Have you ever started a session

kind of a companion to yesterday's thread - have you ever started a session where you feel like your T has caught you with your hand in the cookie jar, or vice versa? You're both looking at each other, and there's this uneasy feeling of guilt, like they know you did something "bad", or do they think you expect them to remember what you were last talking about and they don't? Lately I always feel like T is somehow cheating on me or he thinks i'm cheating on him, like i'm seeing another T on the side! Does he think I'm getting fatter when I've said I wanted to lose, so he's disappointed but doesn't want to say anything? What is wrong with this relationship?

Are the examples you're giving the thoughts you're having when the session starts? You're feeling guilty and you think you're T is feeling guilty too? What about coming clean with your thoughts/feelings? Do you think he can't be honest? Are you not being honest?

Yes frequently my sessions start like that if I have had a bad week. I struggle to be open about things, but think T can see through my "Oh yes I am fine" face. I have acually contacted an external anonymous support network this week and I even cringe when I think that T may find out about that.

But I am not sure whether you are saying that there has been issues and T has caught you with your hand in the cookie jar (like me above) - or that is just how it feels, that there is no cookie jar, but the relationship feels tense in some way or you are wary of each other?

Right, there is no cookie jar. So just wondering if other people have this impression or other weird feelings at start of session. It's happened before, we "repair" eventually, I guess it kind of happens in cycles?

So I guess yes I do, but there is generally a cookie jar involved, so not without a concrete reason.

So, unexplained guilty feelings? hey, looks like a great direction to take therapy.

i always start with a panicky feeling i sometimes even have a hard time breathing and i blush horribly it is totally embarrassing.my T has asked if i feel OK because my face is so red .but now she understands it is me just blushing and panicking .i kind of wish i could feel guilty when i SI or something but i don't because i never tell her and i know she wont ask and i hide it well.i don't think i do anything else to ever feel guilty about.i do feel like i disappoint her a lot

Hi Hankster...

Yeah, unfortunately, been having a lot of these lately. Obviously though I am "cheating" on my T and he is helping me do it with the DBT T and it's weird. Plus I've been crying a lot and dissociating a lot over the last few months and end up just walking out at the end of sessions and thus feel like our previous sessions are always hanging in the air. I hate this and don't know how to deal with it. I tend to get business like and deal with checks and appointments at the beginning so I don't have to do it at the end when I'm upset and not thinking clearly. But lately, there's this odd expectant pause like he's waiting for me to take the lead or fess up or apologize or somehow finish what I left hanging the time before. I really hate it.

Last week I brought in an AGENDA, and he went through it like a dang business meeting. I don't know when we've ever been so DIS-connected. I told him I'd never do THAT again. He wants me to help direct where things are going so he can better control the endings, but I'm truly discouraged. Last Tuesday I free-associated about the loss of someone very dear to me. It was part trauma/part grief and loss and something we had never addressed. It was actually very significant for a number of reasons to what is going on right now. Had I pre-planned a topic, the free-association wouldn't have happened...

Usually I'm struggling so hard just to make to the appt...I just want to BE there. I'm so glad you brought this up, because I don't know what to do with that feelings you're describing or what's going on in therapy. I'll be really interested in what everyone else is saying.

WB

I don't know about cookie jars or lack thereof... but I guess some sessions start a little dry - like:
'So how was your week?'
'Well, [blah... blah.]'
'...?'
'...!'
'...'
and I have this awkward few seconds where I think, 'OMG, I only just got here and I have nothing left to say!' But before panic can set in my T has a great habit of asking a pertinent question, and we get on a roll.

I'm a little nervous for next session actually, as she's been away for a few weeks, and so maybe she'll see a perceptible change in me... I hope I haven't gone too much downhill since she last saw me, y'anno? I do also have some guilt because during our hiatus I haven't really been a good girl - there's been SI, lots of binge eating, an identity crisis that resulted in me becoming blonde, and I've not worked on the things we agreed I would. I wanted her to come back and be like 'Wow, you're doing great!' and instead I think she'll be more like 'Oh. Oh dear.'

Okay, so I waited until the last 5 minutes to bring it up, and left with him laughing at me and me trying to say it wasn't ME, it was somebody here on PC, and he goes, no you sounded like your mother to me, and I was laughing so hard my stomach was hurting again. Because I really did sound like my mother trying to dodge responsibility for feelings, I could hear it too. It was absolutely eerie. He has said it before, but I never HEARD her voice and logic coming out of my mouth like I did today. So painful! We haven't worked out the issue (pretty much the same as Rainbow8's), but I knew I was projecting, and I admitted it, and I am just SO glad we have this easygoing yet respectful of each other's intelligence type of r/s.

Gosh, that is so interesting that you bring that up. But why are you calling hankster Dude?

Anne

P.S. If you look back at the thread, you are "stuck" at 304. I think the system updates earlier posts to the current count, now that I think about it.

Figure of speech?? No offense intended...

And, hankster, I'm not sure this is the issue you were raising, but I used to feel guilty all the time and think that I did things that were told to me to be against the rules and/or actual crimes.

As in, someone would pass around a memo that went like this . . . "there are pennies in the pop kitty again . . . please stop paying for your pop with pennies." And I'd think I'd done it even though I knew that I hadn't.

Someone would tell me that their purse was stolen out of their office, and I'd think the same thing, I'd have a flash of guilty before I'd wake up and realize, "hey, I didn't do that."

Free floating guilt is kind of brutal . . . and I'm not sure I have figured what it was or is about, but I usually don't experience it anymore.

Anne

I'm not offended, certainly, now I think it's cute.

Anne

1. the kids call girls dude too.
2. oh yeah, I ALWAYS think that's me, the pennies in the pop kitty etc. All my mom (or the nuns) had to do was raise an eyebrow.

My H calls little old ladies 'dude'. Drives me crazy. He calls everyone 'dude'.