why no more hugs ever....

Emotional numbing and grief... yes. You are doing great to be able to stay mentally ontop of your emotions through this. Good work!!

thank you, WePow.....it is god-awful (if you will excuse me the term) hard work, though.I still feel like this >>This morning, the hurt and grief was just feeling so huge, I felt like I would burst out the top of my head, but then it was like suddenly I began to feel lighter, like moving away from the pain, like putting it away somewhere it didn't feel so heavy and hard and crushing in my chest. Dissociation?
Just thinking too about the child vs adult parts again.....I find that helpful to think about, really. But the child parts are feeling so big in me right now, the hurt is so big, it feels like I mostly AM all child part, and where is the adult part that can soothe the many little child parts? That part feels so small and so overwhelmed with hurt right now, too.
Forgive me for talking so much about this pain and not doing a great job moving on yet....but maybe it's OK to just sit with the grief a moment.
I'm thinking of asking T for a session to just do that....not talk (although I have journaling for next time on this, and a lot of it, too!) but just sit in silence for a while. Even if I can't cry, couldn't we just sit quietly in respect for the tears that need to come.....and maybe then they will. I don't know, I just don't. I'm just trying to be gentle with myself and stay safe today, a moment at a time. Thanks again for all who have helped me....

" . . . but maybe it's OK to just sit with the grief a moment."

Sounds fine but , remember, if you need another moment and another and another then like the alcholic who 'll have just one more drink and then another and then . . .

Of course I don't want to compare, too much, this need for comfort to alcohol. I'm not a therapist. Unlike alcohol, people need comforting. My concern is just that you were wondering about this need and now your settling for needing this need again.

Interesting thought......I wanted to let you know that this does make me think....
But then, how can I get through this hurt without letting myself sit with it a bit, acknowledge it, rather than push it away? I have a hard time dealing with feelings, trying to intellectualize and push them away, and that has left me in greater pain.....so this time i am trying to actually be with and deal with the feelings, to maybe heal from them instead of being left with unhealed feelings and pain stuffed in a mental/emotional box somewhere in my head. Does this make sense?

Yes, I think it makes sense. You need to grieve for as long as you want. I wrote a long post and lost it. I will have to do it later. I'm thinking of you!!!!

I think that you are doing great work with this pgirl! It reminds me of something that happened this last weekend. My daughter was really mad about something and I just let her be mad after we talked about it. She was mad for about 30 minutes, going on and on about it and then she was done with it and her anger was gone. It really got me thinking about this and I do believe that it is true that when you have an emotion you need to express it until you have released it.

Also, I like your thoughts about honesty and that it can have consequences that you aren't the happiest about. I agree, that honesty is still the best policy even so!

thank you, Sannah! I have journaled out a lot of this hurt, I think.....and it is helping a lot to just express it there, and here.

(poetgirl)

Yes it makes very much sense to need comforting and to grieve at the therapists decision to limit this comforting. And to balance between grieving and accepting is a sign you're doing well regarding the decision.

I guess, to me, as you yourself said, it seemed like yours was an addiction or, if not an addiction, an excessive need for comforting. Sometimes people can use comfort as a crutch.

I don't want you to get the fact that people need comforting and the therapists decision to quit the comfort, as her denying you the right to have feelings. It just seemed she thought it was part of your particular problem to be needing as much comforting and hugs.

I would imagine the therapist still, on occasion, hugs other patients as comfort but in your case decided the physical hugs were better gotten somewhere else.

It may be that the decision has less to do with you as a person and more to do with the therapist as a person. Maybe the therapist was starting to get to close to you. Therefore, she stopped the hugs but, for whatever reason, doesn't want to tell you that.

Well, in any event, you seem to be handling it well. Very thoughtfully.

The thing I'm trying to learn in therapy is how to 'feel' the pain and not run away from it. Typically I will (and do) stuff it, make vows to never do again whatever it was that caused the pain, react in anger, blame, etc. etc.

I've read many times and my T is trying to teach me to 'pay attention' to the emotion, experience it and work through it. I would protest and say, "But that's wallowing in my own pain. I should move on. I should forget about it. I should pretend it doesn't exist."

