if only it didn't hurt.....

I had something else in mind I wanted to post yesterday.......but before I could get around to it, I just simply, unexpectedly fell into a sort of dark, heavy place where it feels like the air is thick and it's hard to move against the current.....hence this depressing post instead of a more uplifting one.
I had session yesterday morning and we had company too.....so I had support, I had the presence of dear/trusted people around me, and yet I began to feel a sense of a big empty space within, a sense that I will always be alone inside myself with a pain and a huge need that is intimately mine and mine alone and no one can come in and share it with me or take it away from me, a sense that no matter how much I am loved/how much I love somehow it will all never be enough.....
Somehow I know some of this is springing from the feeling of discontent with the pain involved in therapy and in my attachment with my T.....if only it didn't hurt, if only.....
Some of this heavy dark feeling is deep grief, I think......mourning for the feeling of needs/longing being opened up by the strong deep attachment I feel for my T, mourning for the fact that there is an inequality in the love felt and that the needs I am feeling far outweigh what can be given, by her or by anyone at all - hence the feeling that no matter what is given, it won't fill the space inside, which only seems to keep expanding the further along in therapy I go. And right now, it feels like no one and nothing in this life, in this world will ever fill it......and so I am mourning, I think.....mourning the truth that no amount of human love will ever seem like enough, because how can I expect any person to have the capacity to give the width and depth and vastness of love I seem to need to fill the aching infinite space within?
If only I could open my heart and let the pain out without having to feel it again or to feel like there are new wounds being opened because of therapy and my attachment to my T.....if only I could have the healing of therapy and the comfort of the attachment without the hurt that seems to come with it all.....but I know, even in this deep, dark place I'm in at the moment it doesn't work that way and that I have to go through the pain to find the healing and the healing will be deeper and more true because the pain has been faced and accepted.....
I know this is long and I'm sorry.....it seems the more pain and more emotion I feel, the more words I use .... and these words are the tears I seem unable to cry otherwise. It just helps to let them out some way.....So thanks for reading them!

(((( poet ))))

I can feel the pain of the longing in your post...knowing that it's so hard to endure. My hope for you is that you someday are pleasantly surprised that the void that you feel can be filled - and that maybe it's not that the need is too big, but that maybe it's specific to something...and once work through that, there will be a transformation for you that will be incredibly rewarding. That is my hope for you, and for many here. Including myself. ((( HUGS )))

One thing that came to mind was Treehouse's post about resolving a trigger on her own....how we can draw on the reservoir of love and caring that we get from our T's when we're not with them, to help give us that necessary feeling of being cared for while enduring difficult times. I hope to be able to use that to get through my own difficult times.

thank you, MUE....I so appreciate the support! Just writing it out helped a lot.....I use writing as a coping tool so often. And knowing there's support here helps too.....even knowing people are simply reading what I've posted, whether they reply or not helps. I know in the end it's me who has to deal with my pain and my wounds and find good ways to cope, to continue, to endure......it's always been me enduring and coping alone, this reaching out and sharing so much more of the pain and asking for help is a new thing for me! And I'm finding it does help a lot ..... and knowing that I do have a T who does care as much as she possibly can helps too.
Part of what's going on with me now isn't just this longing, this 'void' feeling.....I think a great part of the melancholy/depression that has settled its leaden cloak over me is a biochemical thing, not just a situational thing. But it sure accentuates the 'void' feeling, which in turn exacerbates the heavy weight of the depression! I feel some distinction somewhere in there between the two, but the boundary is so blurred it doesn't really matter where one ends and the other begins......

I posted a response, but deleted it. Not sure if you had a chance to read it. Maybe sometimes I just need to let you know I am reading your posts. I don't always have the answer, so maybe I should keep quiet.

I am following you and totally understand where you are coming from. We seem to be in the same boat so many times. I think we should pack some snacks and drinks (soda) because we seem to get on this boat alot!Sometimes we don't have any idea how long we will be in it, so we might as well bring some food to keep us from starving to death!

