OMG! Why did I confess that to her?

my t is a male hes a minister also & Christian counseling i can tell him anything sometimes i like doing it for shock value but anyways i told him about my feelings & he said its very normal cuz he will have women come in & spill their detailed guts becuz he is the first man to treat them like a human. honestly my t is a wonderful person hes been with me thru crack addiction abusive marriage not doing well with managing my meds confiding things to him i asked him to please not tell doc about & hes honored every bit of it not to mention helping me with $$$ part of it theres nothin they havent heard & i know theres those sessions that seem unproductive but then other sessions r like revelations & healing i guess just ebb & flow of therapy im glad ur t is helpful too

Hi Squiggle, I'm coming kind of late to your thread here, responding to something you wrote many replies ago:
Did someone actually say that? I don't remember it coming up, either way, when I was in therapy myself. Right around that time, though, I was reading some things by Freud for school. He made a big point, over and over, that the patient always would come to experience feelings toward the analyst -- transference, he called it -- and that resolving these feelings (and where they were coming from) was what the whole therapy (psychoanalysis, in this case) was mostly about.

I figured that was mostly so that your therapy would be about your issues, not the therapist's. If therapists were to say things to their clients like, "How could you hurt me by telling me that?!" the client would learn more about avoiding the therapist's issues than about dealing effectively with their own. It's quite likely that at some time in your life you had to tie yourself in knots to avoid upsetting someone else. In that case, therapy would be about allowing you to untie yourself and become who you are.

From here (a safe distance away ) it sounds as if you're right on track and doing just fine for where you are.

"We do need to explore exactly what you are feelings to ensure you work through them in a healthy way. "

Your T is involved in your healing... the use of the "we" word

It is hard to be so honest with your T about those things. But it is also very important. And T is right - that is the only way to learn how to work through the emotions in a healthy way.

Just a hint for today if you would like. I had BIG trouble once talking about my T to my T on something. So I decided I was going to start off by pretending he was a different T. I just took a shot at this and it worked!! I was able to start the session by "See 'stranger T' my normal T did xyz a few sessions ago." He worked with me along the lines of "How did what he said make you feel at the time?"

By doing this, I was able to really get the issue on the table without fear. Before I even realized it, there we were talking normally about the situation between the two of us :-) It amazed me!

Good luck today!!!

We are sexual beings Squiggle and your feelings have found an outlet with your T. You can work through this with T and figure out where you can have an outlet in your life for these feelings.

I just noticed that this thread has over 900 views. WOW! That is alot. I guess this topic is of interest to many on here. I think more of us struggle with our feelings for our therapists than we like to admit.

This is where PC is helpful to so many. We can come on here and find just about anything that we are struggling with. Someone on here has gone through that, or is going through it. It helps to know that we are not alone.

I feel like a tremendous weight has been lifted since confessing this to my therapist. It was one of the hardest things I have done in therapy so far. I told her that if I can admit this, and talk with her eye to eye about it...I can talk with her about anything! I don't think there is anything more embarrassing than telling your therapist "I have sexual fantasies about you!" Crap! that is really hard when you are seeing a Christian female therapist and you are female as well!

She was very poker face through it all. She stayed in her professional mode the entire time. Never once made a face like "Ewe, you are a sicko! I don't ever want you back in my office again!"

And get this, my pastor and worship pastor are in the offices right next door to hers! Yikes! I am always freaked out that they may overhear our sessions! She uses some kind of noise machine outside her door. I hope that blasted thing works! It is embarrassing enough to see them as I walk past their doors into her office. I sure as heck don't want them to overhear my personal stuff that I discuss in her office.

If you are following my other thread about my daughter sharing my therapist, this part will relate.

Being that I just confessed my feelings last week, and now I am going through the crap with her taking my daughter as a client, I know that my therapist will relate my 'feelings for her' as to why I am so upset about her seeing my daughter.

She will ask some stupid questions like, "Are you upset with me seeing your daughter because you are afraid of the relationship we will have? Could this be in any way connected to what we talked about last week? Are you worried that I will abandon you? (At this point, I will totally shut down) She will continue, "This is something we need to work through. You are struggling with issues of intimacy and abandonment. I know you don't want to talk about this today, but we need to."

