How to find a balance?

I'm trying to find a balance between being too dependant on therapy and therapists and cutting all of it off completely. Its really difficult to get into the grey areas with this. At the beginning of the week, I wanted to leave and not go back because I was afraid I was becoming to dependant, by the end of the week I've let myself be dependant, and I find it hard to know if it was too far. In fact I'm finding it really hard to trust my instincts right now. our therapy group is changing in the next few months, funding being one of the factors for the change. There will be three people leaving, staff leaving. A whole new set up to our "group" its all quite overwhelming. I know that its going to be a learning experience and I think it'll be really important for me, especially since I want to cope with endings differently. But right now, in this moment, I'm feeling sad, upset, angry, scared.....

I don't post here often because I'm very worried about who could read this. But Its a friday, I don't have Therapy till Monday and there isn't anywhere else to get this out tonight.

((( pinkcorr ))) This is a very good question! For me, we think about the same things - our struggle to keep in charge of our healing our way, and our need to be led and taught by T so we can become healthier.

What I find is that I do allow myself to experience dependence to T - but in a safe way for me. Thankfully, he knows what I am doing and he is very supportive in my process. I know I am in charge of my healing. And he knows that he is my anchor. There are times when I am too close and I will back off. There are other times when I am hurting too much (I am in the midst of my trauma healing work) - and I NEED to reach out to T and send him an email. Somehow he knows when it is just a "Venting" email or when I really need him to respond to me. It is hard at times to want him to be there for me more than he thinks he needs to be - but I know he is doing it because I made it clear I wanted as much independence in my healing process as I could have and remain safe. Then there are times when I think I am just venting and send an email that I don't need him to reply to, but he knows I do need him and he will reply back with just exactly what I need to hear.

Therapy is like a dance. It takes a little experience with the same partner to know what they are thinking when they get ready to take a step. But it is worth the effort to spend time practicing. Maybe you can scale down the number of appointments but not drop it? That way if you need to attend more frequently, you can do that as well?

Thanks wpowers,
Really helpful advice, this will help me explain things when I go in on Monday. I'm in a three day programme so there is no option to drop any sessions, but this will be changing at the end of March. What will be offered is a group session one day, another group session onanother day and art therapy on a day with one of the group sessions. At the moment its 17.5hrs of different types of group therapy a week thats including lunch and an afternoon social time. I think this could help me be less dependent, in fact even though this change is going to happen I think it will be a very valuable learning process for me. I think the process has already begun. Its scary tho, I guess change can be scary for most people, even people without mental illness.

I also want to thank you for one of your responses to something I posted a while back about my feelings toward my T, it really helped to know that I wasn'tthe only one who went through this, and I think it was you who had made me think about how I wasn't "in love" with mt T personally, but "in love" with her as a T because I know very little about her personal life. And you made me feel better about the whole thing when you said who wouldn't be in love with someone who listened to you, who didn't want anything from you, who is patient, kind and caring.

so THANK YOU

:-) It is good to help one another. This journey is hard enough as it is - so it helps to have others along the way who "get it" :-)

Hi Pinkcorr,
I think it is hard to find a balance. It's kind of a strange actually....for most the week we're supposed to be pulled together and self-sufficent and independent. And then for the hour or so every week that we are in therapy we are supposed to be vulnerable and dependant on someone else to help us work through our issues. It would be easy if we could just turn these things on and off like a light switch, but of course it doesn't work that way.

The changes going on in your group do sound overwhelming. I like the attitude you have about it, thinking that it can help you grow and learn. I think that is the best approach you can take when you are facing something like that, and it is not easy to do.

Take care.

I disagree that "supposed" to be together and self suficent. I think thats more our own faulty thinking then whats "supposed" to happen. Because of being vunrable in therapy, I am learning
To be like that in the rest of my life. I think until we begin to feel and understand what it is to be humaN/healthy, its us that make to much out of recieving help, its us that make to much out of words such as dependency and attachment. Just go with the flow and watch It happen naturally.

Thats interesting, I never thought of it like that before. Sometimes I just feel like there is so much to learn and so many "rules" (rules I've probably made for myself) that I feel quite lost.

x

Can I ask you a question though?

Do you think there should be a line? For example, I called into therapy on Friday, and I got the feeling that the T I talked to was trying to tellme that I didn't need to call because I already knew the answer to what I was asking and to think about why I was finding it hard to trust my gut instinct. So now I've allowedmyself to feel guilty about calling, when I'm pretty sure thats not what she intended to do. But I still feel it, no matter how many times I tell myself that I don't need to be feeling guilty. I'm finding myself hard work this weekend lol.

Maybe you're right about this. But for me, I know I surely can't go about in my daily life being as I do in my T's office. I mean, expressing my fears, shame, doubts, constantly looking for validation, and depending on my T to help me process trauma and restructure thoughts.
My family and my co-workers would think I had lost my mind if I was dependant and vulnerable with them in the same way I am with a T.
Well, maybe I have lost my mind....

I,m not talking about talking about fears etc, though with certain people I trust that is possible, and being vunrable and looking for validation goes on for most people in their daily lifes. As humanbeings most of us like validation and feel good when we're chatting and someone nods their heads in agreement with us. I think your thinking in extremes.

Being vunrable isn't about falling about on the floor and acting out, its about being who you are. It will happen, perhaps your early in therapy still?

Yeah, I was using extremes to illustrate a point about finding a balance, which was pinkcorr's original topic and seems to have been de-railed by your being determined to disagree with me and prove me wrong.

sorry for this Pinkcorr. I'm sure this conversation isn't helpful anymore. Seems like I have it all wrong so just ignore me.

perhaps you're a little condescending?

Peace (out)

perhaps I am LOL!

I think this is a very complicated issue.

I know for me the concept of being dependent on someone was very foreign to me when I entered therapy. I grew up very quickly, taught myself a host of wrong things, and basically foraged my way through life. I found it very challenging to even think that there might be someone who is there for me and has my best interest exclusively at heart.

Where it gets complicated is the fact that the dependence on the therapist is, at best, a qualified one. If we reach for complete, utter dependence we will face plant against that therapeutic boundary. If we decide, I can do this on my own, well, why are we in therapy?

Perhaps it might help to think of therapy as a class that meets regularly, but not every day all the time.

We are control of the material presented in the class, reflect on it, discuss it, bawl over it, but the class ends. We can, or at least IMO should, be able to contact our therapist within reason out of session, but the homework is up to us to complete on our own.

There will be another class, there wil be another session, we can depend on the therapist being there, but do have to live our lives and do our work outside of the session.

With the consistency of meeting and occasional contact between session, I know I was able to incoporate this qualified dependence as good enough and much less scary.