productive session today

Today I learned a lot more about my cognitive distortions.....sigh. One of which is that I keep thinking my T is going to think I am pathetic, difficult, she's going to look at the negative and judge me and get exasperated with me......another of which is that I am simply not reading some of her expressions right or interpreting them right. So, my perceptions are off.....because my perceptions of myself are skewed so much toward the negative I skew my perceptions about others' perceptions of me toward the negative too. T told me that I have this praise/punishment thinking.....I keep thinking of her boundary-setting, her reactions to my SI, her setting limits on other unhealthy behaviors I have as punishment, or I think that when I disclose something wrong I did or make a mistake or confess a negative feeling, that she is surely going to reject me and think poorly of me. In other words, my averse reaction to what I thought of as her authority is a constant fear of rejection and punishment; my reaction to criticism, others' pointing out my mistakes is to feel emotionally that it is confirmation that I am bad, bad, bad, even if intellectually I accept that everybody makes mistakes and constructive criticism is an opportunity for growth and change. Oh but there is such a gap between what I know intellectually and what I feel deep inside emotionally......she said that some of the reasons for this lie in the fact that I have suffered a lot of trauma, that my parents did damage me deeply....the wounds are deeper than I thought and it's no wonder this all hurts so much right now.
She said, you think I only see the bad; but I see all of you.....I haven't lost respect for you or trust in you; I'm not judging you; I won't reject you or dump you as a client. But in answer to the question in my journaling about whether I have pushed the limits too far (as far as testing limits with my safety contract)......she did say, yes, you have gone far enough. I'm not exasperated or losing patience with you, but I am ready for you to stop, so dealing with this isn't a distraction from the work that we need to do.
When I was so terrified of what her reaction to my journaling would be....the reality was that she was compassionate and she was impressed with the insights I had (used her favorite word, brilliant! ). She said she understood that this was terrifying and painful for me...and that she wished it wasn't that way, that I could allow myself to feel safer with opening up and sharing. One thing I carried away from today is that it really is safe, she really is safe, she really isn't going to reject or abandon me, she really can handle whatever I tell her and whatever is in me that comes out - all my pain, all the darkness and the sorrow and the ugliness - and that part of the reason she is safe is because she also believes in the good in me, too.
As far what I said about fearing her authority as my T or feeling like she has authority over me.....she said, I don't see this being about me having authority; it's about me serving. And this just seems so beautiful to me...I am going to hold on to this statement and try to think of it when I start feeling afraid of the authority I perceive in her (knowing I may be perceiving something not there....)
Didn't cry though.....the tears went and hid....
Sorry this got long....thanks for listening and caring!

I'm glad you had a productive session! I understand about the difference between getting something intellectually but not emotionally. That's how I am too.

I'm so glad she was impressed with your insights in your journal!

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That's a wonderful insight, something to reread whenever you have any doubts. I'm glad you feel that way now.

My tears hid too, but I cried when I got to my car. Do you cry after your session too?

My tears only seem to come at all when I get up early in the morning to have my quiet time and it's still dark and feels safe....and even then, only a trickle. I'm afraid to really, seriously, all out sobbing cry - I don't want to be seen losing such control, but then I'm also afraid to cry alone, too. Mostly, my tears have residence in my heart....or in a poem, where the words are many times the tears that won't fall otherwise or the pain that won't speak in any other way....
I'm glad you can cry afterward....

That's great! I'm glad that you were able to get to a place of really feeling that your T is safe...and I hope that paves the way for your work.

Poetgirl, I'm glad you had a productive session...I love those. I love love love that she said "I see all of you"...THAT is amazing!

Don't worry about not being able to cry, it took me 4 years with my old T to cry in front of her...and since then I have no problem

I'm so glad your T showed you that she is safe

Very good! Discovering these issues that need to be worked on is the first step to their being extinguished! It really is a good thing to discover them. I used to look forward to discovering (and still do!) my issues because this means that I have found something else to throw off and my life will improve. You will work through this pgirl. For me it involved realizing when I was doing it and then looking back "okay, this is where it is coming from" and then looking at the moment "it isn't existing today in my life but it is being triggered up from the past". Working on each issue like this a few to several times extinguished it. It really is just making the unconscious conscious.