At this point, I will want to get in her face and tell her to back off! If I cussed, I would probably say that in a different way! Maybe one of you can do that for me?

YES, I am sure that this does relate to my feelings for her. YES, I will be jealous. YES, it will bother me to no end. YES, it will feel like someone is taking my 'girlfriend' away, so to speak. YES, I have strong feelings for my therapist. Feelings that I don't want to have!!

I think I am losing it. I am turning into a sick lunatic!

Not a sick lunatic, squiggle, not at all.....just a normal human being with lots of human emotions to deal with.
Just tell her what you wrote in your post.....or tell her before she even brings it up! That might give you a sense of control in an uncomfortable situation discussing uncomfortable feelings....

OMG - you are not a sick lunatic. I can totally relate to what you're saying. Man, feelings that seem out of control. It is a nightmare. I so feel for you. I have been there - not with my T but with another person. It is a tremendously scary place to be and I actually did 'lose my mind'. I ended up running away from home(at age 50) and living on the opposite coast for 4 years. Thankfully my husband stuck it out and welcomed me back when I was brave enough to return.

I so so so feel for you. It's torture. My moral standards are very high and when I broke those standards I was literally in a psychological hell. Please talk to her how to cope with the emotions because you are at risk of 'losing it'. I did and it almost ruined my life. Ask your T how to process this. Don't hide it and try to pretend it's not there. She is a professional and will be able to guide you back to 'sanity'. You're lucky - you have a therapist to talk to (awkward though it may be). I was on my own and was flapping in the wind.

Having feelings is really weak/freakish for you isn't it? Your feelings are normal.

Evidently having feelings is very awkward for me. I have them, I just don't like them, and don't accept them. I sure don't tell people! I mean, who in their right mind would tell a therapist, "I fantasize about you. I am sexually attracted to you. I think about you all the time."

Uuhhmmm.....that would be someone who is majorly screwed up! No offense to anyone else on PC, that is just how I feel about myself. Lord help, I could never tell anyone that. No one but you guys on PC. And I got the stupid idea to confess it to my therapist?

Sometimes I wonder who I am and if I even know myself when I look the mirror! Who are you, Squiggle?

I realize that I am somewhat going back and forth between two threads that I started. This is a bit confusing to some who are not following this story. I just chose to continue the 'talk' in this thread since the subject line in the other one is totally off! It is not about her fiance' anymore. I really think that my strong reaction to this is more of my feelings I have for my therapist. The jealousy I have about sharing her with my daughter. The feelings of being betrayed and replaced by my therapist. That is on me, I know. I am allowing irrational thinking to dictate my actions and emotions.

I also realize that I am beating a dead horse here! I am working myself up into a frantic state of paranoia. I need to calm down! Then again, maybe this incident has brought up emotions from my past? Maybe that is why I am spinning out of control with it.

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This is part of what I wrote to bring with me in session on Monday. Not sure I will have the guts to do it! But this is how I feel at the moment:

"Where is that blasted hammer when you need it? I sure would like to smash this computer to pieces! Why would I want to do that? Because this computer holds my thoughts, feelings, emotions, hurts, pain, etc….This is where I store them.

ANGER is not healthy for me. She can get seriously delusional and out of control at times. Smashing, breaking, throwing things, screaming, and punching things feels great at times like these.

Here we go again. The psycho comes out. Sometimes I don’t even know who I am. I am sick to death of you telling me about learning to be content and accepting myself. I realize that I am in the "poor me syndrome". I hate this. I know you want me to stop allowing myself to be defeated over everything that challenges me in my life. I am trying! I really do put my heart and soul into therapy. This is not a game with me. This is my survival!

Desperate? Maybe so. I am not always like this. It has just been a very challenging week. I was on an emotional roller coaster over you taking my daughter as a client. I am still mad about that. I trusted you. I felt that you would be looking out for me and making sure that I was taken care of. I did not expect you to do something that may harm me.

I know, this is always comes back on me. What I did wrong, said wrong, thought wrong. Unrealistic expectations of others. Unrealistic expectations of you. Whatever the source, I was really allowing anger to consume me.

You are probably saying what you always do when I am mad or angry, “That’s okay.”

What does that mean? “That’s okay.” Are you saying that it’s okay for me to get angry, yet you are not bending on your position in this?

