Feeling Trapped

I posted about an incident with my husband and then a dream about my T in which each of them (husband actually and T only in a dream) trapped me in a room and wouldn't let me out, but I didn't for some reason ask to be let out. With H I freaked out a little bit and cried. In the dream with T I shoved her to get past her.

I'd like to continue talking about this, but I didn't want to hijack Pomegranate's thread http://forums.psychcentral.com/showt...=102494&page=7

So, to continue from where I left off, this was the topic I presented in my therapy session. After dreaming about pushing T, I was freaked out and feeling off all day. That was where I started to realize that I was really not acting effectively at all. In my groups the last week I've been teaching about acceptance, and willfulness. I realized that I was being willful in refusing to ask either H or T to let me out. And that I must have been reasoning that I shouldn't have to ask when they knew I was freaking out about being trapped.

I expected T to say pretty much the same as what I had started to work out. She asked me if I was angry at her when I told her I shoved her in my dream. That, I didn't really answer, and I apparently still need to work out why I'm feeling trapped in therapy. But I feel trapped all the time with H. And I never ask him to let me go. I just avoid him (such as not going to bed until time to get up) or pull away from him. T said that I set the whole being trapped by H blocking the doorway scenario up by telling him in the first place that I felt trapped. If I hadn't made an issue of it, T says he wouldn't have stayed there, or kept blocking me when I tried to get out. And generalized to the relationship, saying that it is my own choices keeping me feeling trapped. Somehow we ended up analyzing my family of origin, and that I chose to get away from my parents out of self-preservation because I couldn't live with what my parents wanted me to be (either just like them, or helpless and dependent). I can't quite remember the connection, now.

Anyway, I wanted to give an update on that. I'm probably not done with it yet, and it's going someplace different than I expected. The feelings with this include sad and scared. At least this is something to process, and I'm working on it.

I like the pome at the then that is really good. Wow that would be some dream.

Rap,
Your comments on feeling trapped caught my eye. I often feel trapped in my replationship with H. I don't remember my dreams much, but most of the ones I do remember invole being held down, paralyzed or in some way restrained. I've slowly started to realize that I do have the ablity to speak up sometimes doors open a little, yet often I still resist taking action. IDK why.

Perhaps your dream says you feel able to show/allow your anger about feeling trapped with your T, but not with your H (you choose avoidance, silence).
I agree there's a lot to learn about what feeling trapped means. It can be a general feeling of feeling trapped by helplessness, of being ovewhelmed, of being stuck with emotions that have no where to go, that we think don't belong yet they do because they're a part of all of us.

What! You set it up? Your husband chose to keep blocking you. Why would anyone who is caring do this? And remember he lectured you when you started crying. How caring is that?

She said he kept it going, but that if I hadn't told him I felt trapped, as opposed to just "ok, let's go" then he wouldn't have done the rest of it. She said he has plenty of his own issues, but as it is I act crazy and he gets to play the long-suffering spouse with the crazy wife. If I would quit playing the crazy wife part, then he could just look silly all by himself.

Interesting. Feeling trapped is scary and uncomfortable. Helplessness is one of the themes of my life though. I've been helpless and overwhelmed and hopeless and stuck so much. T has been trying to get me to stop doing the helpless thing. I take it to extremes, and I don't even see it. Like, once I arrived for therapy, and the front door was locked, and it was early spring and pretty cold outside, but I just sat down on the front porch and sat there until T came looking for me. I was afraid to bother her by knocking, ringing the doorbell, or calling her with my cell phone. I could have sat in my car, since I generally don't like being cold, but I told her I was fine sitting on the porch steps (I wasn't uncomfortable). She pointed out that I was acting helpless, and it was part of my pattern.

I feel trapped a lot too, and dream about not being able to do anything about it. There was one where someone was following me and harassing me, and I couldn't get anybody to help me because my voice wouldn't work. T interpreted that one as that I wouldn't talk. In the dream I was so frustrated because I couldn't talk, even though I kept trying. And T keeps trying to get me to see myself as having choices. I can't always see the choices.

My current signature is from the book/movie, "Dinotopia." It's a utopian society where people seem to pretty much follow those ideals. If you think about it, many of those ideals are paralelled in the scriptures of various religions, and since I've been studying DBT I'm seeing them there too (DBT having origins from Eastern religion). It would be nice if more people lived by similar ideals, and could count on others to do the same.

Survival of all or none.
One raindrop raises the sea.
Weapons are enemies, even to their owners.

Give more, take less.
Others first, self last.
Observe, listen and learn.
Do one thing at a time.

Sing every day.
Exercise imagination.
Eat to live, don't live to eat.
Don't put out the light.

Code of Dinotopia

This sounds a bit like this bully program that I really like that teaches empowerment. It is Bullies2Buddies.com.

Sounds like you have a lot of good issues to work with with this T.