feel like i'll never make it.

I know T is genuine and I don't wish for another T, but sometimes I want her to say how what I am saying effects her. Yesterday was a bad day. I ran from my feelings and ended up just sitting on a bench alone watching the people go past. I couldn't bear how I was feeling and so badly wanted it to stop. I emailed T from the bench, half wanting her to get how bad I was feeling, and half wanting her to come to me, emotionally, I said how I didn't want to be here and wanted to tEll her hoq bad it hurt. She replied and in her reply she mentioned how angry what was done to me makes her feel. Its that that I need from her, I so badly want her to say how things make her feel, but I'm ashamed to want that and ashamed to tell heR thats what I want. I don't know why she doean't. I want her so bad, but cant say that either, I haD a dream last night I was flying at great speed and then suddenly made the dive into the water below me and the shear terror of not survIving the water woke me up, bUt I mananged in my dream to get myself to the surface of the water, telling T how bad I want her feels like that dive into the water below and not being able to get my breath.

((((((( Melba ))))))) I am so glad that your T did email you back. That shows you that you are in the heart and mind of T. I am also sorry that you hurt so badly and have that feeling of falling.

But you can fly higher than the valley. You are learning how to use your wings. When a baby Eagle first leaves the nest, it falls from a great hieght and crashes on the leaves bellow. How terrifying that feeling must be for the baby Eagle.

But T is like a mom Eagle and she knows you must experience this falling emotion first. The emotions will not kill you - even though they feel like they will. And I bet your T does know how bad that feeling is of falling. But T can not fly for you.

You can do it. You can bounce off the leaves and learn how to spread your wings and fly high into the sky. When the Eagle is flying, the valley below does not exist.

The feelings just help inform us what's going on with us and help show us a dream's meaning, for example. But never forget that you did manage to get yourself to the surface! You have made it in the past and probably will continue to make it, despite how you "feel"?

Melbadaze,
Hang in there. Seems like the times we feel most at wits end and unable move anymore..we some how managed to keep breathing.

In my own therapy there have been times (too many) when I've emailed or wanted my T to reach out and say SOMETHING that would just some how help me take that next breath, but she didn't.

IDK now when I look back on some of those times..her silence left room for me to help myself or for someone else to say what I needed to hear. I like to believe that in the end we get what we need. Of course, trusting that when suffering...well that's the challenge isn't it?

I understand that feeling too.

My T is careful not to tell me too frequently how my abuse makes her feel...tho she has said at times how much it saddens her or angers her. I think if she mentioned how it affects her too much, then I might start trying to protect her and not open up as much.

Seems like there's a careful balance there....T needs to let us know that they feel empathy and pain for what was done, but not so much that we start having to take care of T's feelings.

My previous T sometimes told me how angry she was about what was done to me. At first I thought I needed that from her because it felt good to hear that. It made me feel like she really cared, almost like she felt protective of me. But eventually it became a problem because if she didn't say it after I told her about something that happened to me, then I began to think it must not have been that bad or she would have told me that she was angry about it. So it sometimes made me doubt my own experiences. And then there were other times when something seemed to make her much angrier than I actually felt about it, which made me feel like maybe my anger wasn't strong enough. I ended up thinking that my reactions and feelings should be like hers because she was the T and her reactions must have been "normal" while mine were not.
Overall, for me it turned out to be more problematic than helpful, but certainly not everyone would have the same reaction.

Griff, your comment really made sense to me.

Yes some good points here. I normally go through my days in depressive cloud, but this is something different, it feels so bad I feel scared, I dont think I could bear T's normal silence or eye contact when I go today and tell her how bad I'm feeling, I need something real bad to change how I'm feeling, but then Id only be putting it off, well thats my only consolation right now, the life is fallen right out of me.

((((((( Melbadaze )))))))) Just hang in there and be HONEST with your T. T can help you.

(((((((((((((((((((((((( MDaze ))))))))))))))))))))))))))

I think back to some of your other posts, when you had some terrific growth and were flying high. those days, it made me happy just to hear from you.
You have not lost those things you gained; your airspeed may be a bit slower at the moment, but that doesn't mean you will never make it; perhaps you've just encountered some turbulence.

hang in there!!

I went to session, told T how I'm feeling about wanting to quit because turning up feels like a knife in my heart and that I will never be able to say what it is I want, at that point I got upset and said that I'm not saying I know what it is I want from here.

I couldn't bear another session where I say nothing so in temper spat out how I feel about her, how it hurts to not be with her all of the time and how at 48 I hate that I'm sitting telling another woman how I feel about her. Much silence again from T and then she said that its because these feelings were never dealt with as a young child or even younger as a baby and that its not so much how I feel that is siginifant, but how those who those feelings were originally directed at felt.

Some of what I'm saying here is disjointed, its hard to put a session into such a neat package. I kept protesting at her indifference to what I was saying and she said would it help you if I told you I cared? Toward the end I said when I loved my adoptive mother it made her feel sick, T agreed and said about that being about her, I said yes I know that NOW, but still, then I said it must make you feel sick having clients sit here declaring their undivided love for you. T said, "you do not make me feel sick".

