Is the T Relationship Worth the Pain

Hi Treehouse,

Yes, I think part of therapy is learning that you can overcome difficulties in relationships. It's just that my t and I seem to have an extraordinary number of rifts. I think I end up being the cause of alot of it because maybe i expect too much from her. But sometimes i think she fails to be attuned. It seems like if we have had enough problems that we worked through together, I would take the problems more in stride and know that things will work out again. But instead, i find myself getting tired of having the ruptures period. It seems like i can't feel safe and calm and happy in the t relationship for any length of time before I'm getting my feelings hurt once again. I have a side of myself that gets tired of trying and wants to say, "Relationships? Blah! I don't need anyone. People can just go jump in a lake and i'll live like a hermit."

Hi Sittingatwatersedge,

Growing pains. Maybe you're right. Maybe that's what it is. I think it's so hard and painful. And the thing is. . .I don't want the pain. I despise the pain. I don't want to accept or feel it anymore. I want it go away. My husband says i just want Candyland. I want everything to be good and happy. Well, I do. I know it sounds stupid but i don't think i want any relationships if it means having to deal with misunderstandings and hurt feelings and problems all the time, like my t relationship seems to be like.

My t says life is full of pain and challenges, and we all have to accept it and deal with it the best we can. But i so hate it. Every little bad or sad thing in the world hurts me. Dead animals laying on the street. Hearing about the latest murder. Arguments between neighbors. War. Losing loved ones in death. Illnesses. Misunderstandings. Abandonments. I don't want to see or hear about bad things anymore. I have faith that God will bring a new world soon, but the current one pretty much sucks, and sometimes i just don't want to be here. I want to crawl in bed and put the covers over my head and stay there where nothing bad can happen to me and nothing can hurt me. (I actually do sleep that way, with my head under the covers. Makes a little tent, where i feel safe.)

(angry little girl goes into cave, blocks door with huge rock, and says "Forget this! I'm not coming out until things are better! )

Hi Oceanwave,

I'm glad that talking about it with your t and understanding where the rifts come from has helped you, and reduced your pain ultimately. I wonder what it will take for my pain to reduce?

My husband and I were talking about pain last night, and he gave me an example of how he deals with his physical pain (he has a disease that causes him intense pain). He said that when he notices the pain gets too bad, he watches TV and that enables him to distract from the pain even though it is still there. It's more manageable.

I told him that, in my case, i will notice the emotional pain and try to distract using coping means, etc. But the experience of the pain is so strong and hurts so much that any method of trying to distract or cope fails to reduce the pain. Eventually, the suffering feels so great that something internally shuts off and i go numb. Hubby says it's not possible to shut off emotions, but i disagree. It's like, "I can't cope with this internal pain. It's going to kill me. Therefore, the pain doesn't exists and neither do I."

(gets in bed and hides under covers. . . wait for sleep to forget it all)

(goes into cave again)

You can't control her responses, but is there any way you could change your expectations?

T and I have had a lot of ruptures...some huge, some smaller. Whenever we have one, I think "I wish I wasn't in therapy, so I wouldn't be feeling this pain". It's miserable. And I draaaaag myself back and we work through it, and in the end, things are better then they were before the rupture. The time between ruptures gets longer and longer, but they still come up.

But! A few weeks ago, I had a VERY BIG fight with a friend. I don't fight with people, and it was strange, but she had really really crossed a boundary that was not okay with me at all. A few years ago, I would have been scared to stand up for myself, and I would have just cowered and let it go. This time, I clearly told her "I am setting a boundary. Do not do this thing ever again". In the end, SHE was very upset and worried that our friendship would be over, and I was able to tell her that even though we were mad, the underlying relationship doesn't change. I learned that in all of my ruptures with T. And things are FINE with my friend. The fight happened, we talked about it, and we moved on.

As much as I hate ruptures, I have learned a lot from them. I've learned how to work through things with people, I've learned that relationships don't have to be undone by even a BIG disagreement, I've learned to stand up for myself, I've learned to check things out with the other person to see what's really going on, I'm learning to check in with myself to see how I *really* feel about something instead of shutting down or running away. I wish I could have learned all of that in a different way - by reading a book or something - but for me, this is how it had to happen. And I'm still learning, and there will still be more ruptures, and hopefully we'll work through them and I'll grow a little more.

The relationship IS painful sometimes, for so many reasons. For me, the ruptures are painful, but the closeness can be painful too.

Dear Peaches,

What really helped me with rejection / abandonment issues was situations in real life where I was accepted. Finding a partner, making a new friend, getting a new job, etc. Every experience of acceptance in the real world sends you a message that you are acceptable and valuabe. In the real world there will always be people who reject and abandon you, but hanging on to those positive experiences really helped me understand that it is their problem rather than mine and that I can't control the world around me. Hanging on to the positive and internalising that (instead of the rejection or abandonment) is what I found most helpful, though I know it's hard and takes time to build up.