Am I challenging you? Is this irritating you? Am I crossing a line or something? Is it okay to bring anger in here, even if it may be directed toward you? I hope that I do bring anger today. She needs to be here. I need to do this. Instead of hiding this with myself, I need to express this face to face with people.

I realize that it is not really YOU that I am angry with. I get that. So who am I angry with? YOU represent all the times that I trusted someone and then got stabbed in the back. YOU represent people that expected me to ‘get over it’ when I felt hurt, betrayed, or rejected.

I know that you are NOT my friend. If you say that one more time I am going to scream! But, you can be someone who looks out for what is in my best interest."
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Thank you to everyone who is carrying me through this difficult time. I know that I am all over the place with my emotions. Is this part of being bipolar? UP and down, UP and down.......I cannot seem to keep stable for very long.

Or, is this just part of therapy? Bringing out buried emotions. Being triggered in a situation that takes me back to things from my past? Whatever it is, I am driving myself crazy!

When I calm down enough, I am going to talk with my daughter. I cannot bring myself to discuss it until I am in a rational state of mind. None of this is her fault. The last thing I need to do is take this out on her!

I also realize that my therapist had no way of knowing that my reaction to this would be so strong. Since I have talked with her about my daughter, and wanting her to get help, I am sure that my therapist thought I had encouraged my daughter to call her.

I guess I am the one to blame for all of this

Don't blame yourself for your emotions, squiggle....no need to add shame to valid feelings, or use the shame of them to try to chase them away....
I think it's part of therapy that it can cause us to feel like we're on an emotional roller-coaster, dealing with heavy, intense emotions, being more vulnerable to triggers.....sometimes I have thought, what is the value of this pain, particularly the value of the pain of attachment/intense feelings for my T which of course I know cannot be returned (and that is a pain that I could do without....yet I know it is a pain to simply be accepted) Something I wrote in my journaling for the next session....without the d***ed attachment, this would be so much easier. But then what would the value be - this is what is really helping me see deeper, go deeper - and where would the true change & healing be if it were easy, shallow, without pain in the process.....' So I understand....
I think some of this emotional rollercoaster I feel like I have been on is, for me, a dramatic highlight of the way I have lived emotionally up to this time anyway - I feel like I have lived on an emotional rollercoaster, and therapy is accentuating it, spotlighting it if you will or something, so that I can see it even more sharply defined. Not sure that that is clear.....
As far as it being part of being part of being bipolar....maybe, maybe not. My T thinks I am bipolar too.....and I'm sure she is looking at the way I have reacted emotionally and how I have been so up, so down, at times through the 7 months we've been working together too.
I think we are feeling deeply though because we working deeply! I see that you are working SO hard, squiggle, and you are willing to go deep and face what is way down deep in you and willing to deal definitively with it.

Sometimes I think I am not using common sense with therapy. Kinda like, "Let sleeping dogs lie!"

In other words....don't disturb a situation that is going well, as it may result in trouble or complications. Do not say something or do something that would cause someone else to be angry or to make trouble. If that metaphorical dog is just laying there asleep, leave him be. Don't go messing with him or he might wake up and bite you!

Sleeping dogs do wake up though in due time.....and emotions that have been ignored, avoided, hidden, run away from, wake up, too. It might be better to wake them up, in a sense, than to have them wake up.....certainly better to wake them up in a more controlled process/environment like therapy than have them wake up in a less controlled environment or manner......
I should know....I'm really skilled in hiding from my emotions or trying to push them deep where I think it's safer for me to have them be, too. But they do come up.....they come up and find me, and they've done it when I wasn't looking/wasn't aware, and that's less pretty than just confronting them in the first place or confronting them in a safer place like therapy with a safe person like my T to be a guide and helper in dealing with them.

I think I know where all those bones (emotions) are hidden. In my big fat gut, that's where!! Instead of burying bones, I am burying cupcakes, cookies, ice cream, chips and dip, donuts, etc....Stuffing down the emotions. Eating my emotions.

I am thinking that I am hiding them. But when I look at myself in the mirror, I see them popping out everywhere! In my *****, hips, thighs, chin, arms,etc...I am one big fat walking ball of emotional stress and paranoia!

