Welcome to the Couch! People of PC Psychotherapy (Part 2)

What kind of bread? We may have to start a recipe exchange.

It was just super easy, very basic, pretzel bread.

Excellent idea.... I love exchanges....anyone wanna be snailmail pals?

I often made a rye bread but it requires some planning due to the sponge. Also a cranberry cherry bread with muesli.

Lc do you bake bread?

Yes I do actually,more so sweets nd candies...pretty good cook too. We were poor farmers and I mainly lived with my Grandparents in my younger years...great grandma taught me too, I was going to bea wife someday...LOL

Stopdog...I was wondering...would you describe T1 and T2 age, physical appearance, personality type.... Im curious

T1 is about 15 years older than I am and right around the age of my mother when she died. She is rather confrontational and tries to make jokes. Kind of impatient. Sarcastic. Tries to evade explanation. Likes to give advice. Tries to relate most things to attachment and does not seem to remember what goes on from week to week. Will not discuss how awful therapy feels to me. Does no grounding stuff other than telling me to breathe. Likes dogs. I quit and go back all the time. I usually leave feeling frustrated and enraged. She has said she likes me, tells me I am a challenge and resistant.

T2 is about 20 years or so older than am I, is not as confrontational, explains, patient, recognizes when I am joking but is not sarcastic and does not really try to joke at me. will discuss how awful it therapy feels to me and tries to make sure I am not completely overwhelmed. I have never had the urge to quit or and not as much desire to harm myself when I leave nor am I as frustrated.
has never called me resistant or said I was difficult.
And yet I want t1 to understand. T2 seems to and I don't have to struggle as much with language with t2. I don't know why quitting t1 is so hard.

Ok .... Do they know of each other? Is one the good mom and one the bad? 2 sets of needs , separated and being met by 2 different T's? If I remember correctly, you say you had a typical life no major stuff, I apologize if I am wrong, and yet I've read your post and I would disagree. And, besides its all relative, perception.. But I don't remember how your relationship with your mother was, or grandmother... You've been on my mind latley... Just being nosey...you can tell me to bug off...LOL

T1 knows I see other ones. It has not come up with t2. I don't think I see them as mothers. Particularly not t2. The big difference I think is that t2 takes me seriously and t1 does not. When t1is not on about attachment, she is on about csa. They both seem to think I had a rather unsuitable mother and had a worse childhood than I think I did.

I know this is fairly boring. I just don't understand why quitting t1 is such a difficulty for me.

Had a good evening. Friends came over and we went out to eat Mexican food...had seafood burritos with rice and beans and pico de gallo. Returned to the casa, played Wii tennis for a while, then watched a comedy show. Our friend A is asleep on one end of the couch with two of our dogs. H, our friend N, and I are watching Serenity.

All grist for the mill, as T says... I wonder if you told T1 that you stopped seeing T2 if things would change. Perhaps her lack of explanation is a fear of being compared to another? Perhaps not mothers, perhaps just Non sexual female figures that each fill a need in you... The question then becomes what need and why do you have that need and how to fill it outside T... I swear therapy is like the light at the end of the tunnel,it's a long tunnel. The term "drill down" comes to mind.

I'm glad you had a great night... I am waiting for the pool to finish filling up and watching , "you've got mail" alone in the woman cave, chattin up Ceasepuppy...

But I started interviewing other therapists because of how awful it is to see the first one. The problems with her started first, not after seeing others.
The big problem is how much I want to make the first one understand and how terrible I feel when I quit. My partner is even all like "just go back because you are such a wreck" each time I quit. And it makes no sense. Anyone reading my descriptions would be all like " god, just quit seeing that one"
-it is certainly the way I would see it if anyone described it to me.

no no on the contrary, I enjoy a good mystery. Besides , I need to get out of my head sometimes ... So schooch over if ya don't mind, and I'll get in your's...lol pun intended.

Plus, in an even more I am a whackjob mode, it is the first I want to tell things to. Like so she will know I am not a complete loser. But when I tell her, it feels awful. She responds badly, over the top, or misses the point. And I run to the hot stove Each week.

Don't hit me, but you're attached to T1.

Ok I get it.... She's not healthy for you. That's how XT was with me, and I pushed her until finally I quit, because I couldn't get her to fire me. I needed her, or so I thought. Are you in CBT or Phycoanalysis...

My 2 buck...lol

I fell off that horse and got right back on. I started calling everyone I could , had a few ground rules to weed out a few via email or over the phone and took the first one who agreed to see me immediately and met my criteria. So far so good. Truthfully i listened to youmand the others on , interviewing T's and it worked. I'd also like to think that God lead me to T...as I did the leg work, but God lead the way.

Ouch! I hope you're not saying what you seem to be saying here (ie. burning yourself).

My wife says you need to change your therapist. (No surprise because she used to say that to me!)

Seriously? That is attachment? It is awful.
She says it is resistance to the attachment which she says I hate. I mean she says it is because of how awful being attached feels to me but that since she does not respond to me like my mother did, it will change the neural pathways. She does not try to make me stay, lets me leave and come back, doesn't label except for calling me resistant, has not tried to put restrictions or requirements or ultimatums on me or anything like that. When she tries to say nice things to me, I become enraged.
And I did find t2 after interviewing many and it is not all horrible each week with her.

I am not burning myself. I meant I keep going back to her like a moth to a flame.

These two things tell me you're attached. You care about what she thinks of you; you tell her things so she'll think you're not a loser. If you didn't care what she thought, you'd already be gone...but you keep going back. It's feeding a need somehow, but I don't know what that need could be.

And attachment is scary. For as much as I talk about being happy when T hugs me or tells me she loves me or answers an email; it scares the s**t out of me...I keep wondering when I'm going to get hurt by her.

Oh, honey.... You want her approval....but it's never exactly what you were wanting, or perhaps more accurately, expecting from the Good Mother, maybe ? Me also with XT.

Could you process this with T2? Maybe stick with one T...after a few ground rules are agreeded upon. 2-3 times a week. All your eggs in one basket so to speak. A monogamous therapeutic relationship with one person who has proven to be consistent and trustworth. You've fought the good fight my friend, as have I. As have many on the boards.

I remember one time with XT , we were taking, I was crying, tears covered my eyes...my vision was blur...hearing was going in and out...and she encouraging me to let it go. Just say it, feel it... It was too much at the time... But in hindsight if I would have just let it go and just melted right there it would have been different. I was not ready and she was not equipped. I am going to ride this wave and try to let it go... With T and maybe a little more in life..

So perhaps that look on her face, that look like... Lola your almost there...routing for me...those cheers to nerves and then to disappointment as she saw I wasn't ready to give in...she couldn't break me... But in the end she did... She just wasn't their to train me afterwards, i have no fight left ...so I turn to T and let the chips fall where they may. I'm all in...

Everybody sing along....Janet Jackson anyone?

like a moth to a flame fueled by the fire,
My love is real can't you feel my desire....

That's the way love goes.... I couldn't help it, it's early.

You don't want to like her, that's why you get mad when she says nice things to you. You want her approval but why?

I want to tell her and have her not react. She is all happy and over the top with it. She over approves.

Did your mother under approve, or not approve at all?

yep. My T was pissing me off almost every week. I was upset all the time, so I thought just quit and it will stop. I haven't gotten dressed or eaten anything substantial since I quit. Last night the anxiety was so bad I thought I was having a heart attack. I just hope that it will get easier after a little bit. Maybe if I just hold firm the panic will go away and I will feel relief by not having this weekly upheaval.