I am not making light of your pain at all. Humor is just one way to cope with pain. I hope that I didn't offend you.

no, no offense! I have a fairly good sense of humor....sometimes it definitely helps keep the boat afloat, so to speak! And laughing comes easier to me than crying.....so I guess I may as well laugh.

poetgirl76 - thinking about you

((((((poetgirl)))))) I feel for you because I have similar feelings. It hurts so much!! I can't get the "quote thing" to work. I wanted to quote almost everything in your post! I also write a lot instead of crying. I never thought of it that way but the writing is a release. I have to write! It seems that the attachment to our T adds another dimension to our suffering but I'm starting to think it's all one and the same. For me, I'm grieving the same as you are, that my T in no way can give me all the love I want. I know it's illogical, but in some warped way I thought my Ts could replace my mother. I never stopped thinking that, so I have to grieve for that loss as well as the actual loss of my Mom. I think the grief that my T can't give me the love I want, that I didn't get or did get, is worse than the grief for my mother. It's all blurred together, though. I don't have the answer, but I echo "if only it didn't hurt". My T says "the best way out is always through" to quote Robert Frost, and I truly hope you, I and the others feeling this hurt and pain will eventually find our way through and out to more peace in our hearts and our lives.

This is so wise, and so true.

I have found my way to God through some of the healing I've done in therapy, and I told T once, "I wish I was the type of person who went to ladies' luncheons at a church" (I'm just not), and T said that there is a depth to my spirituality because of how I had to come to it. Through a lot of pain, and tears, and, in the end, grace.

I think healing is the same way. There is a soft spot inside that we reach when we let ourselves feel the pain...and that soft spot is where the love can get in, once the pain is out of the way. I find being loved to be a vulnerable and wonderful thing...and until I let myself find that vulnerable place, it was like I was dead inside, totally unable to feel the love that really IS here for me.

T always tells me that he wishes there was a way to do this without it hurting so much. He said that sometimes it frustrates him. But the pain is part of the process...and the process is worth it, poetgirl, because YOU are worth it.

thank you so much, tree, for your lovely and loving words!

Awwww, poetgirl,

I could have written this post right now. I am so sorry that you are feeling stuck inside this dark place. It is no fun AT ALL!! I wish that I had some words of wisdom to offer, but I am trying to crawl out of a similar space myself right now......BUT, I can offer you my understanding and support and let you know that you are DEFINITELY not alone. The pain is just total and complete HELL right now, but it is definitely taking us somewhere, toward healing, toward understand and insight......toward (dare I say it??) an ability to love and accept ourselves. Hang in there, ok??

I think this is what we are all struggling with. The ability to love and accept ourselves. What is up with that? Why are we so hard on ourselves? Why do we think that 'everyone else' has their act together? Why do we care what others think?

Squiggle, I don't know....I really, really don't know....but it has definitely been the story of my life!!

Me too, unfortunately.

poetgirl.i am so sorry things are so painfull for you and your relationship with your T.i dont really have any answers as you know the issues i am having.but i want you to know that i am thinking of you and i hope you are able to talk this out with your T.

((((((Poetgirl))))))

I could have written this about 4 months ago. My boyfriend of 6 years had broken up with me out of nowhere, I was just starting to feel excruciating grief for my dad, and I was finally getting somewhere in therapy. All of those things came to a head and my world crumbled beneath me. I started to become extrememly attached and dependent on my T...I even wrote him a letter about it and how horrible I felt telling him that. I thought my T was filliing that supportive/loving void that my ex-boyfriend so thoughtfully left me with. I had this overwhelming sense of "everyone I love leaves me and my love doesn't matter to anyone"...I felt like my life was over because it didn't matter how many people I still had in my life that loved me...it would never be enough because the hole was to big to fill.

I don't feel as bad now...and this is what I have learned...
Reach out to as many people as you can...whether you feel like you are burdening them/putting them out, whatever you are telling yourself, USE them...this means calling them when you are under the covers in bed, going over their house just to watch TV because you need to get out of yours, making them go for coffee with you just because you need something to do with yourself. Eventually doing those things will fill some of the emptiness and longing for happiness. Also...be dependent on your T, I've learned that my issues with being needy and dependent are far worse than my actual neediness and dependency.

AND THE BIG ONE...medication. I'm sorry to the people who are against meds and feel like "you have a process and you should do without being medicated"..but there are some people that have a chemical imbalance that can only be fixed with medication. I, nor my T, are "pill-pushers"..actually my T is usually not that fond of meds...but a couple of months ago he said "you are not a complicated case, you are depressed and need an antidepressant...plain and simple"...so I saw my old Pdoc and she put me on zoloft and I've felt much better since. I was just talking to my T about this on Friday and he said that he doesn't want me on so many med that I stop feeling things..he just wants to take the edge off the terrible, excruciating pain when I'm in the "dire straits". I know you had a bad reactiont to a medication, so I hope you have a good Pdoc that is going to treat you with care and concern, but if you can be put on somthing else, I think it would help immensly with the huge hole you are feeling.

