Control of yourself in Therapy

I am not going to cry and don't know what else would be "showing" sadness. Plus with her criticism of it, I have not had the urge to tell it again to her.

My scheduled session are never less than 2-4 hours, and extra sessions average about 1 1/2- 2 hours. Still way to much contact for many on PC. I have moved through many years of therapy in 8 months. She says not every client has the the same needs or wants, and it is very workable for her.

The woman's response was not helpful. First, she would not explain how showing sadness was different or what difference it would make to me from telling her. Second, it is not like I was super thrilled with telling someone I was sad to begin with.

i wonder if its because she cant "mirror" the emotion unless its presented....

What is it's? What has mirroring got to do with it? Frankly I may not even understand what mirroring is, but why do I want it? And surely they have more than one trick in their bag. She kept yammering on about me telling what I was feeling, and I DID, and it was still not right.

She perhaps could have said something more like, "You say that you're sad; what does sad look like to you?" Saying that you weren't showing sadness was a bit abrupt and cryptic I think.

Both of these statements are equally cryptic to me. I doubt i would know how to describe what does any emotion look like to me. I don't think they look like anything in a vacuum. Perhaps I need to take in some masks from greek plays.

Maybe that was her point, too.

I have no idea what this means.

A question for all:

Granted that giving over 'control' of one's emotions in the presence of someone else (even someone who is supposed to be 'safe', such as a therapist) is unimaginable for many, maybe for most. (I inow it is for me).
Having said that, if you don't give over this particular control,
how is that different from staying at home (where you are surely in control)?
How would T be able to reach /help you then?? just wondering.

I do not see any advantage to me not being contained or self controlled around a therapist and in fact it has been perilous to me when I was slightly less so.

Also, I'm not feeling as safe with T as I would need to in order to allow myself to relinquish (as opposed to lose) control, I think.

Because losing control is not the same thing as giving it up in a controlled (heh) fashion, right? It just feels, for me, that if I relinquish it in any way, it will end with me losing it completely, and T will get disappointed. (That's the fear.) And I will get confirmation of the fact that I can't improve. (That, too, is the fear.)

I am not certain everyone does feel in control at home. For some, home is the place they become uncontained.
I am pretty much the same contained everywhere.

I cried when my dog died and when my mother died. I have been known to smile from time to time. I am not given to effusive display in usual circumstances and tend to be somewhat understated.

The one therapist I see will overstate everything. I hope I never have to endure her crying. I don't usually look at her so if it was simple tearing up, I probably would not notice. I hope.

Great thread. I'm out of control, and I felt attached with my xT. I didn't always feel connected with him, though. With my new T, I am in control and not attached. My default is out of control/attached, unfortunately. I do think however, that I do control myself and my emotions alot, as in I push them down/away. Because of this, they end up coming out like a volcano.

When I am enraged/triggered/hurt, that is when my emotions boil over. If I am enraged, I want to verbalize it and get it out but it comes out in direct proportion with how I feel emotionally; but then, I always feel bad afterward when the white part of me shows (black and white thinking and feeling). So, if I hear T say I need to control myself when I am enraged, if he says it while I'm enraged, that part of me wants to verbalize how I feel so I get more enraged. If T says it after I am enraged, I feel embarrassed, shame, guilt, etc. because this part of me is able to be empathic and doesn't want to be out of control. Then I feel helpless because I didn't control myself, so at those points it is not so much a matter of not being able to be in control, it is more of a matter that that specific emotional state does not want to stop verbalizing my experience.

I'm not proud of this, believe me. I despise it. I suspect it is a choice at some point, but I just haven't figured it out.

Mostly it is just me verbalizing out loud. The one time, the worst time, I SI'd in T's bathroom after session. It was when I was first experiencing the torrent of emotions and handled it like a novice BPDer. When I was in the bathroom, one lady who worked there used to be my therapist, but I changed to see a male therapist in the same office.

So, I was sitting in the bathroom after I SI'd, and the lady therapist was saying, "She just dropped me like a ton of bricks, blah blah ." This is what I was thinking, "This is unbelievable. I am in SO much pain emotionally and all she can do is complain about me changing therapists? I wasn't mean or anything when I left."

I actually thought that sitting there. I'm like, what was I thinking, or more so, what was I doing. I think alot, but I wasn't thinking much in there. I was a monster. Again, I am not proud of this at all, but I'm showing that I was out of control, and what I was thinking.

So, this was a regression. Bad behavior gone wild. My first time doing anything like that and I was bewildered as much as others were. NOBODY would have ever guessed that I would do something like that, me included. I was always the well-behaved, timid child that never did anything wrong. And there I was, doing this horrifically wrong. I ended up going back to T's office, and I got a stuffed animal and laid down face first on his couch. I had taken a few Ativan I think. I can't believe I am typing this, because I don't EVER want to think about this. Thinking about me looking like a child, I am SOOOO disgusted about that and it happened 7 years ago. I have visuals of me lying there on the couch, and it disgusts me. Afterwards, I kind of shrouded it in some humor, but it doesn't work now. I never want to see the type of animal that stuffed animal was as long as I live. I never want to see the visuals again. Period. My T should have consequenced me by terminating me. I guess he chose to give me a free pass on this one. I chose and still choose not give myself clemency on this one. The angry emails, I choose to not give myself clemency. T should have terminated me.

Thank you for letting me post this. I so badly want to understand others on this site. I gave an example of the worst thing I did when I was out of control/regressed. I want to say I would do it differently if I had a do over, I would if I knew what i know now. But at that point, it was a reaction.

I think the OP was right, that I felt helpless then and I feel the same way now. I want to understand when others say that I have a choice, because I honestly don't understand.

I am looking forward to reading others' posts! It gets a little hairy sometimes with all of the emotions flowing, and I'm guilty, but I honestly want to hear, understand, and learn from those that have a more detached attachment instead of a preoccupied attachment like mine. I have alot to learn and alot of progress to make, and I appreciate everybody on this site