The pain is there regardless - working on changing things is a noble and proud thing to do.

I also feel this love / shame thing with my T in somewhat of a similar way to you. We talk about it a lot. It's hard, but I feel like we're making progress. Hang in there

TBH I avoid reading the therapy section threads too much since I feel like there is a risk that they will make me feel worse encourage me to ruminate about some of this stuff.

I've come to define authentic love as a feeling and experience of closeness and connectedness with another 'being'. By defining it this way, it can be applied to a wide range of relationships - parent/child, siblings, girlfriend/boyfriend, husband/wife, same sex friendships, human/animal relationships, etc...

Society conditions our physical minds to only equate 'love' with specific types of relationships... And our society mostly emphasizes and promotes 'romantic love' more than anything else - which often manifests as psychological attachment and codependency type relations...

As a result of your earlier life experience - your psyche and physical mind (understandably) became conditioned by the circumstances of the family dynamic that you endured through.

Now the task in your adult life us to gradually work to undo the conditioning! Which will be deeply healing and transformational....

I love dogs as well and connect/bond with them very easily. The love/connectedness is authentic and pure - there are no special conditions involved...

Your experience of 'shame' is real - BUT these circumstances do not warrant/mandate that you or anyone else should have to experience shame! It's very important to connect with this awareness. You are experiencing 'shame' in response to your going through these circumstances - but this experience of shame is influenced by your past and not a required/necessary response to the present circumstances. In realizing this for yourself and fostering your awareness - you can separate/isolate the 'shame' from the actual external circumstances which helped to trigger/elicit that response within you. So from a higher perspective - it's not the generalized 'patient/therapist circumstances' that are the source or real cause of your experience of 'shame', it's the unresvoled emotional 'baggage' from your past that hasn't been healed yet. Being aware of this serves to take the 'charge' or seeming 'severity' out of the present day circumstances, which only on the surface appear to be causing your emotional activity/reaction. The external circumstances are the trigger for deeper internal circumstances that need to be worked out.

Based on what you've shared - it sounds likely that you have experienced being closed off and disconnected from the influence of your Heart Center, and the types of emotions/feelings that it generates. Now with this present development in your life - it sounds like the current circumstances are bringing about the conditions whereby you are reconnecting with the heart-based emotions and feelings that you had been closed off from for so long. So it's kind of like you are re-awakening that element/aspect within you. The therapist can be viewed as an important helper/facilitator/contributor for this process. No shame necessary or required. This is a positive, functional development and a part of your healing process.