Tears in Session

Trdlblue I’m so sorry you too know this awful feeling of not knowing what safety is.

You sound so hopeless here . If it’s any consolation my T today was saying that a lot of people can’t do safe place – but that it doesn’t mean we’re a lost cause and can’t be ‘fixed’.

Does your T understand this about you and is s/he focusing on helping you establish a sense of safety?

To her credit my T has openly stated now that getting me feeling safe is a priority in my therapy, and I’m grateful for that, because I can think of nothing more painful and soul destroying than trying to effect change in other areas that just gets sabotaged by fear and feeling threatened.

Don’t lose hope ((((( trdlblue ))))) (And thank you too for replying )

Torn

Just Some Girl thanks for coming back .

Glad to hear your T isn’t usually so insensitive, though it sounds like you’re going through a bad patch with her at the moment. Not helped by the fact that she’s currently away!

Wow so it’s a fill in T that’s doing EMDR with you? That’s moving quickly isn’t it? Or is he someone you’ve been working with a while already? Well EMDR apart, it must be helpful to be talking to someone else about the issues in your therapy, getting a different perspective and a chance to reflect on it all yourself.

This I think is what’s going wrong even with imaginary safe places I think of – there’s too much and too quick of an association with some negative feeling that ends up colouring the whole image. Which is maybe just a sign that I need to deal with the pain tears sadness whatever this feeling is that keeps emerging, before I can move on.

I’m not tgoing to ignore or shove aside anymore any negative feelings that surface now because I don’t think I’d manage to establish a truly safe place that way at all. As T said today, EMDR needs a genuine safe place for client to rest in between sessions, as it can get pretty heavy and painful and create a lot of anxiety…

I’m sorry T’s office has lost its sense of safety, I hope you can repair whatever has been going wrong with T and get back that sense of safety and belonging.

I love that you’re going to use your horse as your safe place. If you feel up to it, would you post about how your EMDR session goes? I’d be really interested to hear about it. And thank you for saying I’m not abnormal . I certainly FEEL it, but maybe in this instance I’m not quite so abnormal as I think .

Torn

Feral (lol I decided I liked that as your name) thank you for your comments.

I like the word ‘mirroring’ . Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it in the way you describe what happens. That simply having someone there (well obviously someone who’s actively listening and not mocking or rejecting or punishing) might be an experience of care and attention that could be overwhelming. I’m quite stunned – might sound over the top but I have a history of being emotionally detached from reality so to think that maybe this, simple fact of someone there listening, witnessing, validating, mirroring, is a form of caring boggles my mind .

I almost let it in then . Nah too risky, I’ll stick to the intellectual appraisals for now. But for a moment there your words very nearly got under my defences. I might have batted it all away but maybe in time this stuff will sink in and things will change.

Thank you

Torn

I always cry when I think of my safe place, and I just cry in general! About sad stuff, about good stuff, about thinking about my inner child and my ****** childhood etc etc. Am trying to get used to that and not feel stupid. I guess as I get to know my T better and also stop idolising her ( if I do!) that I won't feel so silly

I think it took a long while before my T and her office really became my safe place. My T actually told me early on to imagine up a safe place and what it would be like, for this sort of exercise. It could be in a forest, or by a pond, or whatever else felt safest.

so to think that maybe this, simple fact of someone there listening, witnessing, validating, mirroring, is a form of caring boggles my mind .

I almost let it in then . Nah too risky, I’ll stick to the intellectual appraisals for now. But for a moment there your words very nearly got under my defences. I might have batted it all away but maybe in time this stuff will sink in and things will change.

Sometimes I think of it like someone starving being overwhelmed with gratitude for a crumb. And maybe the sadness of that is part of the feeling that brings on the tears. But ultimately, it's a good thing because it brought me closer to myself and to others. Some of the most powerful moments with my T were in silence; the empathy was palpable, and the tears would just stream.

"Feral"--I like it! Wild, crazy, untamed----so NOT me!

Thank you Southpole (hello!) Nightlight and Feral (lol so it’s so not you huh? All the more reason to call you that then ) for replying. I feel a whole lot better knowing I’m not alone or abnormal in this tears about what should be positive things reaction.

Quick update on the therapy side.

T apologized for saying that the tears were getting in the way and recognized immediately I mentioned it that it was a negative/inappropriate thing to say. We didn’t talk that much about it because I was happy that she understood the significance of the tears and my difficulties with establishing a safe place and we focused more on sorting out how to go about establishing a positive sense of self for me instead.

However I had been feeling unheard and a failure as a result of her comment and responses to my tears last session, so I very much appreciate having had that picked up on and validated here .

Thank you everyone for all your responses and support!

Torn

Just an afterthought . I wonder if my tears didn’t come from the simple fact of being seen/heard? I’ve had a lifetime of being invisible, feeling unheard and not listened to so whatever I think and feel seems like it just doesn’t matter, has no reality to me.

Being seen or heard by a real other somehow fixes me, makes me very much aware of what I’m feeling/thinking despite my best controls and I sort of experience it through another person’s knowing/understanding eyes (not always understanding in a positive way, but knowing in the sense of recognizing pain loss grief sadness whatever the underlying feeling might be…) So like being mirrored in fact, as Feral suggested. This suddenly makes the feeling real and impossible to squash/control like I do normally and automatically as a matter of course.

I expect there are several different things going on anyway. And I won't really understand until and unless I go into it again and again. But I'd have liked very much to have been able to have a safe place, it makes me sad that that that's not possible at this point

Torn

I do believe you've got it!

I was too afraid of the feelings to sit with them long enough to feel empathy for myself. Seeing the impact of my experiences in T's eyes made it real. Painfully real, but no longer a solitary pain.