I Don't Want to Hurt T's Feelings

I just left her a message on her voicemail apologizing for being such a brat. I told her that I'm sure she's thinking of referring me out now. I said I wouldn't blame her at all since it's becoming more and more clear how difficult I am. Since she's seeing it close and personal how bad I can be, it must definitely be crossing her mind to terminate. I told her that if she decides to keep trying to work with me a little longer I'll try to behave myself better. I couldn't wait until next week to tell her how sorry I feel.

((((((skysblue))))))

You are not difficult or bad!! Your T will definitely not want to get rid of you. I know it doesn't look like it to you, but as an outsider I think your actions and words are progress, not the opposite.

It reminds me of when I scribbled all over my T's design on the drawing paper. I told her I wanted to get rid of it. I rarely display anger in therapy; probably never did before. Therapy is a place to show our feelings, not to intellectualize. I'm guilty of wanting to do the latter, so I know how it is.

You're being real with your feelings, and that's what Ts want from us.

When we need help from a T we are frequently living at the extremes. Getting healthy moves us back into the center. (You feel you need to throw the baby out with the bathwater on this?) Do you think this is part of your wish to be perfect?

Sure, I understand what you mean but there's never an excuse for treating someone badly. And who wants to be around someone if they get that kind of treatment? I mean, first of all I complained about the light, then I said a couple of sarcastic words to her and then I tried to 'punish' her by not telling her the end of my dream. Even she commented on my behavior. I'm ashamed of myself that she got the brunt of my passive-aggression. I'm deeply ashamed. She's had to put up with my whining, my complaining, my belligerence, etc. She would have to be a saint to agree to keep seeing me.

You are being really honest here. I'm really impressed. We can not act perfect sometimes and still be loved..........

In your first post at top of the thread, you said her words "hurt" you. You have got to talk about that with her, or you might as well not bother with therapy. I do know about and have been in the place where you are right now. Therapists are human and they can get offended and they can become defensive and all this can be hurtful to you. Fortunately, this is just the sort of thing that gives you an opportunity to zone in on what you need to be dealing with.

I was a lot like you in therapy. You are right to understand that you do have to watch how you express yourself. You must apologize for sarcasm and then talk about what led to it.

Be attentive and cautious. But do not evade the difficult issues. Do not let your therapist evade the tough issues. That's my advice. You sound like a very responsible person. You are in therapy because you need help with some things that are not pleasant to deal with. If your interaction with your T stays tension-free all the time, then I doubt anything is being accomplished. You have a lot of wisdom. You want to be respectful of your T, which is mature of you. You wanted to talk to her about how her words hurt you. There is nothing more appropriate for you to talk about. It can be done in a civil manner.

I understand that it's transference. I've even talked to T about it and have read a ton of books about it. As we become closer to T and more and more comfortable, our old issues (conscious and unconscious) begin to play out with our T's. They will inevitably evoke in us emotions that need some kind of resolution. And that's the beauty of transference - that the issues become plain as day and are more easily addressed in the here and now.

Something must have happened to me in my childhood that made me extra alert to being 'bad' and also contributed to me denying myself to feel feelings. Also, probably being forced to be 'mute' about my true self.

So, I'm scared that my obviously repressed anger and resentment is going to explode on T and it will be the most regrettable scene. It's already leaked out a bit and I'm ashamed of that.

So, this is the dilemma I'm facing - on one hand T is encouraging me to slowly dismantle my protective walls and get closer to my inner self. When i've made steps to do that, my emotions get the better of me and it feels like I'll lose control. The latest sarcasm episode is evidence of that.

So, I don't want to 'act out' so I'll try to maintain self control but by that very effort, it seems that therapy is less useful.

So, what is to be done? Relax and risk? Or keep walls and keep safe?

((((((Sky)))))) I agree with the earlier posts... I think it sounds like you're making progress.

But before I go into that, I also agree that you sound like a mature, responsible, honest adult. I haven't read anything that suggests you're bad. It sounds like maybe you need to hear that.

As far as the issue of repressed anger... It sounds like maybe you're caught in... oh man, I don't know the psychobabble term for it ... like you're caught in an emotional negative feedback loop. I get caught in these and was just reading about them, maybe you're going through something similar? It could go something like this:

Something with T upsets us---> We feel angry/hurt---> We then feel shame for our anger/fear of acting bad---> To avoid shame/anger/badness, we repress the anger.

So then, this anger is already below the surface. Something else happens with T and suddenly not only are we angry about the new offense, but we also have the repressed anger/fear/shame still buried inside. The cycle begins anew, this time with all the force of accumulated and unprocessed emotions, and this further intensifies the shame.

