Not sure if I trust ts advice or opinion anymore

Yesterday I seen t, I was telling her how me and my mom have been getting on well, how I liked it and how it was nice
My mom is abusive to me but we had a big fall out two weeks ago and ever since then she has been on her best behaviour. I told her that the way she was treating me was unacceptable. At first mom didn't like it but after a few days she came around.
So t warned me not to trust her again cos I will only get hurt, she told me not to get hooked into her again. I said but she is my mom I have no choice but to talk to her vibe cause I live at home at the moment.
T really was adamant that I move out and have nothing to do with her.
I told her that right now I am not in a position financially to do that and she said right well we have done enough work on your mom there is nothing more we can do about it.
It felt like t really wanted me to just cut her off, I sometimes think t wants me to be on my own and dependant on her.

I would not like to be in that situation, mona. Interesting though, the way you put it, "on my own and dependent. . ." Here you are living at home and saying you can't leave your abusive mom but you also only see living elsewhere but being depending on your T as the alternative?

If your mother is abusive, for me, working to get out on my own would make sense and would probably help with the relationship further as I would not be so close so constantly. I had difficulties with my stepmother and moving out was helpful and scary, difficult, lonely, all the things it has to be being a new experience, given who I was at the time. The goal is to learn to live one's own life and I don't think that can happen all one way or all another.

I'd tell T what you think :-) and talk about it, tell her what she said and how adamant about it she was upset you and you wish she could help you see other alternatives that you might not be able to see because of your inexperience? Tell her it feels like you are driving her to/from extremes of cutting off your mother but then having no one but her.

Your t is right. My t's said the same thing and they were right. It's not that the t's want us to be dependent on the personally but professionally, which though in a t's case is rather personal just because of the situation. But they're just looking for us to be independent of our parents, and properly interdependent on other adults. Including them at the beginning.

Looking back, I can see how I always held myself back financially to be in the exact spot I was in growing up (if that makes sense). I didn't know any other way. And it was too scary emotionally to learn any other way. Do you have any goals? Aside from going to school. That is a big one. Maybe it would help to set some small ones. Just to learn to become an independent goal-oriented person. I used to perform my assignments at work, but it seems that is all I accomplished in life. I was too tired for anything else. Well, work and therapy. That is my goal. To start setting goals!

Maybe your T was just trying to look out for you, not wanting you to get 'sucked in' by your mum again - perhaps she sees a pattern, thinks that it's inevitable you'll keep getting hurt, and that it's best to keep distance and protect yourself? She may feel it's important for you to get out and away from your mum in order for you to make progress and to help with self actualisation...

(Or maybes I'm just projecting because I've had my own mother issues! )

Or maybe it is the abuse cycle at work. Now that your mom is treating you better, you feel defensive of her.

Has this cycle happened before? Could T be trying to prevent what happens next?

Just hugs

I've been the recipient of the same advice from T. I have to say I finally managed to move out and my relationship with parents changed dramatically. I remember my T was forceful also and I was frustrated she couldn't see how it upset me and how it wasn't that easy. My t used the 'co dependancy' buzzword all those years ago to. Xx

Thank you for your reply Perna, I just realised that yes it is scary, breaking the cycle and learning to stand up for myself, to move out and to be free. I never thought that it has to be like that when experiencing new things. Seeing my mother constantly is hard for me and having a break could be the best thing for me right now but I just can't afford it at the moment. I like it when mum is nice to me and it doesn't happen much so now I want to just be here and enjoy it but t feels it is not safe for me and my mum is just hooking me in.

Mother issues suck Maybe you are right JSG and maybe t does have my best interests at heart, I would like to think she does and that she is looking out for me. I have a feeling this is true but I also have a feeling that she doesn't like it when I start to like my mom again. I want to trust t but after yesterday I am struggling.

Thanks Hankster, you could be right about me holding back financially. I am sure I could work something out but for some reason I don't. T has asked me before why I choose to stay there when I can move and I don't know why.

I dont have any goals at the moment, only start college in September, I am learning to stand up for myself and to trust myself more. I want to change jobs eventually. This is a big thing for me hankster, I always have to have a project on the go. I love to be kept busy and have something to work towards. Kind of like you, all work and therapy
You know, you are right. This is a cycle that happens to me. My ex abused me and I would get defensive of her, even to this day I can't let anyone say anything bad about her. It is a cycle and maybe t is trying to prevent it but I just couldn't see it because I am not used to people being nice unless they want something. T has identified that I am repeating the same patterns at work, at home and in my relationships.