Just don't tell anyone that is not here on PC. To the outside world they see a beautiful, professional, well put together woman who is strong and courageous. Boy, are they deceived!

You don't seem to realize yet how healthy you have to be, on some level, to stand all that and keep moving on through it and sharing it with us the way you have been.

true, this.

Thanks FoolZero. Sometimes I think people get tired of reading my posts. What I am really doing is working through my emotions and issues with my friends on PC. It helps me a lot to write it out, send it out, and release it to wherever it may land!

Thankfully, it has been landing with people who can relate and understand. People who are willing to reach out and help me get past this. Some things you just cannot tell your friends and family. Having a PC family is where I can come and say anything and (hopefully) not be reprimanded or made fun of.

((((((Squiggle))))))

I've been following your other thread about your daughter and wanted to post, but wasn't sure what to say because my "story" is the opposite. My daughter saw my T first (my former T, not the one I see now) and I used to drive her there. I became jealous of her relationship and wanted therapy for myself. My T was not against seeing all members of a family, though she asked my d if it would be okay first.

I ended up seeing my T for over 5 years; my d finished much sooner. The overlap didn't bother me except when I drove her to her session and waited for her. I wished it were MY session. I started getting triggered because I became attached to my T whereas my d wasn't. My T didn't have rules about my d and I talking about therapy, but we didn't do it anyway, at least not while she was still seeing her.

I got jealous because my T allowed my d to email her but she didn't allow me to. It was only for scheduling, but T thought I'd write too much. There were a few other times I got jealous too. But it was helpful for my T to treat me as well as my daughter since I needed guidance on my relationship with her, so she could help me more, knowing both of us.

I hope that you can tell your d that you will feel uncomfortable seeing the same T. I can understand your feelings about wanting your T for yourself! I also identify with your feelings for your T, including the sexual ones. I think it's mostly because of the intimacy of the t-relationship. It's complicated, but my T just says she accepts all my parts. My other Ts said my needs were more sensual, and they got mixed up. I think I posted this to you in the other thread, but wanted to repeat it so you know you're not alone.

"Triggered" is a word I hadn't thought of. Yes, I would be majorly triggered when my daughter started talking about MY therapist. She doesn't understand this at all because she has never been in therapy.

I think the sexual feelings have calmed down since I talked with my therapist about that. Strange how confession works! If you have never experienced this with a therapist, you can't understand why a female client would have those kinds of feelings with her female therapist. It is really complicated to explain.

I wonder if I will feel awkward seeing her on Monday. Will she look at me differently? Will I be able to make eye contact?

It seems to me that pretty much anything I have trouble with, intensifies and becomes more of a problem for me if I can't talk about it with someone. I'm pretty sure most therapists understand that, at least from their training if not from before.

That's my experience also. Being in session is like being in a magic place. So often emotions just completely transform and there's no rhyme nor reason for it. It just completely and absolutely amazes me. I think a lot and i think deeply and I write but talking to a T places things in another dimension - a dimension that is not accessible by other means. So, I believe for therapy to be effective, we must find the courage to talk - however painful or frightful it may be. But the benefit far far outweighs the cost.

ABSOLUTELY!! One time, I finally just asked my therapist straight out, "Can I be honest about everything and anything?" He said, "Yes, and the sooner the better for yourself. I can handle whatever you say." He CAN handle whatever I say, and he has and he does. I have been in therapy for YEARS and have done more work in the last few months after getting really REALLY honest, than I have over all of the years combined.

I commend you for your honesty, and no, I don't think that she will look at you differently at all. Mainly, you have just opened more doors and expanded the possibility for growth by being as honest as you were. It's a good thing!!

I was trying to say something sort of like that a month or so ago, and ended up posting this.

My daughter called me today. She said that she had been thinking about what I said, and agrees that it would be awkward for us to see the same therapist. She said that she cancelled her appointment. She has found another Christian organization that she is looking into.

While I should be jumping up and down, shouting for joy, for some reason I feel great sadness. When I hung up the phone I started crying. I feel like I made a big deal out of nothing and should have allowed her to keep the appointment in the morning.

On the other hand, at some point I have to stand up for my needs. I cannot keep pushing myself in the corner to take care of everyone else. Standing up for myself is not feeling very good right now. Guilt and shame are visiting me