I think you're right... your anger is leaking. Your walls are breaking down, with or without your consent. So I think the question isn't "Relax/risk or keep walls/keep safe?" Instead, I think the question is: do you let your T help you in gently freeing you of your walls or do you allow them to burst open on their own.

I do think this is progress, I don't think any of this makes you bad or unworthy of T, I don't think she's considering termination. If you want to protect her from your anger/shame leakage you don't have to hide it.. you can protect her by allowing her to help you process it. (((((Sky))))))

Yes, I understand what you've said. I absolutely know the dangers of them bursting on their own. That had happened a few years ago and almost ruined my life.

But here I am employing old tactics of trying to ignore and repress my feelings, not knowing how and/or fearful of expressing them appropriately and then WHAM! - there they go!! Unleashed and out of control.

I guess I have to be grateful for the trigger of the light coming on because that trigger allowed the leak to happen and without that I still wouldn't have been conscious of how deeply upset I am.

What has always worked for me is to blurt everything out right away, whew! There it's out, now let's talk about it.........

Remember, you got sarcastic when you didn't talk about what was really going on with you in that session.

Yeah, yeah - but FEAR is a huge impediment to blurting things out. I think T is having me understand that I have a deep dark fear of rejection and abandonment. So, facing that fear is the crux of it all... She and I have discussed it a lot - overcoming fear, especially this particular fear.

So shame begets fear which begets anger which begets shame... Ah, childofyen has it down.

Man oh man - am I happy! My T returned my call even though I had not requested it. That has been our agreement - that she would not call unless I asked her to. But she did anyway to make me feel better.

She said that there was no need to apologize - that of course, she wants to continue seeing me. And from a therapist's position, the more parts of me that show up in session the better and that it's all for the good and to not worry.

I have an idea what our topic will be next week.

AMEN SISTAH!

Skysblue,

CCBG -you crack me up. You're just not letting me wiggle out of this, are you?

Okay, the problem with bringing EVERYTHING up is that it may come across that I don't appreciate her or that I have only complaints to deliver or that I'm focusing on what I don't like instead of what I love about her.

I mean, there are so many things to cover during the 50 minutes that it seems a waste to go down a road that may give her the wrong impression. I want her to know how much I need and depend on her, not my pitiful little crybaby whining. And, even though people say that T's are trained to handle anything coming their way, I know for a fact (yes, it's a fact ) that they're human too. AND, I've been reading books by therapists and for therapists that discuss the challenges they face with their clients. It can be extremely difficult for them to 'handle' some of their clients and they have to face their own feelings, etc. and I don't want to consciously risk hurting her. I have done things in session without planning that was hurtful and I have felt extremely ashamed about it. So, to plan to do it is something I don't think I can do.

Why does being confrontational feel only negative to you? Sarcasm can hide a fear, its good to be just as we are in any given minute so it can be looked at and understood, its no good pushing stuff away, therapy is the place to show how we respond sometimes because if it happens in therapy then it happens outside and wouldn't you prefer to respond in more positive ways? Think of it like this, "I am showing you how am in relationships when I feel scared or annoyed and you can help me understand why I am like this and change it".

Sky if we can see clearly just by your posting that there is so much more to you than hurt, anger, sarcasm, fear etc. ..... and by that I mean we see good things in you; I think she will be able to as well and if she can't work out that you aren't a pitiful whining crybaby ............ well I don't think you'd be seeing her if she couldn't work that much out because it simply isn't true

I don't get why she doesn't turn the light off once she has seen it? You don't need to be staring at it for 15 minutes. It seems like 15 seconds should be long enough for your T to get the message that her next client is there.

I am glad you will talk more about it next time. I had a situation kind of similar to that with my T. He started leaving his laptop open next to him on the couch. It was very distracting to me because sometimes he would look over at it and I felt he wasn't listening to me or that I was boring him. We talked about that several times. Now when I come in his office, his laptop is on his desk on the other side of the room. Phew! Those conversations were hard, especially when we would speak about it once, and then he would do it again. It felt deliberate to me, but it wasn't. He was just forgetful. My being able to bring up the laptop problem with him was very big for me. I am trying to be more direct with people and here was a great chance to practice in therapy.

So hang in there on this subject with your T. It sounds like she is very willing to discuss it and she even suggested a solution, although you didn't like it. How about if you suggest that she turn off the light once it has gone on so you don't have to keep staring at it? Seems obvious, but sometimes they just don't think of these things.