Why would moving out of your mother's place make you entirely dependent on your therapist?

I doubt she wants this -in fact, on the contrary, she may feel that you going out on your own will make you *more* independent, overall.

I simply don't understand your T. It seems she has a pattern of trying to run your life and make your decisions for you, rather than explore your decisions and support you in making your choices--whether she agrees with them or not.

She also has very odd boundaries with you, her treating you as a friend, a potential colleague, a daughter, etc.

The two together seem very off to me. When she says right well we have done enough work on your mom there is nothing more we can do about it. I can't help but hear this as cutting off exploration, and in a way, punishing you. A kind of--well, you won't see reason, so I'm not going to waste my time.

There was a time when I was dead broke, getting my rent money from my father which complicated the whole abuse history, enmeshment, and power/control issue between us. So I took a job that I was scared to take, and certainly not one in a field I wanted, simply because it involved a paid training period for the first 2 months. I couldn't see any other way out.

Of course, I discussed it with my T, and he explored the idea with me, helping me to imagine what the near future would look like--very neutrally. He told me years later, long after I couldn't make the job work (it involved direct sales and the pressure and rejection was crushing to me at the time), that he had thought I never should have taken the job to begin with. I was exasperated, and I asked him why the **** he hadn't told me that???? He said it wasn't his place to tell me what to do, but to make sure my decision was as enlightened as possible, and then to support me in its execution as best he could.

In other words, he respected me as an adult. Your T doesn't seem to see you as an adult. If she doesn't, how can you get confidence in yourself as an adult?

Yeah, when your T said that, it made me nervous that my T would eventually get sick of me and completely shut me down like that. I don't know. I just feel like a T shouldn't ever just refuse to talk about something (especially something as painful as being still around an abusive person) because she feels like you aren't doing everything you can to fix the situation. I'm kinda in a similar place. I'm not ready to be financially independent so I can't completely cut my parents out of the picture yet. I have to cooperate with them and listen to their crap until I am old enough and financially stable enough to pay my own bills. While it would be psychologically beneficial for me to cut ties with them, I would screw myself over because I couldn't afford to pay my rent, water, and electricity. If a T just refused to talk about my issues with my mom because I have been sacrificing a little but of my sanity to avoid being shoulders deep in debt, I dunno. That just seems wrong to me. You have to make your practice fit your client a little better and be willing to work through things ESPECIALLY if she feels they are self destructive in nature.

My T also used this word in relation to all of my realtions with others and she also brings up the karpman triangle to this situation with my mother.
I am sorry you experienced the same situation, it sucks. Did your relationship change for the better?
Thanks for your reply ferral,
I am sorry you had to learn the hard way but I admire your t for letting you chose you path and for respecting your decisions even though he knew they were wrong.
the two things you pointed out were the things that have been bothering me most about my therapy and t lately- her boundaries(lack of) and her cutting me off and controlling my therapy and deciding what is best for me. I am trying to empower myself and make my own decisions and I don't think t likes that, this is why I think she wants me to be dependant on her but I have stud my ground here and not called her when she offers and not contacted her out of session for a long time, beside an email last week.
I felt like she did punish me or try to punish me by deciding not to talk about my mother anymore, it was because I was defending her and feeling sorry for her and t didn't seem to want us to get along, now maybe it was an act of kindness and she was trying to protect me from getting hurt but it didn't feel like that.
I know that t is lonely, she is seperated and her children are all abroad and her family live a long way away and I think she wants to be close to me but I dont want it because I can't allow myself to be close to a therapist when it is all under their terms and the relationship would never be equal. I think this is the reason for her loose boundaries is she wants a substitute daughter and I want a mom who cares about me and maybe these two needs are drawing us together but in an unhealthy way.
T is pushing me to go to t meetings and events and I don't want that right now. I want to go when I am ready and not be told to go or forced. I think sometimes she doesn't really understand whaat i am going through or she doesn't want to, since I started to train as a t the dynamics changed because before I started my training she was kind and understanding and the best t ever. I also think she doesn't know what to do with me because she is a cbt therapist and works with only short term clients and I have been her longest client. maybe this is the problem.

Sorry you are in a similar place
Sometimes i think that ts expect our lives to change in the week that we have between sessions, they are very impatient sometimes and have to realise that change takes time and that clients can change but only when we are ready.

(((((((((((((((((((( mls ))))))))))))))))))) breathe....

talk about it to T till you have no more pain / questions / doubts left.

I wish I could let you know how much I support you.