connection thingy

It was a dismissal. She may need medication. I have suggested it.
I would jump into the shark infested water to keep from choosing.

It's practice; we aren't born knowing how to connect and they make good teaching, punching bags :-)

I know, I feel kind of bad for going all jargonny on the forum.

I write down notes afterwords. So far what I have learned is I can go about three weeks before I explode over not understanding the point to what is going on with what is being talked about.

Logically, this response just doesn't make sense. Staying in the boat is the rational decision. The therapist is just a person. If you had to pick between your bank manager and your grocery store bagger, would you jump out of the boat?

If I had to choose between anyone I would jump out of the boat. Any choice would be wrong. Better to die (which will happen anyway at some point - and get out of the game altogether) - And I was reacting more the the command that I must choose - no I do not - I can opt out of choosing.

Except my pets - I would choose them.

What do you get out of your connection to your pets? To put it in your parlance, what use is it to be connected to a dog? They're just gonna die in 10-15 years and cause you pain. It's like strapping yourself to a timebomb of grief.

I did not say I was connected to the pets. I said I would save the pets. They are my responsibility. A therapist is not.

Yet you feel the weight of being unable to make the right choice about the humans so keenly that you would sacrifice yourself rather than make the choice at all. There's an acknowledgment of moral responsibility to humans there if some fairly backward utilitarian calculus. The life you seem to value the least in this scenario is your own after all, as you said, you're gonna die anyway. Why not sooner than later? Your dogs are gonna die anyway too, so why value them more than yourself. I would posit that at least part of the reason why you value your own life so little is that you are miserable having cut yourself off from the primary source of meaning and pleasure in human life which is connection. It has true intrinsic value to those who experience it, and by virtue of its nature, intrinsic value cannot be justified through instrumentality.

Or I just don't like being forced to choose. I am not choosing pets over me.

I was relying on what you'd said. I didn't consider you valuing your autonomy over human life.

Why have dogs if you have no connection with them? Do you experience grief when a pet or a person close to you dies?

I am not a nice person. I value autonomy over everything.

Except maybe the pets if it was not a loss of a lot of autonomy. I don't want them to suffer.

Protect the livestock, herd, guide the sled, alert to danger, warm the lap, kill vermin, and so forth. So there are reasons.
But- I am attached to the pets.
Yes I do experience grief. I did not say I have no connection to anything. I do not understand connecting to a therapist.

If you value autonomy over everything, you will never know connection. It requires sacrificing a measure of autonomy to experience. You are unwilling to do this. My only question would be how's having autonomy as a supreme intrinsic value working out for you? Is that bringing you lots of joy and meaning? Given the extreme that you're clearly willing to take it to, I find you valuing autonomy over anything to be just as incomprehensible as you seem to find connection. As you would say, it makes my head hurt.

Sorry. Wasn't trying for that.

An admission! Stopdog experiences attachment! I fu cking knew it! I would ask you what you get out of your attachment to your pets. Use that as a starting point, and really give it serious thought. Then see if any of those virtues might be helpful in a relationship with someone who is an expert on human psychology and someone who is trained to nurture wounded people who's wounds originated in being poorly nurtured in their first go around.

Not that I have been able to see in a year and a half. That approach has been tried by the wily therapy people. In fact they eventually come to use my pets whenever they want to do anything with emotion and me.

That seems like a logical approach given that you allow yourself much greater leeway emotionally with pets than people. Are you calling me wily?

However did I know that you would say that. You keep returning correct? What keeps you returning? Why did you choose back up therapist versus reg T last? And even by choosing not to choose you made a choice...just not the best one for all, just the best for you.

Slowcat, i see that you get a lot of nicknames here... this is long so skip it if you want... just another pov

to me it is not really a connection so much as a collaboration. some one on my side and who has the "know how" and can teach me the skills to work out problems i have. he can let me know if i am on the right track and it is nice to have someone who doesn't talk about themselves and makes it all about you. he does share and it does make it more easy for me to share.
last time i needed a light session and he was able to do that for me.
he deals/accepts my moods, depression, sui id. etc, and then the trade off is he gets paid

i don't love him and really don't want him to love me. i am not a part of his life and i really don't want to be, and i am glad he is not in mine. i really appreciate the idea of boundaries in therapy.

i did think he hated me for a long time and i am slowly starting to believe he doesn't. that was a tough time

he doesn't do emails or texts however you can always call, and always get to talk to a person... just his policy

sorry so long hope this lets you see another side...

OK, here's my two cents worth from my own experience. I have a huge problem with connection, attachment, emotional intimacy, whatever you want to call it. With people. As long as the relationship is superficial, I'm fine... just no real closeness. However, I've become deeply attached to all my dogs and have loved them deeply. They're not people.

So ... I haven't known WHY I have this problem with people. I just do. However, once my T realized what my problem was, he set about creating an atmosphere of intimacy between us, wily creature that he is. Very slowly, and it took him months. I sort of knew what he was up to, and was resistant. But at the same time, I really really want to know what the hell is going on with me, so I tried to just let it happen.

Anyway, as I began to experience this connection, I forced myself to be aware of what I was feeling. It started out uncomfortable and progressed to almost sheer terror. Honestly, I'm that bad. But the payoff is ... So far I've had two huge insights into why I fear connection so much. One involves my father (I suspected that), but the other involves my mother. Boy, I didn't see that coming!!!
I'm working through this now, but the thing is .... we could have sat there analyzing and talking about the connection thingy for YEARS! But actually feeling the emotions was what did it. It was like he was inside my head, suffocating me, like I was losing ME. I had a meltdown at home where I trashed my living room, screaming "GET OUT!! GET OUT!! GET OUT!!". Powerful stuff.
The bottom line is .... it was only by allowing myself to develop a connection that I was able to find out what I feared in it. And that happened because T had the patience to develop this, and I didn't chicken out but had the courage to let it happen. Basically, I trusted my T and followed the process.

Sorry for the long post. I hope this gives you another perspective on why connection to a T can be a very valuable thing.

I know you're in pain, but this really cracked me up.

no, I meant can you go back to the beginning of your notes and follow them up to now and see if you can perceive a development of the relationship between you and T? if so this would be connection...

Not that I can discern. But I am not particularly in a perky spot at the moment, so perhaps that is the problem.

Chin up StopDog...we are all here for you if you need us...