[~EnlightenMe~]

I saw my therapist this afternoon. I was SOOOOO disconnected, but I wanted so badly to be connected.

He said a lot of things, but I couldn't feel what he said, so it didn't have as much impact.

He said that he has to be perfectly attuned with me to get me to interact, because if he asks me a question that is just out of the field of attunement, that I get a mental block. This was really hard to hear because we weren't attuned.

It is painful, so painful, to not be able to connect. Disconnecting makes me not feel safe, and like no one cares because I can't feel the words my T said. Disconnecting takes away my ability to be empathic, and it makes things not seem real or genuine.

A few weeks ago, when I felt radiating shame, I kept asking him if it was time to leave. Today, I didn't want to go because I didn't feel connected. I had to go. I didn't choose this craziness, but I have to suffer the consequences of being a loser. I can't be me much longer. I can't hold. I can't stand. I no longer want to.

[CantExplain]

((Antimatter))

What I found hardest to bear about disconnection was that I couldn't understand WHY.
I was trying, she was trying, but the connection just wasn't there and it wouldn't come back.

It resulted in a rupture, but we repaired it.

Big hugs, Antimatter
I find such disconnects unbearable too.

[Nightlight]

I had the most disconnected session of my life just recently too. It was so horrible. It was like T was totally gone and I couldn't find her...and she wasn't relating to me at all.

[~EnlightenMe~]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

((Antimatter))

What I found hardest to bear about disconnection was that I couldn't understand WHY.
I was trying, she was trying, but the connection just wasn't there and it wouldn't come back.

It resulted in a rupture, but we repaired it.

Exactly, the why is difficult. My T talked me through this, explaining things to me. But I couldn't feel anything he said. I don't understand why, and I have no control over it. Recognizing and realizing that this happens to me is terrifying. I left therapy feeling terrified. I used to say that I could have tons of people around me and still feel alone. Now I know why. I don't feel needy now, I don't feel attached to anyone, including myself. I don't need or want me.

[~EnlightenMe~]

Originally Posted by just_some_girl

Big hugs, Antimatter
I find such disconnects unbearable too.

Thank you JSG. Hug to you:-)

[~EnlightenMe~]

Originally Posted by Nightlight

I had the most disconnected session of my life just recently too. It was so horrible. It was like T was totally gone and I couldn't find her...and she wasn't relating to me at all.

I am sorry you had to go thru this. It is disconcerting. It does feel horrible. Ugh.

[Anne2.0]

Sometimes I feel like I am in a lifeboat, at sea with no sight of land, and it is a desolate expanse between me and anybody else. I don't know if this is anything like the disconnect you feel, but I also experience disconnection as very painful, probably when I feel the most hopeless.

What is sometimes true for me is that the disconnect is with myself. I'm not in a mindful place, I'm pushing parts of myself apart rather than together, and without being able to connect to myself, I can't connect to anyone else.

[~EnlightenMe~]

Yes, this is definitely me, which makes it more scary.

Originally Posted by Antimatter

I saw my therapist this afternoon. I was SOOOOO disconnected, but I wanted so badly to be connected.

He said a lot of things, but I couldn't feel what he said, so it didn't have as much impact.

He said that he has to be perfectly attuned with me to get me to interact, because if he asks me a question that is just out of the field of attunement, that I get a mental block. This was really hard to hear because we weren't attuned.

It is painful, so painful, to not be able to connect. Disconnecting makes me not feel safe, and like no one cares because I can't feel the words my T said. Disconnecting takes away my ability to be empathic, and it makes things not seem real or genuine.

A few weeks ago, when I felt radiating shame, I kept asking him if it was time to leave. Today, I didn't want to go because I didn't feel connected. I had to go. I didn't choose this craziness, but I have to suffer the consequences of being a loser. I can't be me much longer. I can't hold. I can't stand. I no longer want to.

