Weird thing my T suggested

unaluna · Mar 01, 2012, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by My kids are cool

I still am having a very strong reaction that NOBODY goes in the room with the kid.

Me too. T's room is safe, mine is not. Thanks for this thread, it's generated a lot of stuff for me to work on, see where I am on it. Plus T is out of town, so there is that ritual.

Quote:

Originally Posted by peaches100

By imagining that our t is helping to comfort us, it gives us the opportunity to know what it feels like to have somebody bring relief to that hurting part of us. If we can let it in, we find out how it feels to be comforted. The intention is for us to learn eventually how to comfort ourselves when we are distressed by bringing up a mental picture of being comforted and the physiological feelings of relief that gives. I did not know that feeling before.

Really good description of the process and result, peaches! It is amazing when you go from not knowing to knowing.

Mar 02, 2012, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by My kids are cool

There's this huge part of me just going ewwwwwww. Both to the stupid kid sitting there still ****ing thinking that anyone cares, and at the thought of T coming into the room and seeing how pathetic she is. EWWWWWW.

These feelings are from a different part of yourself- in schema therapy (which is what PreacherHeckler posted about), this is the voice of the punitive parent mode attacking and judging the vulnerable child. To do the imagery, you would need to be in vulnerable child mode, which means that together you and T would first need to move the punitive parent out of the way (by challenging her or sending her away) so that the vulnerable child could be present. Once you had done that, perhaps the idea of the imagery would feel a bit different?

Gosh, this all sounds really new agey (to me) and I feel quite self-conscious writing it, because I'm aware that it's the kind of stuff that would have had me cringeing even a year ago! But... it's the best way I have come across to understand what goes on, and it seems to work.

Mar 02, 2012, 03:04 PM

I'm at the cringing part still, Improving.

My T has talked repeatedly about how I have incorporated my abuser into myself. I really struggle with not judging myself for that. It is difficult for me to draw the line between whether I am abusive inside my head toward myself, or whether I really am that disgusting as a person, and anyone who saw what happened inside my head would be just as disgusted. If that makes sense.

I am still struggling with how separate things are in my head. Just looking at the kid in the room causes problems. There is the kid, the disgusted person, and then a fairly neutral person whose job appears to be limited to opening and closing doors inside my head. And it's a guy. How bizarre is that? And who died and made him king of the doors?

Anyway. I do appreciate the additional information. Off to marriage counseling.

kitten16 · Mar 02, 2012, 03:34 PM

Mykids, that is so horrible what you went through as a child. Hugs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by My kids are cool

Okay, I have been thinking about this weird mental exercise my T suggested. We were discussing how I was never comforted as a child. I told him about waking up shrieking from a bad dream and my dad's solution when he came into the room was to swat me really hard so that I would be fully awake, and know it was just a dream.

So, T suggested that we picture me as a child in my room, sitting on my bed, and that he and I comfort that child. Ummmmmm. He said that he and I were a team and we could work on this together (I had previously said that I wasn't sure how self comforting worked, felt like I just didn't know what or how to do it). He wants he and I to go into the room and sit on the bed with that child in my head, and comfort the child, so the child experiences comfort and not pain or weird, creepy sexual stuff from adults. So, we tried a little, and he told me to picture the child and then he asked me for permission to just enter the room. I was like, "whatever." He actually wants permission to come in the room. So I said ok, but I'm not sure how feel about this exercise.

This just sounds so stupid to me. Am I just being too intellectual and too much of an attorney? Have any of you tried this kind of thing? Isn't it creepy? Does it help?

CantExplain · Mar 02, 2012, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by My kids are cool

My T has talked repeatedly about how I have incorporated my abuser into myself. I really struggle with not judging myself for that.

Your T may have the right idea, be that's certainly the wrong way to put it!
You didn't invite the abuser in!

"The abuser is lodged in your mind," might be a fairer description.

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