But T pointed out that those inefficient and failed coping mechanisms make the problem worse. We need to look the pain squarely in its face, make friends with it and in that process work through it honestly.

So often we do everything we can to avoid feeling bad about ourselves. As Pema Chodron states, " If I allow myself to look at what hurts, I find a genuine, open heart. The business of avoiding who we are is a game that never needed to begin in the first place."

I guess life's experiences are ways for us to learn about ourselves. And the painful ones are probably the most valuable. I'm learning that it's an ongoing battle to overcome our fears and our pain and that we need to practice again and again.

Again, Pema Chodron writes, " Becoming more in touch with ourselves gives birth to enormous appreciation for the world and for other people. And it comes from touching that shakiness within and being willing to be present with it."

Damn it! Sorry PoetGirl I typed you a huge long response and lost it. So I retyped it and lost it AGAIN! I hate my h's computer. I will have to rewrite tomorrow night. I had so much to say to you.

I am so sad for you that you are going through this right now. It sounded like having hug with your t was such a soulful thing between the two of you. I truly hear your pain when you post. Please keep writing here and let us help to comfort you.

Kacey, we must have the same computer. This morning I typed a long post to poetgirl and lost it too!

Poetgirl, I lost my train of thought from this morning but it was about your child parts who want the hugs from your T. I wonder if you can separate that part out from the adult parts, and if your T will let those parts speak, and will speak to them. The child part wants love and hugs, not sex. I know my child part just wants my T to hold her and tell her she loves her--plain and simple. I know the goal is for my adult part to say it, not my T, but in any case, it's what the child part wants.

I think the child parts should be allowed to grieve as long as they need to, and talk about what the hugs meant to them, or her. She should not be stifled or be silenced just because your T doesn't think hugs are good for you.

You have a compassionate T and she will probably let you grieve the way you need to do. I hope you are feeling a little better about all of this and that you will be able to process it and endure the pain it's causing you, and ultimately heal from it.

(((((((((((((poetgirl))))))))))))))))

Feeling your feelings important. I really believe that in therapy, it's how we learn and grow...and I think sometimes we can learn the MOST from the big, big feelings that come up within the therapy relationship itself.

I know that my rupture with T this week brought a laser focus to come of my deep, core issues that I'm not ever sure I could name before. It hurts and it sucks and I hate it...and I know if I don't recognize them, if they are so much a part of me that I can't even see them, I'll never be able to move past them.

You're doing really good work. Be gentle with you

THIS is exactly how I feel about my session last week. Something my T said hit a nerve, and I didn't know exactly what it meant, but I know it meant something deep that I couldn't identify before. It scares the h*** out of me because I'm not even sure what it is and I have no clue what is going to surface. But, I just know I have to look at it and try to understand it to move past it. Thanks Tree for putting it into those words!

Poetgirl, dealing with feelings you didn't even know you had is so terrifying, but I'm learning that these things have been burried for soooooo long and they need to show themselves. I hope your T knows what you are feeling now, and can effectively help you process the things that start to come up...I wish it wasn't so painful!