Hubbies seem to be prone to statements like that, or variations on that theme (so don't let it bother you, you shouldn't feel that way, etc) I think it comes from not putting onself into the other's place before speaking, but speaking from one's own place before thinking. Try not to hold it against him.
If he can divert his physical pain, (something I find very diffiicult to do) it's perfectly reasonable that someone else could divert their psychic pain.

Purplefins,

Thanks for caring. Yeah, i wonder sometimes also if re-feeling the pain is worth it. If it's possible to feel it, move through it, and then get relief, then yea, I think it's worth it. But if i am not numb, then once i get in touch with the pain, it floods me and stays with me, sometimes for days and i can't get rid of it. It literally gets "stuck" in me and i can't move it through. Because of that, it ends up feeling like just suffering.

[quote=Fartraveler;1459340]I am beginning to think that the reason for re-feeling the pain is that before you re-feel it, you just spend all your time blocking it and trying to avoid it, so that you can't really see things clearly, and so you tend to remain stuck in lousy patterns. It's like, once you allow yourself to feel the pain, you do realize that it won't destroy you, and then you can look at it, and yourself, and your patterns, more clearly. And that makes you more able to consciously choose more constructive and appropriate behaviors.

(At least that's my thinking at the moment.)

Fartraveler,

I think that what you said is true, that you expend energy and time trying to block the pain. I know i've done that. But here's the part of your post where I'm getting hung up. . .

"It's like once you allow yourself to feel the pain, you do realize that it won't destroy you. . ."

For me, once i get in touch with the pain, it does feel like it will destroy me. It really feels "that" bad. And the pain does not alter or reduce. It ravages me until i finally have to numb or block it back out again. I don't know what to do about it. It's like the cycle doesn't complete itself, the pain doesn't move through me and dissipate.

[quote=seventyeight;1459655]((peaches))

i don't have the "dissappoints" in therapy that you're talking about (at least not very often), but i've thought about this concept in terms of the disconnect that i feel every time i have to leave a session. the 'leaving' is SO utterly painful (and continues to be for about 24 hours), that i've often wondered if it's worth it to keep going.

i would agree though with what the others have said about it being worth it in the end. and just as with the exercise example that i posted about already - it's kind of like working out with a trainer. it's grueling and painful and you begin to represent your trainer (or in this case, your therapist) for pushing you every week, but ultimately the results pay off. it's just hard to see it when you're going through it.

Hi Seventyeight,

I know what you mean about that awful feeling when you leave the session. It's a yuck feeling like separation anxiety. It has gotten better for me over time, so i hope it will for you also. I've noticed that if i can feel connected with my t in the session, then i can carry away some of the close warm feelings with me when i leave her office. Then it doesn't feel so bad.

I hear most everybody saying that the pain of working through problems and difficulties in the t relationship is worth it. So i guess i'll keep trying. It's just kind of weird that we work so hard on overcoming so many problems between us. In real life, i would have walked away long before now i think. I wouldn't have put that much blood, sweat, and tears into any relationship i don't think. But the attachment keeps me from throwing the towel in, and the hope that things will improve for me eventually!

Yes, I've discussed with her how i feel, both in person and in emails. So much so, that she is probably tired of hearing about my feelings.

Peaches, I think you have just stated what therapy is all about and why it works and is worth it. In the past, we would have walked away and never worked on the problems, wouldn't even have "seen" them! That's why I was unsuccessful in my life and felt alienated and as if my life didn't work. I couldn't make the connections and work on maintaining them with others.

Peaches, OK, I sort of know where you're coming from. For me, I definitely went through a period when the pain felt like it was going to destroy me, too.

When I first started therapy, the therapy felt OK, I just got attached to my T and so on. We mostly talked about my marital issues, etc. Then, about nine months in, something horrible happened, which was that I just sort of imploded. I started cutting again, a lot, which I hadn't done for about 20 years. The dissociation issues became fairly acute, and I was losing a lot of time. Couldn't get out of bed, lay around crying all the time. At that point I did feel that therapy was destroying me, and actually, it does seem clear that much of what was happening to me at that time was because of therapy. Or, let's say, the therapeutic process.

I really blamed my T for all this, and I was very angry with her about it. She said it happened because it brought up issues for me that I could not handle, which was true but I didn't accept that. And, let me say, my behavior toward her became fairly obsessive, and obsessively attached. I would have to say it was unacceptable. I mean, incessant phone calls, lots of acting out, driving by her apartment and office to check on where she was, etc. etc. etc. She knew about it, too.

So, fast forward to now, when I feel mostly healed.

