The Answer

This is interesting to me. I think in some ways, many people here are "healthier" than people who aren't in therapy...because we are willing to be authentic, to look at our own darkness, to reach out for support and to support others, to open our hearts. I know my T would agree. He has said that it's easy to go through life shut down, with blinders on, and that opening up to what is real isn't the EASY thing to do...but that it's the healthy thing to do, and the thing, in the end, that leads to wholeness.

I agree with tree. I think we're healthier than most because we're dealing with our issues.

I don't think anyone here is giving me bad advice. This is my husband's own paranoia that no one has anyone else's best interest at heart; only their own. This may be indicative of his own mental state, but then again, he's been accused of arrogance, conceit, and narcissism before. People absolutely adore him though. Even he doesn't understand that (maybe because he's funny?).

I cannot imagine what T is thinking. She knows how much H cares about me, so she may be basing her words on what he is saying not knowing him very well. I plan to print out some threads to show her.

If it is determined that I need to be away from here, I am going to. I have to heal; I have to. I can taste it. This is the "truth" T is referring to:
I have realized it is okay to take the risk to trust you because God will take care of me no matter what happens. You and I are both very human and will let each other down. And that is okay. We'll both be okay. If I encounter a situation that breaches a relationship with someone in my life, once I take responsibility for my own actions and attempt to rectify my side of the problem, it is no longer in my hands. The other person is responsible for their actions and makes their own choices accordingly. I must accept that and not take the blame myself. I realize I'm not going to let any thing, person, feeling, or situation get in the way of my healing. I'm starting to make progress and nothing is going to get in the way of that! I want for the first time to live free in the destiny God has for me.

If I do leave, I would miss everyone. IMO, this is a great forum comprised of great people. It will be hard for me to do. Hopefully, I won't have to.

IMO, if you are looking to surround yourself with "healthy" people - well good luck with that. I don't mean to sound glib, but this world is *filled* - no overrun - with people that have wildly inappropriate coping skills, phobias, innate narcissisms, etc....

Describing this particular forum as populated with unhealthy people, well, that's a rather unfair characterization I think. In fact, I will categorically and fundamentally disagree with that statement.

This is a place where we can talk through our struggles to "healthy". The fact that we do struggle, IMO, puts us way way ahead of the curve from those who fail to see their own issues and, as such, make no effort to move forward.

If you find a land populated by only healthy people, please do come back here and share it! I would love to go there myself!

There is one guiding principle I employ for my internet interactions - all of them, email included -

Take what's best and leave the rest.

The problem comes when you don't trust yourself enough to know what's best versus what's the rest. That task does fall to you, the end user.

I've gotten a lot out of this forum that has improved my path.

Just my two cents.

peace.

I agree that there is no land populated by only healthy people. It doesn't exist. Everyone is unhealthy in some sense of the word. There are no perfect people, T's and H's included!

I also agree with your take on internet interactions. I feel like I can do that for myself. Remember, I have a protective H and T. I'm starting to wonder if she is too emotionally involved.

But all this will come up tomorrow. It's going to be a busy hour! Thanks for weighing in ellie!!

(((Chopin)))
Your email was expressed very well, and I am glad that your t has time to meet with you tomorrow. One point I am curious about-don't you want her to be emotionally involved? I thought this was how the question of friendship came up in the first place. Every response that you have posted from her seems to be very professional, but also very caring.

If you have to take a hiatus from PC, I will miss you, but I understand. For me, this forum has made me stronger in my journey towards a peaceful mind, but this is based on my needs, not yours. If you change your mind, I will look forward to future posts about your healing, as well as advice for mine.

Peace!
Bluemountains

That's a quotable quote if ever I heard one!

I don't know if you read just the last page or so, elliemay, but reading the entire thread might put this in better perspective? These are pretty intense issues for anyone to face.

Let me add a piece of the puzzle that complicates things for me. It doesn't come into play on the forum, but it does in RL. I am a natural-born empath. Last night, I was able to see past H's anger and see the abject fear in his eyes because he doesn't know how to help me. This is hard for me to handle. I can also see how much my T loves me. She tries to hide it, but I can see right through. That's why I wanted to ask so badly about post-therapy. I don't want to lose someone who loves me so much. Her gut answer (and obvious delight in my asking before she put the mask on) told me the truth.

I need to talk to her about this too. It has freaked other people out in the past. That's how I was able to read that the teacher loved me so much. I knew what happened with the email stuff was because seeing me would bring all that back for her.

When I look at other people, I can feel what they're feeling. Imagine being able to do that with every person you see. Makes my life hard sometimes. That's why I try to hide it to the point that my boss thinks I can't read people at all.

All this sounds attention-seeking or delusional, but it's the truth.

Chopin,

Wow--I hope you don't have to leave, but if you must, you must. I'll miss your input.

"He has also told me to f*** the therapy forum because I don't know these people and they're giving me bad advice."

This kind of irks me because I mainly come here for support and to share my experiences. I may gain a different perspective from other people's views and experiences, but it's still my choice as to whether to accept that or ignore it. I don't know who everyone here is in RL either, but we share a common thread: we're all suffering from a mental illness. Are we a bad influence? I don't know; all I know is we're trying to support each other as best as we can, imperfect as we are. We come here to vent, spill our guts out, whine, cry, and even laugh--it's all pretty emotional stuff. If we were together in RL we'd probably be at a coffee shop deep in conversation and oblivious to everybody else. Unfortunately we're not--we're here!

