[jilliebeanmn]

Most of today's session was spent talking about the following letter that I read to him tonight.

***

Dave

Do you remember that day almost 3 years ago when I spoke to you from that little motel room? Quite a bit of it is fuzzy, but I do remember you saying two things to me.

1) I was asking you to make sure that my kids would get some help. You told me the best person to take care of my kids was ME. At the time I remember thinking that ANYBODY would do better than me. When I get really low, I still think about that. My kids still need me, and nobody can replace your Mom. It keeps me going.

2) I remember you saying to me "Tell me where you are" and "Please let me help you." I wouldn't tell you where I was, and I wouldn't let you help me.

I know when we were talking then "tell me where you are" was asking for a physical location, but in the past 2 years how many times have you asked me that same question, maybe phrased a little differently, and talking of course about where I am in my head. And still, more often than not, I refuse to tell you the truth.

And the other "let me help you." You're still trying, even with me resisting or sometimes just refusing your help. Just as I did then.

It scares me Dave. It scares me that after all this time, I still can't trust you 100%. I want to, I really do. I want to more than anything, but there is still something deep inside of me that holds back.

Maybe you already see the "real me" but I want to be able to show you the real me...the inside and the outside. I have to start trusting somewhere. I have to do this. You have passed my tests, over and over and over again. What more will it take for me?

I am really confused and I feel very vulnerable talking about this.

The past, good and bad, made me who I am today and who I am today is who I am going to be tomorrow. The problem is, I don't like who I am today so tomorrow isn't all that exciting, and that's not a good feeling.

So what do I do? Where do I go from here? Please help me figure this out.
***

I was surprised by what he said to me, which was, out of all his clients, I am "on the top of the list" as far as allowing myself to be vulnerable with him. He feels I DO let him in.

We talked about my Dad and how much I need what I felt I didn't get from him growing up and how I still look to fill that with men. And, I did get a little emotional talking about it. All in all, it was a good session. So often I feel overwhelmed walking away from sessions like that, but tonight I walked away feeling pretty decent.

[granite1]

awsome letter

[WePow]

((((Jill)))) Way to go !!! It is so hard to open up to our T's at time. Good job being honest!

[Melbadaze]

jill, I agree with others, what a great letter, especially about you being the best person to raise your kids!

[sunrise]

That sounds like a great session, Jilliebean--nice to walk away from therapy feeling "pretty decent."

Originally Posted by jilliebeanmn

I was surprised by what he said to me, which was, out of all his clients, I am "on the top of the list" as far as allowing myself to be vulnerable with him. He feels I DO let him in.

This was really interesting to me--the difference in perception between him and you on how much you trust him. It made me wonder if that might be true for a number of people here on PC who feel they don't trust their therapists enough, but perhaps from the therapist point of view, they are very trusting. I feel there are still times I do not trust my therapist 100% but I look at many people around me (not here on PC, but in real life), and I wonder if they could ever trust a therapist completely, or even trust another person completely? I don't think the ability to trust deeply is a common characteristic in the greater population. Maybe those of us in psychotherapy are just pretty average in terms of being able to trust, or maybe we are even well above average, because I think many people would never even go to therapy because they wouldn't think of allowing another person "in". At least we think of it, even though we sometimes wish we were further along than we perceive ourselves to be.

[jilliebeanmn]

Originally Posted by sunrise

Maybe those of us in psychotherapy are just pretty average in terms of being able to trust, or maybe we are even well above average, because I think many people would never even go to therapy because they wouldn't think of allowing another person "in". At least we think of it, even though we sometimes wish we were further along than we perceive ourselves to be.

Sunrise-

I've never thought about that before, that it takes a huge amount of bravery to even walk in the door, say nothing about trusting along the way.

We also talked about just how NORMAL I am, thought I feel so abnormal most of the time. He told me I am "perfectly normal", where I run into trouble is COPING with all those normal things that us humans have to endure. Due to my upbringing and trauma events I have learned unhealthy ways of coping when normal live events occur. So, that's what I need to focus on I guess.