I am thinking about what enabled the transition from being destroyed by therapy to being healed by it. Frankly, it's hard for me to say. A big part was that I changed my external circumstances. I left an abusive marriage and found a more supportive community, which was very healing.

However, I left my marriage while therapy was still in the difficult part, and I also know that I couldn't have left my marriage until I was at least a little bit healed. So, looking back, some of the healing must have taken place while I was still in the horrible self-destructive acting-out part of therapy. Without knowing it, I had at least gotten strong enough to start to create a better life for myself.

And then there were a couple of years, after I got divorced, when I refused to do therapy, just because I thought it would destroy me. I still saw my T, maybe every few months or so, because I was so attached to her. But I told her I wasn't going to do therapy. And she said she was there for whatever I needed, and having the connection was important too. So I suppose there were a few years of what you would call supportive therapy, while I have been building a new and healthier life for myself.

And then last spring, I told her that I could do therapy. So we have gone back to that for the past couple of months, and actually, this time, I am finding it helpful and even enjoyable. I just don't get thrown by the difficult stuff any more. (Not for more than a few hours, anyway.)

So, that's how therapy went/goes for me. I definitely understand your apprehensions, and I do get how therapy could destroy a person. I am lucky in that I have a very skilled, incredibly patient T. (I think no other T in the world would have put up with me.) (But probably no other T in the world could have gotten me that close to the pain, either -- she is actually the twelfth T that I went to, and the only one that ever did anything for me.)

Peaches, I don't know what to tell you. All I can say is that your fears are legitimate, and that the therapy process was incredibly difficult and painful for me. Also, I can see that if I had quit therapy in the middle of the acting-out imploded part, I would have ended up far worse off than if I had never started, because I really was fairly non-functional at that point. (And I actually did try to quit a couple of times, but my T wouldn't let me.) However, I did stay with the process, and somehow, it did actually make me better.

So I don't know. I guess you just have to trust your instincts. If you're not ready to approach the pain, then you're not -- you have to be gentle with yourself, I suppose. But maybe at some point, you will find a healing process that is right for you.

(For the record, I'm 56, and started this process when I was 47. Whew!)

Take care, and good luck.

-Far

This is a very interesting statement. I think that it has a lot to do with how you are feeling about your relationship with your therapist.

Where does this come from?

(((((((((((((peaches))))))))))))))))

I know that feeling that the pain will destroy me. That is something that has been really really really scary for me in therapy. There were times I wasn't sure I would survive, which sounds dramatic, but is the truth.

T had me give myself permission to numb out and put my walls up when I needed to. So, the goal wasn't to be in all of this pain all the time. I would let myself be in the feeling place as long as I could stand it, and then I would numb out/shut down, and it was OKAY. It still IS okay.

What I find out is I can stand "this much" pain...and that that pain didn't destroy me. So the next time, it's a little less scary, and i can stay with it a little longer maybe. And then after that, maybe a little longer. There has never been a point in my therapy where I didn't have to go back to SOME kind of old coping skill - even if that skill is just numbing out in some way.

T has told me that healthy people let themselves feel their feelings, but they let themselves have a break too. So, I may be really sad and need to cry, but then I might need to put it away until later because my kids need me, or I have somewhere to go, or whatever. The difference is that I used to push it into the deep recesses of my mind to never be dealt with again if I could help it, and what I try to do now is set it aside and tell myself that I will give myself time to deal with it later. I know T does that. If he is sad or angry about something in his life, he sets it aside while he is working with his clients, but he comes back to it when he can.

So. Feeling the pain for a while and surviving and then having to put it away is okay. It is a step. This is a journey of many many many steps, which can be hard when what we really want is to just feel better NOW.

Lots of to you

Hi RiverX,

I agree. There have been some times when we've had ruptures and have worked through them in such a way that the pain led to healing. But other times, it seems that we fall into re-enactments of (perceived/felt) rejection/abandonment that it takes a long time to resolve because it felt like the same trauma all over again. Part of it i think is that i am too sensitive and easily triggered about rejection, but i also think my t sometimes doesn't have the insight to know that something she says or does is going to feel abandoning, when i guess i expect her to know this and not do it.

this is wonderful

This is how you work through things, you just need to keep going and working on it. Maybe when you worked through something is when you kept working and communicating with your therapist until you resolved it and when you didn't work through something is when you stopped working on it and communicating with your therapist.

Your T doesn't know how things affect you unless you tell her. She cannot read your mind. You have to do your part and keep communicating. If you tell her you both can keep working on this trigger and diffuse it so that it doesn't trigger you anymore.

RiverX,

You said that you have had that endless recycling of hurt feelings. Can you share with me how you broke out of that patten??