Still struggling with the ache of love within me, I kept saying but how does what am saying and doing here now help???????? T said, well that fact that we are talking about them, I dont think you could have done that with your mother, or even have talked about them here once upon a time, talking will help, I said, but the ache won't go away, T
simple said, no and I don't think there is a single way to make it go away.

I came home and my whole body feels shakey, I feel these feelings that I spend so much energy keeping repressed are coming up and I don't see an end to them, I was googling about transference in therapy and some said that dealing with this isnt a piece of cake and there is no one way to describe it, it just hurts and needs to be understood.

I keep trying to see how T is being different to my original rejection and feel she didn't say or do enought, but perhaps thats more about how I experienced my rejecting adoptive mother, but it feels as if T doesnt care, I want to make her do or say something that will prove she cares, but a tiny voice in the back of my head says, but you know in the end this will all make sense and you will at some point in the future feel once again T is different to your mothers, both mothers the one that disappeared for real, and the one that was there, but really wasn't there, is this the pain of the then????

I didn't think loving was meant to be as painful as being angry, but it is for now, loving T hurts, I;m to anxious for resolution, I cant seem to slow down and look our relationship logically and objectively, I just feel as if I poured my guts out today and she said nothing, but then thats what it was like with my mother, to much mental noise to work out what is what.

They will end after they all come out.

dear Melbadaze,
I don't know if I can say this correctly but I will try.
A lot of what you feel comes from preverbal days, I think you know that. So when you try to gather up words to ask how can my telling you about this help, or what can you possibly say in reply that will help, it's hard because it's emotional but also because you have literally no words for that.
but the process does work - and your mind will work on your session maybe without your conscious awareness, at some level where there are not really words - I say this not to smooth things over but because I have seen it happen within myself - I knock my head against the wall trying to understand, and one day I find myself saying oh, yeh, I knew that - without knowing HOW or WHEN I did know it...

your transference is a good sign that the process works (stinks don't it, but it works) your upset is going to be dealt with unconsciously to some extent, and this is very good too. I'm sorry it hurts but please know that your processing will be going on 24/7, regardless, so please go gently and try to be careful, to be good to yourself.

THanks to all who took time to read and or reply!!!

Sitting, Thanks, thats helpful, thinking about all this going on sometimes just outside our consious vision, I;ll hang onto that for now!

Melba, you are one of the people who has impressed me from the beginning of how well you are making it. In spite of what you may think at the moment.

I know, my saying so is not the same as your feeling it...

When I get into a mood that is uncomfortable/I don't like, I ask myself how would I prefer to feel at this time, in this situation? Usually I end up noting that the feeling and the situation go together (sure don't want to be sad/grieving when someone dies but would you want to laugh when that situation was happening?). It comforts me to realize that some feelings just "are" and that they probably fit whatever situation; that my psyche/unconscious is doing the best it can and, actually, is doing well because as you stated, you know eventually you will come out the other end and be okay/better.

I do something like that when the yearning for my mother gets too strong; I imagine meeting her now, and what would I say? No clue :-) What would I do with her if I "had" her? It makes me feel a little less "crazy".

Oh, Melba. I ache for you and for me, and for anyone else going through this with their T. I keep fighting those feelings of love for my Ts, but they are making their presence known. I also have preverbal feelings that sem intolerable, at least they were when I was seeing Bt. I think the answer is to get the feelings out fully, not to repress them. You're doing that; your pain is tangible. I understand the ache, but I think it will get better.

Its so confusing, T says its more about the person these original feelings were for than about her, although some of them are about her and are real.

But I dont know what I am trying to do, yes I loved my adoptive mother, and would run home from sch to meet her from shopping and I never got the same gladness to be seen from her, yes I guess thats partly what I am dying from with T, to see her gladness in seeing me, and I get that, but suddenly its all gone, its like all the good I get from T isn't there. Perhaps its flashing in and out of the past and the present that is happening, but I'm so sure its not, it feels to urgent for it to be about the past.

Someone said the equivalent of the nipple to the baby in the adult realm is the meeting of to alike minds, is it that that I am fighting for with T, I want her to match my own pain with her pain toward me, I want her to say yes I feel like this about you too, but even as I write that last bit, I know that would be to overwhelming and I would run. But maybe for a young child having a mother smile when she returns is exactly what I am looking for, if T were to take advange of my feelings and go to bed with me (yes has been a phantasy) I can see how abusive that is, and I know intellectually T is "holding" me as I struggle with this pain, but the ache for now IS STILL THERE, was the ache this big once upon a time. What dose resolution of this issue look like to me? I guess having attacked T with it, and attacked her with it, and protested with her with it and she still sits firm "holding me", I feel I need a straight jacket to kick these feelings right out of me.

Melba - you are so brave to say what you did to T and show these things!!!
And yes, the emotions for T are VERY real and are about T. That is fine.
In therapy, we have real emotions with a real person in a SAFE location with an expert who is trained on how to extract these emotions from us. They do that so we can verbalize the feelings and examine them in the light. And with all that, you are doing great!!!

Maybe you are fighting to keep these feelings from the past inside?