Should I stay or should I go? Sorry, long...

I would like to get your advice on my T sitch. My T's behavior initially was hostile. It took me aback, and it felt wrong, but I was immediately engaged. The fact I stayed was unhealthy - I knew it was part of my pattern around men since I was a kid. My father was hostile and rejecting, and ever since then my pattern is to be attracted to that type of man in the hopes of finally winning his acceptance, and so resolving the main issue of my loveless childhood. Of course, it never works.

So I was freaking out about T, but I felt deeply involved at the same time. He had touched something way down in there. And, there were some things about his presence and his technique that worked for me. He had really good eye contact! This is vital for me. He was a very good listener. Something about his physical stillness really appealed to me. I'd had fidgety therapists before, and they never worked out. And our dream work was always profound and insightful. I can't say I've ever had a major breakthrough with T in the year and a half I've been seeing him, but I've had a bunch of mini-enlightenments with his help. His ideas around my relationship with my husband were also helpful.

The main problem has been that my T seems unable to identify with me. I'll bring in a problem with someone at work, say, and he'll start niggling me about, boy, you're really angry, or he'll imply that I'm being too hard on the other person. Example: I told him I'd tried to initiate some friendships with women at work. I'd started going to coffee with someone named Sabra. It seemed okay at first, and then she started criticizing me. Why are you having whipped cream with that frapp, you can't lose weight that way! Or she'd criticize the fact that I wasn't wearing socks. I decided I'd had it, but my T was all, why are you so angry? I told him I didn't need that crap, and that I'd started to not wear socks on purpose to piss Sabra off. He pointed that out as an example of my inappropriate anger. And I'm like, yes, I'm angry! Why the hell does she get to do that to me? I don't need constant criticism over nothing from someone who doesn't mean anything to me! He just gave me this blank-mask look.

One more example, and this is from a very painful part of my life. I was bullied in school for years, which T knows. I happened to mention last time that I stopped going to gym class in high school because I couldn't bear to be laughed at over and over. So he absorbs this, and we talked about other things, and then he brings it up again, in the context of my inability to feel my own feelings. I don't know why he thinks I lack emotion, but this is a theme of his with me. So he says, "That was your way of avoiding pain, of avoiding life, wasn't it? Not going to gym class? You were avoiding the necessity for feeling anything." It was like a bucket of blood just crashed across my eyes, I was so mad I couldn't see. I just sat there thinking, Wha--?? You're criticizing me because as a child I wasn't able to handle the bullying I was subjected to? Like I should have been evolved enough at that point to just deal with it better? WTF!! So I said, "No, I wasn't avoiding my feelings. I cried all the time. I used to go to my mother with tears streaming down my face, asking, Mom, why don't they like me? And that was just one class I got out of. The other five classes I went to, and I was bullied there too. So no, I wasn't avoiding my feelings by trying to escape the bullying."

I mean, WTF!!

The whole session last time, just a blank, sad, hangdog look on his face. I don't know what his problem is, that he always takes the side of anyone else who has hurt me. He stopped doing it for a while, but now that it's back, I'm thinking I just need to terminate. And this is hard because there were a string of sessions, like 16 or 18, where he was just great, and I really thought we were making progress. Now he's acting like he did at our first session - hostile, remote, treating me like I suck.

I know some folks are sick of this guy and wish I'd kick him to the curb already. I guess I respect y'all's opinions, and I just sort of need your permission to do this now, before taking that plunge. It's going to be very scary for me to be without therapy for a while. I need your support! And I would appreciate any other input.

Thanks!
Kitten

OMG this is like my exact thing- substitute gym class for X person in my life, and you have it! I honestly have NO idea what to tell you. Just want to let you know I understand and it SUCKS!!

Whoa, kitten!! If you have talked to him about this and haven't been able to resolve it, it is SO time for you to get a new T. I tell T sometimes "I need you to be on my side" and he always, ALWAYS looks at me very seriously and tells me "I AM on your side" and I believe him. I need that.

I'm sorry it sounds like therapy has been so hurtful You deserve WAY more than that.