connection thingy

I think there can be other points of therapy and I do have to interact with other people and would like to interact with them without feeling awful all the time.

I got the sense you were fighting with things within yourself somehow, stopdog .... a sort of a struggle between how you are and how things like connection are or aren't for you vs how they are or you believe they are for others.
So is it that you are fine with how things are for you, you are fine with how you are, but your struggle is to understand why things like connection/attachment are different for you than how it appears to be for the mainstream? You just want a more complete, broader understanding and to fit it into logic?
I do get a sense of consistency from you, in the way you view yourself and in the way you respond to others, that gives me a sense that your personality/style, the way you identify yourself, is consistent over different situations and through time. But I also get the sense of an intense struggle, too ..... you may have accepted yourself as you are in a way, or be fine with it, yet there's something in you not at peace with itself, something that seems like a lacking of self-compassion. Or not having compassion and acceptance toward the part of you that wonders about or wants the connection with others .....
Again, this is where my struggle is similar, yet dissimilar, to yours - I feel more comfortable in my own company, and preferred being alone, this is true. But it's not been so much because I am comfortable with me as I am and that I didn't want to have any connection to or relations with others ...... but because I was not comfortable being me as me with others, I was not comfortable with the work that goes into connections with others, with the small talk stuff/the emotional politics, etc. Guess I wanted connections, but on my terms, my rules, not the general way it seems to be!
I felt more safe alone, but that is because I didn't have a secure, stable sense of self that I could maintain in relation/connection with others ..... but in working on that, it's helped me feel more comfortable both with myself and with others, with connection and with the vulnerability that goes along with it. But even in that whole struggle with wanting to give up connection because it was so hard, I still wanted it! I knew I needed it! I just wanted it to be easier ..... and if it couldn't be easier, then I did wish it weren't so necessary.... but it's necessary and not easy, so I've begun to adapt my approach to it, just as I have learned to adapt my approach to myself, to self-acceptance and self-compassion and so on.

ok i see what you mean, but what thing could anyone say that would help ease your mind? every situation is going to be different, and unless T is there with you-they can't really see what happened. They have to rely on your word--which is your perception, which is skewed by how you think of the world/people..etc--which may be causing fear due to being taught through your family (or whomever) that people are only here to manipulate you, or humiliate you (not even you personally--a general you). If that is all you saw growing up, that is how you will grow up and see the world. Kids know nothing different than their own worlds.

An example that just happened to me this week. I was telling my T about how when I got my first period (and i was terrified of it, which my mom knew), I ran into my mom's room crying. She maybe looked at me and said "Velcro, its not a big deal. Go in the bathroom and get a pad." The end of the conversation. It doesn't hurt me to recall this. It is just what happened--who cares? My T said "Sure it doesn't hurt, because this is just another incident where your mom showed you that your feelings don't matter. You learned a long time ago to shut them off. Lets imagine another scenario. You go into your mom's room and she says to you, 'Oh Velcro! I know its scary, but it isn't so bad. Let me show you what to do, and this is normal.'" Or something similar to that effect, basically saying "Your feelings do matter, and let me help you deal with them."

I think I just stared at her. That thought NEVER occured to me. Do people say and do those things to their kids? The idea was completely foreign to me, because that wasn't the environment I was raised in. A lot of small incidents like that all led to how I am today in a large part.

Now in the adult world, I still struggle to accept feelings--especially negative ones. Judging myself is much easier. You struggle with interactions with other people, because you know you are feeling awful even though the situation might not warrant it. If the T said "Stopdog, you realize that this is an irrational thought, so you are probably not correct in thinking your co-workers are mocking you about your presentation." And there-you are fixed? That is the answer that you need?

I know I write you novellas in your threads. I know I basically say the same things over and over, and you say the same things back over and over. There is something about you that tugs at my heart strings
(I know-you'd rather be this guy than hearing that, sorry!) and sincerely wants to help you feel better in whatever way you deem fit. If all you want to do is figure out a way to interact with people without wanting to destroy yourself, I want to help...which is why I keep pursuing all this "attachment nonsense." If you can do it your way without dealing with connection, then I am happy for you. Until then, I am going to keep trying!

oh, and i agree. i realized that after i posted my response the last time. there are many other things therapy is good for!

Researchers rarely write books. Unless they have realized that they have now discovered the key to everything in, in fact, in their own minds...

We write manuscripts which may or may not be incorporated in to a book (which immediately becomes obsolete) or into a literature review.

pubmed is great place to start. usually just straight reporting of the data. MIght interest you.

Thanks for your attempts.
I actually do realize I am not being mocked (except by the therapist and she did admit it). I despise being mocked or humiliated-however I actually do know it is not happening. I am usually accurate in knowing if someone else is doing it to me and I do know how to handle it. The sense of horribleness is not quelled by reality. That is one of the problems. I know it is not real. There is nothing the therapist could say that would help. The problem does not seem to be inaccurately assessing situations, but in feeling horrible despite knowing there is minimal danger. I do not find attempts of reassurrances from the therapist to be useful or comforting or even reassuring.