To me, this just says you need further practice and training at direct communication. Things are seeping out as indirect communication, like not telling her the dream's end instead of talking directly and non-judgmentally to her about how you don't like the light. It's not a reason to be referred out. Just shows you have further work to do.

Skyblue, one of my favorite passages in one of my books says the following: "It is unrealistic to reassure patients directly about fears the therapist will abandon them. In fact, in a successful treatment the patient will feel abandoned many times. Patients will create situations in which they believe the therapist is threatening termination in spite of everything said or done to the contrary; or the therapist will make a mistake or do something else to indicate that the patient has been misunderstood, and this will cause the patient to feel abandoned. In these and many other ways patients will feel their therapists never really cared for them or were just looking for a chance to be rid of them. Not only can these experiences not be avoided, but also they ought not be avoided. Over time, the patient should have the chance to find that the relationship endures in spite of moments of tension and instances of being misunderstood. Patients cannot experience relationships as constant without first realizing that people do sometimes fall out with and fail one another, but that such disappointments do not destroy the relationship. The psychological atmosphere of the session is more important to the creation of object constancy than specific interventions. The therapist is trying to create a psychological space or a psychic cocoon, within which the patient can simply be--a setting of safety and belonging in which the patient need not do anything or fill any function to be welcome." (Charles Cohen & Vance Sherwood)

I know that I have engaged in this with my own therapist. In the beginning, I would NEVER enter her office unless she came out and invited me in; this was even after she told me that if her door was open I could "come right in." I told her that wasn't possible, she needed to "invite me in." Often people with abandonment issues don't feel, deep down inside, that they are welcome anywhere. But over time, each time my therapist welcomed me into her office with a genuine and caring smile, that frozen disbelieving part of me began to thaw. I can now enter her office just by noticing her door is open and she calls out to me, "Come on in!"

I have also struggled with the idea that I am "too much" for her, that she will tire of me or if she sees the "ugliness" inside, she will turn away. It wasn't her reassurance that she welcomed me or wouldn't tire of me or that she looked forward to my sessions with her that eased those feelings. It happened over time. It happened by me going to my sessions and her being there each and every time. It was being in her office and feeling safe. I still have those feelings from time to time, but they have lessened.

One of my most striking realizations that things have changed occured last night. I awoke from a horrible nightmare. I was sobbing and said over and over aloud, "Oh, God, I've got to get this out of my head! I have to think of something pleasant to drive this dream out of my head!" I tried thinking of my favorite place--a beach that I swam at when I was a teen. It made things worse because the dream took a piece of that place and made it part of the dream. I continued crying. I then said, "Think about T's office. Think about T!" So I conjured up her office and then I visually put her in her chair across from me and a sense a peace began to settle over me. I had to really work at the visualization but it finally held and I was able to back to sleep. This for me was a sign of "object constancy", my therapist now resides inside of me. In the past, she would disappear or I would dismiss her interest as just a part of the monetary transaction.

I'm glad her phone call made you feel reassured and gave you a small sense of belonging. I hope you keep going and working on all of this. It takes a while, although I'm pretty sure it's taken me longer than most! LOL

"I have done things in session without planning that was hurtful and I have felt extremely ashamed about it." (sorry and please excuse, I don't know how to import quotes into my reply.)

skysblue, That statement (in quotes above) is profoundly important (in what it shows about your capacity for self-reflection, empathy, and perception of consequences) and I think I am starting to get why you really and truly are in a huge dilemma. I suspect that your fears about alienating your T, and the potential for that having some really bad, even traumatic, repercussions are not baseless fears. The ability of a trained professional to "handle" difficult interactions with a client can get over-taxed. When that happens, the emotional fallout can be incredibly painful and disturbing to both the client and the T, even possibly rupturing the therapeutic relationship beyond repair.

The only reason I know that is because it has happened to me. Also, I had a highly talented psychiatrist once, who told me that there are a minority of clients who have an unusual ability to trigger this sort of a scenario. She further maintained that a situation can occur that is just too overwhelming for a T to cope with. Her conclusion was that certain clients must be treated in a setting (like partial hospitalization/psych day care) where the T always has emotional support form other staff. That might not be available to you, or might not be what you would want to do. My main point is that you are not overstating the potential for an office visit to go very wrong. And I believe your concern about the T being only human and not invulnerable to getting overwhelmed by her own emotion is within the bounds of realistic thinking.

We all want to be optimistic and encourage you to take down the barriers . . . the inhibitions that curtail your free expression of how you feel. And, typically, that is the general way to go. Sometimes, things just aren't typical. Your high level of apprehension may be due to you having a lot of insight into the potential for a hurtful meltdown. I can see where that could leave you feeling like you don't have a "good" option that you can comfortably just go with.