(((((suratji, kacey, rainbow, tree, sweetlove))))) thank you so much. it means so much to know that so many are still with me in my pain.....
I do feel some better now that the initial shock is passing.....but the ache remains. And I still want to cry, but still the tears are stuck.....I think I am afraid to just let the dam break open because there a LOT of tears behind it!
It's like I have contained the pain to a place, or I think of it as a sort of safebox, so that I can put it there and move on and function. The migraine I had yesterday gave me an excuse to sleep away some of the pain, too....
What I see is that, like you put in rainbow, the child parts (I'll say parts, rather than part, because I think it is more accurate) wanted love and hugs from T. The adult part actually wanted that, too, not sex, either. It's just that it got sexualized in a sense I think, particularly because I have been dealing with a sexually charged issue like coming to terms with my sexual identity......and when I was manic, I did have odd sexual thoughts about her, but in general anyway too. Those passed, even before I confessed that to her.....so now I am feeling the sting of consequences for thoughts I didn't have before the manic period and do not, nor will ever, have again. I don't want anything inappropriate from T, just her care and a simple emotionally grounding touch that reminds me in a tangible sense (because mere words are not like that for me) of her care....
I don't feel like my feelings for her are really that complicated right now....I am attached to her, I love her still because she has been so compassionate and kind and caring and helpful but understand it's not a mutual love but rather a care given, and I have no sexual feelings none whatsoever. I don't think anymore that I want her to hold me......but I do still wish that there was a 'someday again' for safe touch rather than 'never, ever again'. I still cannot wrap my mind and heart around that......it still aches, deep in the core of me, down where the old trauma wounds are, it aches.....I should say, the adult part can accept this and logic it, but the child parts who are carrying the pain cannot understand why it was given and then taken away (might say there's even some anger at the adult part for having weird manic hypersexual thoughts and an unconventional sexual identity!)
Yes, the big, huge, deep feelings....so scary to keep finding more in there, deeper and deeper....and now to think of sessions that will end with no safe, grounding touch makes me more terrified to face them in session.....something, but what, needs to take the place of that, if it's possible.....
I won't see T until next Tuesday......at this moment, I am glad to have no contact with her. She doesn't know what I am feeling/thinking right now.....I usually do not call between session or have contact and that has always been ok with me (I had a hug after session so that was enough - then it was enough ). She WILL know plenty after session Tuesday.....

thank you for thinking I am handling it well. I feel so ungracious actually in it.....it's not like I don't have some bitter, angry feelings (I expressed them more in my journaling for her, with respect of course) but it doesn't do me any favors dealing with this to let myself be consumed with them.
It's a fact she took away hugs.....it's my problem that I don't like it or think it's fair (and I happen to think I am right it's not fair or entirely just or right for me, but then it's a fact that she thinks it's right to do anyway, so guess I can't change the fact, just the problem!).
Therefore I have to deal with the problem.....and one way I deal with problems (or with feelings ) is to be as logical and intellectual as I can in evaluating the emotions that are so intense and intensely illogical in me!
Yes, I probably have an excessive need for touch and for comforting, whether it involves touch or not, because of the egregious lack of either growing up.....I need to learn better self-soothing, self-comforting, obviously.

"I need to learn better self-soothing, self-comforting, obviously."

Please, don't be hard on yourself. We can only do so much as far as bettering ourselves. Nobody is perfect.

Sorry to bring this back up, when it probably seems like old news....but still feels so fresh to me.....
But reading something WePow said last night in her post, made me see something I had not seen, or had not really acknowledged.....
Something she said about being jealous, WANTING T to take away hugs so there would be hurt and that would feel normal, more normal to be hurt rather than to be loved (like safe love hurting really because it felt so unusual and different.....) triggered an awareness in me.....
It has always felt more normal to me to be hurt, too, to not have safe love or safe touch. T offered me this safe touch, this safe care, safe emotional intimacy......and yet I always believed, always feared, she would take it all away, that she would hurt me, and hurt me deeply because I had allowed myself to trust her and attach to her so deeply. And I wonder if maybe something in me tested her to see if she would take it away if I told her the things I told her......and if something in me thought she SHOULD take it away, or hoped she would, hoped she would hurt me, because it would feel more normal then, to be hurt as I have always been hurt. Because I am more accustomed to feeling pain than I am security, safety, love/care in relationships; because I have not forgotten the punishment given to me as a child, the hurts delivered while saying, if we didn't love you, we wouldn't punish you.....So I think I have replayed this with T.....and now, it's too late, I wish I could undo it, but the damage is done, and the wounded child in me feels much more deeply wounded and in a sense further traumatized. I feel like a child, I feel like I am all child right now, and where is the part of me that can soothe and comfort me.....(gosh, how pitifully dramatic i sound......)
I know I have said I want to keep trusting her, and I do, I feel that I must, yet how can a rupture like this be repaired, how can a deep new cut made into the core wounds be healed.....with much time and talk and grieving and tears (!!!!!) I suppose.....