Those wasted sessions, I always say. They are always based on disconnect. at least in my experience.
I usually have something just eating away at me even if I'm not cognizant of it at the time. I always ask myself if I am deliberately trying to conceal my honesty, which is fuel for a disconnect. Even if I don't want to share that honesty, I find that being honest about something anything, will promote connection.
although it's rare for me to engage that way because of trust issues.

Btw, the only way you'll ever be a loser, is if you try beat me in race to get the last slice of pizza. If you try, you're going down my friend. :-)
I like you and you're just gonna have to deal with that.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Originally Posted by Antimatter

As I reread this post of mine today, I realized that I have grown.

hold that thought. Every feeling is for a while. This one shall pass.
not said lightly, but with concern for you.

[~EnlightenMe~]

Originally Posted by nothingtolivefor

Those wasted sessions, I always say. They are alwa Ppys based on disconnect. at least in my experience.
I usually have something just eating away at me even if I'm not cognizant of it at the time. I always ask myself if I am deliberately trying to conceal my honesty, which is fuel for a disconnect. Even if I don't want to share that honesty, I find that being honest about something anything, will promote connection.
although it's rare for me to engage that way because of trust issues.

Btw, the only way you'll ever be a loser, is if you try beat me in race to get the last slice of pizza. If you try, you're going down my friend. :-)
I like you and you're just gonna have to deal with that.

Pp

Live,
I like you, too, so I can deal with that. :-)

I was telling him the truth, about how I felt about him not being able to fit me in, and I felt so ashamed of that because it is so irrational, it's like I feel people should drop what they are doing to help me when I am terrified, and I hate myself for being so selfish. I say that I felt ashamed because of this, but I was so disconnected, I know it was there but I didn't feel it. Maybe that is why I disconnect, because I am ashamed of wanting him to be there for me, which is childish, and selfish, and that I get angry because I am afraid and I feel like people irl don't fully get it, that they don't care. I hate myself for how I feel and what I want because.it doesn't match with the adult part of me.

I feel like I told him all of this, that he understood how I am in terror everyday of my life out in the real world, and he let me walk ot of his office back into the jungle. I hate myself for feeling this.way because it is childish.
He told me that he felt like we had to be fully attuned or I would get a mental block, which I think is true, but childish. I hate myself for being so childishly sensitive. I hate myself for dissociating when anyone says anything that is hard for me to hear, I feel like a failure at being a human being. I feel tortured by the adult part of me that knows this is all ****ed up.
I feel tortured going to work every day, screwing simple things up that a child could do, and having people get at my incompetence. I am angry because Ialways have to hide how I feel irl, I have.to hide.my wants and needs about needing a trusted authority figure to help me safe and thus stable. I am angry when the authority figure, my T, tells me he knows how.hard it is and then lets me leave knowing I have to go out irl and wear the mask. I hate that I feel and think this way. I am angry that I have to go to work and risk destabilizing because I feel like there is a huge abyss in at my core self. I am not falling into the abyss, I am the abyss. Others have the power to destroy me with words, with rejection, with anger, and at this point I have no way of protecting myself except by abandoning myself like I did in therapy. I don't know how to fix this alone, but I am on the verge of a mental breakdown, I can't do this much longer, not physically or mentally. No one believes me irl, or maybe they don't care enough, but why should they when I hate myself because I can't figure this out on my own. This is my truth at the moment, and I have lost hope.

Originally Posted by Antimatter

Pp

Live,
I like you, too, so I can deal with that. :-)

I was telling him the truth, about how I felt about him not being able to fit me in, and I felt so ashamed of that because it is so irrational, it's like I feel people should drop what they are doing to help me when I am terrified, and I hate myself for being so selfish. I say that I felt ashamed because of this, but I was so disconnected, I know it was there but I didn't feel it. Maybe that is why I disconnect, because I am ashamed of wanting him to be there for me, which is childish, and selfish, and that I get angry because I am afraid and I feel like people irl don't fully get it, that they don't care. I hate myself for how I feel and what I want because.it doesn't match with the adult part of me.