Hi Sunrise,

Yes, i think my t and i communicate well. But like you said, i do alot of assuming and often get it wrong! I know that i also jump to conclusions and let my imagination run wild with scary what-ifs. I really think it is a "child" part of me that does this, and that when it happens, my ability to think rationally just disappears for some reason. It's actually really scary when it happens because i can't seem to snap out of it, and once i get started down that path, the more upset and worked up i get!!

I wish that there was a way i could communicate with t every time i get one of these strong fear attacks or insecurity attacks or abandonment attacks. Because i know she would help me calm down enough to see reality and realize there's no big impending disaster going on. But 7 days between sessions is a long time when you have a tendency to get anxious, fearful, or ruminate. And since i don't share these kind of anxieties and fears with others, except here on PC, there's nobody else to give me that jolt or reality check, or to let me know that I'm "doing it" again.

What you said here hit home for me so much:

What I see sometimes when people post about things in therapy that have potential to be emotionally corrective is that they leave those experiences behind too quickly and don't allow the "correction" to "take." They are immediately worrying and thinking about some other potential problem with their therapist instead of slowing down to bask in the good feelings of their latest success in therapy.

I do this, i know i do!! And i know it's self-destructive. But i don't know why i do it. It's like I'm afraid to let myself be happy, let myself feel good in therapy. I think there may be a part of me that believes if i just don't let myself feel nicely warm and attached/soothed/connected/good, then when my t retires, it won't hurt me so much. Because i don't have to "give up" something that i've never really "had."

I'm probably just fooling myself. It's going to hurt like crazy no matter what when my t retires. But it's that self-destructive, "I'll withhold from myself and let it hurt me now, so it won't hurt me later" mentality. It's VERY hard for me to move past this kind of thinking.

Sunrise said,

Peaches, do you think that 3/4 figure has changed any since you first began therapy?

Yes, I think i'm assuming less than i used to, but it's still too much, and i cause myself so much desolation by doing it.

Hi WePow,

Thanks for sharing your view on the t relationship. Most of the time i think it's worth it too, but other times. . .i dunno. . .it's just so hard, you know?

It's interesting you used the term "therapy dance." I was listening to some music one day (no words, just music), and i got this visual in my head of t dancing, with gold and green flowing robes around her -- and of me, hiding behind a fence watching her. And every so often, i'd get brave and come out a dance a few seconds with her. And i would feel so connected and alive, but for just a brief moment. But then i'd get scared and run back behind the fence again. It was like i could see her, alive, rejoicing, living, and i wanted so much to join her. But i was scared too. Of coming out of my self-imposed hiding place and into the real world of living and feeling. Anyway, when you said "therapy dance," it reminded me of this.

Hi Purplefins,

I'm glad you have a therapist now that is kinder and more consistent with you. I had an unpredicable childhood too, in that i could never predict if my parents would be there for me or not (usually not). My dad also drank alot, and i never knew how he was going to act toward me. I also had alot of unplanned, damaging changes sneak up on me that i wasn't prepared for. So i've noticed that i need my t to be consistent with me, in how she speaks and acts.

Usually, she is very kind and considerate. But once in awhile, she does something that just seems very insensitive, and it throws me off, it really does. And it always seems to happen at the time when i'm just starting to truly feel safe and comfortable in the relationship. It makes me start questioning the perception i've formed of her as a loving, kind, safe t. I start second guessing my trust in her and wonder if she's not who i think/thought she is. And that makes me feel very insecure. Because then, i end up drawing back away from her and putting up walls again.

I think what happens is that i have this good, safe image of her and i start to really trust and open up, and we make good headway. . .UNTIL she does something that hurts my feelings. Then it feels like 10 steps back, and it takes time to trust all over again and get back to where we were before. So it's always kind of forward then back, forward then back.

But when she hurts your feelings isn't it her triggering up your old feelings and not that she did something that was really hurtful?

Hi Spotted Owl,

Interesting post. I think i get what you mean. It's not t causing the pain. The pain is already there. But things that t does remind me of the pain or seem to fire it back up again. Anything that feels like rejection or abandonment or being invisible or not important.

Even though i know the original pain is linked to my childhood with my parents, it's hard to work on healing at that level because it feels as though the pain is related to my t, and not my parents. . .i guess because it is stirred up in connection with the t relationship. It makes it hard to know who i am upset with! And since i don't like getting angry at anybody, i usually end up angry at myself.

Thanks, Farmergirl. You're right. At least i am learning how to speak up about how i feel and talk problems through. I wasn't able to do that before i started therapy. i would just get hurt feelings and withdraw from the relationship. So i am learning something. The hard part is trying to catch myself when my thinking is "off." Like knowing when my feelings aren't rational or whatever. I tend to think that if my emotions are strong about something, then they must be true. But i know that's not always the case. Now, if i could just remember that in the moment!!