Very good insight pgirl! This sounds like something great to talk to T about...........

we will be talking about it.....we'll be doing a LOT of talking about it, I think!
tolerating this hurt a bit better today.....I think I am getting a bit into the fight part of the flight vs fight reaction thing. I better be careful with that, I know it.....I guess maybe it's OK to have some anger about it, but not to get consumed by it or stay in it.....I guess I do have to face that I AM angry about it, but even so, I am not angry with her or hating her....that would be unreasonable. Gosh, how confused i sound, but I am actually......and afraid (did I say that before!)
It's just taking me a while to work through this..... Feel free to ignore me now....

((((Poetgirl))))

What you are going through is a lot of very tough work. Tons of emotions all over the place. I think you are doing GREAT to be able to work through this in a logical way.

It is funny (strange) because I keep wanting to tell my T "NO MORE HUGS EVER!" but I want to do it because I want to punish myself before he can do it! ???

There is something this is touching in both of us at a deep level. I am not trying to take your issue and make it my focus, I just want to share with you so you will not feel alone in what you are going through. You are TONS and TONS braver than I am! You are still able to go through the emotions with all of this and use your T for your healing. Good job!!!

Keep talking it out here on PC. It helps you and others both I think.

thank you, WePow! I don't feel very brave, but it helps me believe it a little more and gives me courage to hear you say that.
Yes, I think there is a connection between us on this issue, something from the core of us that is resonating in the other......but this is something I find lovely about PC, that there can be connection like this, someone out there who understands so intimately what we have gone through in the past and what we are going through in the depths of our being now because of it.....
Oh, and I think your T would not want to take away hugs from you, even if you said that to him, that he would not want you to punish yourself like that......should you maybe talk this through with him, I'm thinking?

I don't know how much this idea has been explored in the thread - I may have missed it but I think In Doubt has a good point.

PG - didn't you say that T was emotional when she told you that there could be no more hugs?

Imagine that she is experiencing counter-transference. As the professional that she is, this could be quite dangerous for her. She has a code of ethics to follow and if there were any hint that she felt pulled to 'engage' you further, she would be on a very slippery slope. I don't know how easily T's can lose their license, but this might be a real threat to her.

You have the luxury of expressing your feelings. She does not. You can emote and be visibly in agony. She cannot. You can cry and wail and suffer in her presence. She has to keep her feelings contained.

She knows that her obligation is your well-being. She must not satisfy her own wishes or desires. She also has a strict code of ethics to follow and, in reality, you would be dismayed if she broke that code.

Although, this is still mere intellectualizing and can't remove the painful emotions you are feeling, maybe a slight movement in perspective will help a bit.

The emotion she showed was when telling me what she would do when someone cried, that she might sit with them or she might cry with them. She has cried before, and by crying, I mean only a few tears or her voice breaking a bit. And she has said she is an 'emoter', she is expressive....but she has never been inappropriately so.....So I had my face buried in her couch cushion, wanting to cry, and when she said she would cry with people when they cried sometimes, this is when her voice broke - not when she said no more hugs, exactly.
The other thing she said to me, more than once, and said with emphasis, that it was my feelings which were complicated, and hers were not. She said also that she cared about me as she cared about ALL her clients. She reminded me just as I was about to leave that she cared about me. I said, but no more than any of your other clients.....and she said, no.
So the point is good, Suratji and InDoubt, and well taken......but I think she does not have overly strong feelings for me. I think she is just, as she says, an emoter.....and she is that way with others, too, that she will show tears at times when she is moved. She is just an expressive person too....but not overly emotional, she has always been in control and appropriate in expressing her feelings. She's transparent and open....I think if there were counter-transference, she would likely have said to me what it was.....of course, how can I assume that? But if I asked her directly, she would say not.
She is strictly following ethics in this, yes.....I see that. I am glad she is so ethical.....nonetheless, in this case, I think, she could have handled this better, not so abruptly and with more mercy. I can accept the ethics of her actions and be satisfied with that aspect......but no, it doesn't remove the pain of how this played out and doesn't mean that some parts of me feel it wasn't necessarily the best choice for me personally. I think ethics could still support safe touch in my case......but I am only crying into the wind at this point and I know it.....

PG - do you think you can still work with your T? Has the trust been shaken too badly?