I feel like I told him all of this, that he understood how I am in terror everyday of my life out in the real world, and he let me walk ot of his office back into the jungle. I hate myself for feeling this.way because it is childish.
He told me that he felt like we had to be fully attuned or I would get a mental block, which I think is true, but childish. I hate myself for being so childishly sensitive. I hate myself for dissociating when anyone says anything that is hard for me to hear, I feel like a failure at being a human being. I feel tortured by the adult part of me that knows this is all ****ed up.
I feel tortured going to work every day, screwing simple things up that a child could do, and having people get at my incompetence. I am angry because Ialways have to hide how I feel irl, I have.to hide.my wants and needs about needing a trusted authority figure to help me safe and thus stable. I am angry when the authority figure, my T, tells me he knows how.hard it is and then lets me leave knowing I have to go out irl and wear the mask. I hate that I feel and think this way. I am angry that I have to go to work and risk destabilizing because I feel like there is a huge abyss in at my core self. I am not falling into the abyss, I am the abyss. Others have the power to destroy me with words, with rejection, with anger, and at this point I have no way of protecting myself except by abandoning myself like I did in therapy. I don't know how to fix this alone, but I am on the verge of a mental breakdown, I can't do this much longer, not physically or mentally. No one believes me irl, or maybe they don't care enough, but why should they when I hate myself because I can't figure this out on my own. This is my truth at the moment, and I have lost hope.

I have all these feelings on a daily basis. I im amazed at how well you articulated exactly how it is I feel. I I know exactly what you mean.
I've told my therapist in the past, that I feel like the only time I get to wear clothes is during session After I leave I have to go back into the world for another week totally naked and no 1 in the real world cares that I'm naked. If that analogy was a reality for anyone else they will be running to the place they felt most safe, a place where they didn't have to feel naked.
There's nothing wrong with letting people that you care about I know that this is the way you sometimes feel or always feel.
Truely, hope you never have to feel that again.

GB

[~EnlightenMe~]

I have 'footage', which is when I have a running image of something that happened, of my T telling me that he knows that I am afraid he is going to terminate me, but that He wants to work with me, that he hopes that I stay, and he said, I think, that he wanted me to remember that intellectually. I do, and I think what he said one hundred percent was how he feels and that he wanted me to know this.

So, another realization came from this. I was dissociated and I couldn't feel anything he said. When he told me at the beginning that we had to be attuned or my mind shut down, it felt like an attack on who I am, like his next words were goingto be I am childish.
I was hypervigilant going in, and that was all it took.

I want to be clear, my T, I know for a fact was trying to help me, he was saying it as easily as he could, but I couldn't control my reaction of distancing myself.

Also, I notice that since I didn't feel what he said, that my mind fills in the feeling, and I cant attach any good feelingz to anything he said, the one where he said he wants to work with me comes the closest. My brain fills the words with meaning that makes it hard for me to trust him, but I do. I am removed and am not running.with the anti trust feelings that are there. I wish I could feel one positive thing from session, but I cant. There is no connection whatsoevdr, so if I exlerience fear during this dizconnect, that is when I will feel needy and want to contact him.

[Sannah]

AMatter, you are not bad because you dissociate, you are not bad because you dissociate.

I'm thinking some inner child work here? That girl needs to speak in therapy and it would be great if you could learn to love her.

Not sure why he has to be perfectly attuned to prevent you blocking him. The blocking him is to be experienced and worked with.

[~EnlightenMe~]

Originally Posted by earthmamma

Not sure why he has to be perfectly attuned to prevent you blocking him. The blocking him is to be experienced and worked with.

I'm not sure if I understand what you are saying. He was trying to bring it to my attention that if he asks something that is just a little outside of the scope of attunement, that my mind goes blank. It was an observation, and it is true. He was trying really hard to say it in a non jarring way, and he did do a great job at that in spite of it still being difficult for me to hear.

Earlier last week, I had figured out how much I have difficulty hearing things in certain ways from others, because it feels triggering. Even my insight was difficult to take, lol.