I would be very surprised if that were the case here, Rose. I think Jaybird's is the more likely of the two scenarios.

Having just read Jaybird, I want to say explicitly that I have experienced permanent "patient abandonment" . . . that is to say: frank "termination of contact." It is devastating beyond words to experience. I don't believe the clinicians that did this to me were bad people, or incompetent. I don't believe I was a bad person at the time. Humans can become overwhelmed. No amount of letters after a person's name makes them immune to that. It IS uncommon, because professionals generally can cope. But, it DOES happen.

[quote] . . .I had a highly talented psychiatrist once, who told me that there are a minority of clients who have an unusual ability to trigger this sort of a scenario. She further maintained that a situation can occur that is just too overwhelming for a T to cope with. Her conclusion was that certain clients must be treated in a setting (like partial hospitalization/psych day care) where the T always has emotional support form other staff. That might not be available to you, or might not be what you would want to do. My main point is that you are not overstating the potential for an office visit to go very wrong. And I believe your concern about the T being only human and not invulnerable to getting overwhelmed by her own emotion is within the bounds of realistic thinking. [quote]

Rose, I don't disagree with you, but I feel that most mismatches and terminations come about because a therapist is ill equipped in her training or else ill equipped emotionally herself to deal effectively and with well boundaried compassion toward her client who might have significant abandonment issues. Personally, I think that a client truly can "trigger" a therapist to behave in an abandoning fashion, but that isn't the client's fault. . . . anymore than I can blame my therapist for "my" triggers. Part of therapy is learning what my triggers are and developing good solid coping strategies for dealing with those triggers in the bigger world. My therapist's job is to assist me/guide me in doing that. Therapist's are responsible for doing the same when they are developing their therapeutic skills. It isn't my therapist's job to always let me, the client, know what I'm doing that is triggering her, although in some cases she might determine that this would be a solid technique, especially once the trust is solid and strong. But my therapist definitely needs to closely examine what I trigger in her during her consultation time, either alone or with a colleague and she needs to know how to respond therapeutically.

Since I tend to view all therapeutic interventions through an attachment lens, I have a hard time seeing hospitalization or partial programs as the right approach to abandonment issues. In fact, I see both these options as making abandonment issues even more difficult to deal with effectively. I see them as options that are needed and very helpful in times of crisis. . . not as techniques to be used with high functioning individuals who are struggling with day to day issues related to self-worth and abandonment. I'm not saying they aren't helpful programs, just more of a response to critical, highly crisis based issues.

I might be wrong but from what I've read from Bluesky, she is an individual who is very analytical, a bit of a perfectionist and slightly inclined to be overwhelmed emotionally in a close intimate relationship, reacting with fear when she views her therapist as getting too close--Bluesky, I think that's when you react with anger and/or sarcasm and this is your "pushing away" behavior. Then when your emotions begin to settle, usually right after you leave your session, you feel guilty or shameful. You then perhaps begin to feel an intense need to apologize, and in a sense you "submit" to your therapist by offering to allow her the right to get rid of you by terminating you. (you might want to look up masochistic rapproachement--NOT as bad as it sounds LOL).

Anyway, hang in there Bluesky! You're making progress even though you don't feel that way.
Jaybird

PS Rose, I'm so sorry that you experienced termination by a therapist. I know that must have been horribly painful and if hospitalization or a partial program was helpful, I'm truly glad you found that support. My disagreement with that approach is just my opinion and not an attempt to disrespect what your feel is a great approach!

If you had a / in front of the last 'quote' it would have appeared as a good old Psych Central quotation.

I was terminated once (well the T STRONGLY suggested I seek help elsewhere) and this T was a specialist in DBT, which was why I was seeing her! A DBT specialist can't take the BPD crazy at its finest! Anyway, I don't regret challenging her, and I'd do it again!

In this case, Skysblue, you have a more much developed relationship with your T, and she knows you as a whole. I really don't think she'd think you're challenging her for the sake fo being difficult if you discuss the (outrageous) payment. I also think its a worthwhile to revisit the phone call issue if you need to as well.

I think what's more important is your attitude, demeanor, and choice of words as well as your self-reflection, honesty, and openness. She will see your sincerity and be open to working on these with you. My current T always thanks me when I tell her something that has bothered me.

My DBT T terminated me because I sparred with her CONSTANTLY, disrespectfully and rudely. But hey that's my best defense mechanism.

Cheeses, that sounds like a lot of work. I just stop brushing my teeth...