What I have to be careful about is to not let PC take over living in RL. Being the codependent people pleaser that I am I can find it way too easy to to spend a lot of time around here looking for attention and approval by 'helping'--the same way I used to going to constant 12-step meetings--and not work on my own issues that cause me to be the codependent people pleaser in the first place. Meanwhile I ignore people in RL because "they don't need help." Riiiiiight...

Sorry if I'm late to the thread but it takes me FOREVER to write a post.

Read this: http://healing.about.com/cs/empathic...tivesurviv.htm

Describes me perfectly. Read the traits.

It sounds to me like your H also has trouble with allowing you to just feel your feelings, without offering some solution to solve the "problem." Dump the therapy forum! Don't email your therapist! Etc. And it may be that you may also need to learn to be able to tolerate feelings, including uncertainty, rather than managing them by making big decisions that you think are associated with the onset and offset of intense feelings. Sometimes, it's "don't just do something, sit there." I see you jumping up to do, do, do, to fix, fix, fix, and I wonder when it's going to be okay for you just to experience what you're going through and accept that your process is your process, not a constant state of intervention.

As usual, I could be totally off the mark.

Anne

This is true of me as well.

Not too long ago, T was sitting on the couch with me and I had my eyes closed. I don't think I was talking at the time...I was lost in the dark swirl of feelings that had come up. All of a sudden, I couldn't feel him there with me anymore, and I said "please be here with me". T said that he had "left" for a second in his head, imagining being in the situation I had told him about...instead of being 100% with me, in that moment, and he asked how I knew. I couldn't see him, because my eyes were closed...I could just FEEL it.

That's true of me with most of my interactions with people in real life...I don't know if it's because I was born that way, or if "reading" people felt like such an essential key to survival in my childhood, or a little of both.

I'm not sure how that comes into play in the situation you're talking about with T, though...could you "read" her caring for you, and just let it be what it is? I'm not following how being able to intuit her feelings making the situation worse. ???

Chopin please don't take this the wrong way,but there is a lot of red flags with your T,friendships with T's never work,and one BIG red flag i see is you being isolated, be careful Chopin

Yes, he has a hard time with it. He wants to "fix it" and he can't.

I am a fixer as well. It's hard for me to sit down. I want to get up and fight.

Always nice to meet a fellow empath. In fact, you are the first other empath I've met.

If I let myself intuit with her, I want more, now and later. I want her in my life when I'm done. Which leads me to:

Thanks silenthill, if anyone knows, you do. So I will try to be careful. If T does try anything, I will remember your story and act accordingly.

Chopin, I can hear that you are hurt. But you wanted to ask, and you did. And the answer was pretty much what you expected.

You fantasy is smashed to bits, and of course that is extremely painful. But your reality is unchanged. T is still there for you.

You've made amazing progress in very little time. You're going much faster than I did.

I expect you need some time to grieve. But don't give up!

Actually, I'm not sure I'd label myself as an "empath". But I was definitely trained as a child to read other people. Totally one of those blessing/curse things. I think it's not uncommon for people from abusive homes.

I really hope you're feeling at least a little better tonight!

Nope, not uncommon at all. In fact, this is probably the #1 reason I have always had a hard time talking on the phone with people I don't know really well or at all (like a customer service person, etc) - I can't see them or read their face/body language. If I can't read them that way, then my anxiety takes me for a ride and it's all over; I can't finish the phone call.

So anyway, just wanted to put that out there. *slinks away as quietly as I came in...*

huh i used to have that problem too! i would hate calling and ordering food because i didn't know this person, and would if i made a fool of myself?!

the only thing that got me over that was working in customer service where i talk to people on the phones, and in person all day long. it was hard at first, but it got easier and i now can chit chat with the best of them.

Chopin, you guessed that maybe your T might not want you to participate in this forum because of the unhealthy people here. She might have meant something else, though. I think sometimes when we get upset about something in therapy, we can post about it here, and keep all the upset "alive" by starting a thread, reading responses, responding to them, etc. Now that can often be helpful, speed processing, lead to new insights, etc. But sometimes I've observed that it is not helpful, especially for people who have a lot of anxiety, are worriers, have trouble putting things out of their mind until the next session, etc. Sometimes the anxiety kind of "feeds" on the continued discussion of the subject and the person gets more and more anxious. In cases like that, I can see why a T might believe participating here was not helpful. I'll be interested to hear why your T may not want you to participate here. Good luck with your session. Glad to hear your T could fit you in.

I don't think a T is ever right to suggest that a subject be taboo for ever.

Of course, that might not be what your T is really saying.

If I were your T, I might suggest that you try to live more in the moment and not plan so far ahead.

Finally, this sounds like an abandonment issue and I would want to explore your past and present abandonments.

So group therapy is wrong and dangerous?!

Sorry, this isn't aimed at you. And healthy or not, I think you are a valuable member of a our group. I will miss you.

Hi ((((chopin))))
(if you're still reading)

After reading and thinking about the preciseness of words in another thread, I wanted to come back and clarify something.

Although we were trained to "read" other people as children, I think one of the most important things we can do as adults is to CHECK IN with the other person when we're reading things a certain way. When I felt my T "leave" in session, I checked in with him about it, and he did leave, for a second. Almost daily, I "feel" like my H is angry, and when I check in with him, he might be, but NOT AT ME...at work, at something political, at himself. Because of my history, I feel his anger and assume it's about me...and it almost NEVER is.

It's hard work to unravel what we think and feel from what's real, but until we learn to do that, we're just creating our own reality that may or may not have anything to do with the actual reality that surrounds us.

Learning to start to unravel that has been a huge part of the work I've had to do in therapy, and it's probably something I'll always have to work on.