My T told me that he was still learning who I am, and I am still trying to trust him. So we are trying to figure that out.

[~EnlightenMe~]

Originally Posted by Sannah

AMatter, you are not bad because you dissociate, you are not bad because you dissociate.

I'm thinking some inner child work here? That girl needs to speak in therapy and it would be great if you could learn to love her.

Sannah,
I don't think I am bad because I dissociate. I think I am bad because I am needy. I think I am bad because I react strongly to fears of abandonment, I think I am bad because I have difficult relationships.

I call a part of me child-like, and I know and feel that I have some distinct self-states that have their own characteristics. But I don't define myself as having DID. The child-like state is like my needy state, I guess. I don't like to own the emotion, but I don't see it as a split off child alter.

I do need to love my parts, it isn't an easy task, though. It's very annoying to be BPD. I think I get dissociative when I am really stressed, which now is most of the time. Thanks for your reply.

[Sannah]

I don't think that you are bad because you are needy, that you react to abandonment or because you have difficult relationships. You experience all of these things for good reasons.

It is common to have an inner child when a person has issues. If she can speak in session and her issues can be addressed, she can grow up and integrate into the adult you. This is what happened to me.

[LoneWolfie]

((((((((((((((((Antimatter))))))))))))) I don't know what to say, I can give you a big hug though.

[Lamplighter]

Antimatter I’m relatively new here so not sure what your background is, so I’m only going on what you’ve described in these posts, hope I’m not missing something or putting big feet where my mouth is.

I can feel so much fear in the way you are describing what’s been happening, and I suppose dissociation is in great part an automatic response to intense fear. Not too sure about that, as my usual response to intense fear is paranoia, not really the same but in some respects similar because I too know that it’s ME and not necessarily external reality. But it still seems real all the same and just knowing it intellectually doesn’t overcome the fear one little bit. Well ok, it does, one little bit .

I am so sorry you have to live with this kind of persistent debilitating malignant fear all the time. I recognize it in me too, your post was very eloquent and put into words very poignantly what it’s like to have to live like this

I think you’re being very courageous and true to yourself by owning your feelings, especially the anger. From my experience, anger is an antidote to fear and so can be a life (or mind) saver. I know, because I’m angry all the time and relate very much to the things you’re saying make you feel angry.

No one believes me irl, or maybe they don't care enough, but why should they when I hate myself because I can't figure this out on my own.

Again this could be me talking here . You have this obligation/should/demand that you’re supposed to work everything out for yourself by yourself? No dependency, no neediness, no shirking of ‘responsibility’? Just think about it long enough and hard enough and everything will be resolved. It’s a lie, but it’s so hard to prove it as a lie.

I’m not sure that anything I’m saying here is very helpful, but I really wanted to respond to you so hope this makes some sort of sense. Would like to send you some cyber hugs of support, I think you are suffering awfully and wish there were some way of reaching you to make things just a little better.



Torn

[~EnlightenMe~]

((((Torn))))),
Thank you so much for your helpful reply! I like your term malignant fear, because that is exactly what it feels like!

I do display needy behaviors, unfortunately, and that is what I hate about myself. I think I should be able to deal with it myself, but I haven't thus far.

Good point on if you think about it long and hard enough you will resolve the situation --- that is a lie, to be sure. I helps to think about things, but there is so much more..

I really appreciate your post, Torn. I also appreciate you I am glad you are here, I hope you continue to post. Take care.

[~EnlightenMe~]

Originally Posted by Sannah

I don't think that you are bad because you are needy, that you react to abandonment or because you have difficult relationships. You experience all of these things for good reasons.

It is common to have an inner child when a person has issues. If she can speak in session and her issues can be addressed, she can grow up and integrate into the adult you. This is what happened to me.

Thank you, Sannah. I think that what you say makes sense. I am not sure if that is the path I need to take, but I plan on figuring out what is going on inside of me. I think I need to be patient at this point because my T and I are figuring things out as we go. As always, I truly appreciate your replies take care.