There seem to be some psychology books written by researchers. They usually more more studies and statistics. It was the therapist who drew my attention to the distinction and pointed out I had a much less hostile response to the group she labelled researchers. I was using her terms. I do not know a more accurate term. Authors who do not have clients and therefore who do not write about their clients or describe their interactions with clients? Theorists perhaps?

there, I agree with this ..... especially the last part here ....... there is something that draws me toward you and your questions and struggles, too, stopdog. I want to help, too, as velcro said, help you feel better in whatever way you deem fit, help you find a way to feel better in interacting with others, a way to think about it or reframe it so that you don't have that sense of wrongness. Part of it is just that I relate so much to that sense of wrongness, I think, because I have carried it all my life, and I know how hard it is to try to adjust, adapt, reframe, so that it is more comfortable to connect and to interact with others and more comfortable to be with myself as I appear to be emotionally/mentally (even though I can change so much, and have changed some of my thinking, deep down I feel some things I can't change and have to simply accept and just find a new way of living with those things I can't change). Anyway, even if I haven't managed to be much help to you, stopdog, you have helped me in a way; it's helped me to think through these things.

Spiritrunner - I do appreciate all your help and that of everyone else. My life is not bad, I have generally learned how to negotiate other people, I know how to extract myself, and there is no reason for me to feel bad and I know it. Connection with the therapist seems improbable and ultimately useless since I cannot understand how it is supposed to help = how I would use such a thing to help me. It is like being handed a bicycle in the middle of the ocean.

Stopdog, it sounds like you want to be an island so that no one can ever interfere with you again (did you get a lot of interference from your family?)

It also sounds like you want to intellectually understand any process before you will ever consider entering into it (your legal background? Why did you become a lawyer?) Some things just will never be understood until you enter into them. They have to be experienced.

You write that you can deal with people but that you feel horrible. I think that what you feel is from the past and if you want it to leave you alone you need to express it in therapy. But now you view the therapeutic relationship as a trap and you can't let your guard down. Healing is not going to occur in this scenario.

1. Interfered with is probably not accurate. It was a fairly authoritarian upbringing combined with a parent I experienced as chaotic and unpredictable.
2. There are many reasons I became a lawyer. One reason is I did always want to be a public defender. Defending the individual against the bullying authority/state who abused its power.
3. I simply do not believe this.
4. Bummer for me then.

These are related then.

Authoritarian combined with chaotic and unpredictable - yikes! No wonder you want to be an island.

When you say you simply don't believe that some things can't be fully understood without experiencing them, are you kidding? The counterexamples abound. Essentially all perceptual qualia and emotions and relationships fall into this category.

I am not kidding but I was not talking fully understood either. I was meaning understood not fully understood.

I think that you are afraid to go into something without understanding it completely.

I think of it more as understand enough. Not necessarily completely. Enough being the subjective qualifier that I determine.

Also, it is possible to read about something, then go experience a tiny bit of it, then go read some more to put the information experienced into context and so forth. Sometimes there is an experience first (this is not usually good) and then one goes and reads and makes sense of it/puts it in context.

Slowly but surely is a good plan.

Well, a bike in the middle of the ocean is not going to do you any good, true - but if you're in the middle of the ocean and you're already on a ship, you've got what you need to get to land, where the bike would do you good....
So, say thanks for the bike and if your ship comes to shore, it'll do you good then.
What I mean is, maybe you're gathering info now here that doesn't seem like it makes much sense to you to use right now ..... so you don't have to use it, but do store it, keep it. It might be like a tool that makes more sense to you later, and the use of it might become clearer to you ...... if you get the info put together in a way that makes understanding click and you see how to practically apply the knowledge.

I see I should have been more specific. It is like having a rescue helicopter drop a bicycle down to you and fly off when you are drowning in the ocean. A more gracious person might call up thanks to the lingering fumes, but I usually react more like "you ****ing useless bastards go the **** away and leave me to drown in piece if you are not going to be more useful than this."

if there is air in the tires, maybe the bike could be used as a flotation device. don't women need men like fish need bicycles...?

Yes, then I would spend my short remaining time trying to figure out how to make the bike useful while slowly sinking to my briny demise.

Dogs "run" in water to stay afloat. Do you think pedaling on a bicycle like crazy in the middle of the ocean might accomplish the same end? Maybe if you pedaled really really fast you could make it to shore.

I see..... I chose to assume you had at least had something to hold on to or sit in! But like someone else said, the bike could act like a flotation device or something, or at least something to hang on to. I mean, sure, technically, giving a bike to a drowning person in the middle of the ocean seems useless (and probably usually would be), but let's think unconventionally here - at least it's something, which is better than nothing at all, or having them fly over and say good luck, see ya if ya make it! (this reminds me of a Charlie Brown comic where Snoopy was feeling bad about something and a whole lot of the others kept walking by and patting him on the head saying, be of good cheer; yes, be of good cheer ..... people have sort of done that to me and it is a bit insulting/offensive and feels useless to me .... like the flyover without even the stupid bike being dropped! )

Peace I meant. I hope the sharks come soon. And leave little pieces of me for the other fish.