Anyway, I will stop rambling now...hope I could help some..and I really hope you start to feel a little better soon. Take care of yourself

I don't have time for a longer reply right now but I do want to thank you all so much for your replies and for your care and support....really, each of you helped so much!

poetgirl76 - you've noticed how many people resonate with your pain. Maybe not so much with specifically attachment to their T but to the pain that resides in the desire to love and be loved. I truly believe that the purpose of life is to find love and when we aren't able, we suffer tremendously.

People search for love in many places - some fill the holes in their hearts with drink, food or drugs; some hope that another human being can finally fulfill their longing; others seek adventure or risk (just to be able to forget); some rely on busy social lives.

I don't believe that we will ever be ultimately satisfied with those shallow and temporary fixes. I believe almost everybody is deeply unhappy. Look at advertisements - "Go to this vacation spot and YOU WILL BE HAPPY", 'eat this food and YOU WILL BE HAPPY', buy this car and YOU WILL BE HAPPY", etc. etc.

No, I believe there is something deeper that we all yearn for and seek. And it's our job, if we want to live a satisfying life, to find that deeper part of our SELVES. We keep grasping outside. Maybe we should explore 'inside'.

Just some random thoughts. I do feel for you because I feel the lack of love also.

It's comforting to know I'm not alone.....though I am so sorry others are suffering, too. The ability to love and accept myself......sometimes it feels like I can love/accept bits and pieces and parts of myself, but not the whole sum, all together...... Once I tried something when I was feeling terrible pain, not depressed just pain from memories and shame - I closed my eyes, went inward and sort of mentally gathered together all the sad parts of me I could find, the ugly, the dark, the deceitful, the ashamed, the sorrowful, the raw and deeply wounded parts, and held them and told them all I loved them.....my T thought that was lovely. It did feel peaceful.....but sometimes I wonder why I can't hold on to or stay in a place like that very long....

We don't see into each others' souls because we hide the hurt as much as possible....so looking at someone else, it's easy to look only at the surface and think, wow, she's beautiful and intelligent, she has a hard-working handsome husband with a great job, happy, healthy kids, a nice house......and so on, and never imagine the depth of pain and struggles deep beneath what seems to be a calm surface. At least.....this is what most see when they look at me. I do look like I have it together and I work flippin' hard to keep everything ordered and controlled so it stays looking that way to those whom I don't want seeing the tortured soul I am within. I wrote a poem with this line.....shattered but shuttered.... Anyway....I think it's something within many of us that wants others to think we are strong because it helps believe we really are.....we want others to approve of us because it helps us approve of ourselves.....probably comes down to issues with self-worth and with not being secure/feeling safe with ourselves as we are.....at least for me.

thank you so much for offering your support and reaching out to me when I know you are in pain, too. to you, too!

thanks again....each of you gave me so much. I feel filled up with gratitude for the understanding and care and support given and for the grace and wisdom shared.

I think that after you let out this pain that you will find that you can connect with others and that it will be enough.

I hope, Sannah, that if I can learn to trust that I can make healthy connections with others and if I can learn to trust that it's a mutual connection and I'm worthy of the connection and the love in it.....that yes, it will suffice! It may not be that I ever feel 'full' so to speak, but maybe someday I can feel full enough, that the ache from the empty place is much diminished or even displaced.....
I know I also need to learn to be content with the connection I do have with my T, rather than be discontent for what it cannot be .....and I need to learn how to enrich the real-life connections I have....but it's feeling like a sad, slow, long, bumpy learning process right now!

((((((poetgirl)))))) You explain things so well here. I am right there with you on that same bumpy learning path right now......I am wishing you some moments of peace today.

So trust is an area to work on? And feeling worthy?

"The ache from the empty place" - some expression of this in therapy and some mourning can make this go away.

But this discontent with what it isn't is info on what you still have to work on.

Yes!

We talked about some of this yesterday, this feeling I have that nothing will ever fill the emptiness, or that no one person will ever be able to love me the way I want/need and I don't expect that, but it all feels like a loss and that I feel like I'm grieving for that. And she said that it was wise to recognize and not expect that any one person could be all that I needed. And that what I was doing in reaching out more to different friends, seeing how one could offer me something, meet some needs for care and support in a way that another couldn't or that my husband can't, is good......no one person can offer us everything we need, but different ones can meet different needs, and all together, it can help us feel more filled up.

When you start to feel that low self worth creep in, what I did was figure out where that came from, and then when it would creep into today, I would remind myself where it came from and then tell myself that today is different. That I have people around me now that do care about me and can show it. This really did help and rewired it all for me.

I agree with you, that with others, no one can meet all of our needs but WE can get all of our needs met by getting certain things from different people.