[peaches100]

Hi,

I haven't posted for quite some time. I've been doing my best to cope with things more on my own. However, I'm struggling with something that has been a reoccuring issue for me. It has to do with my therapist taking vacations.

In the early years of my therapy, it was always very disruptive when my therapist had to be away and I missed sessions. Since my biggest issues relate to attachment problems, I'd say that separations from my t have been one of the biggest things I've had trouble dealing with.

I've been in therapy for many years and have made so much progress in so many areas! But I just can't seem to get past my fears of separation from my t, how much it bother me when I have to miss a session, and the fear of one day terminating.

I'm always equally craving to be more attached with her, while also doing whatever I can to keep a distance out of fear of rejection. It's an awful cycle to be in, and I don't know how to break out of it.

I know the goal of therapy is to gain self-coping and management skills so we don't have to depend on our t so much. I have made tons of progress with regard to emailing. I used to do it 2-3 times every week, and now I only email about 2 times per month. So I see progress there. Also, for awhile, I was coping better when she went on vacations and I had to miss a session. But for some reason, it's getting to me again.

Any suggestions on what I can do to make things easier?

Peaches

[peaches100]

PS - I feel like it would be easier for me if I could allow myself to feel close with her during my sessions. For example, ask her to sit closer to me, or ask for a hug when leaving. But I fight against this tendency and rarely ask because I'm afraid if I give in to wanting any sort of "nurture" that I might want or need more of it.

Allow yourself to feel how you're feeling. Sometimes we appear to take a step backwards just before we're about to leap frog.

[peaches100]

Thanks, Mouse, I hope so!

There are times when I feel much more independent and like I am making good progress. But then, it's like the insecure little kid in me pops out and I feel that awful longing and fear about attachment that I have always struggled with! Ugh!

[Tarra]

It seems like you're trying to train yourself not to need the attachment so much. But maybe instead of trying to get rid of the natural need, you could work on finding ways to fulfill it. Both by asking your therapist for more nurture, and by developping more nurturing bonds in the rest of your life.

I'm afraid if I give in to wanting any sort of "nurture" that I might want or need more of it.

Maybe you would want more. But would that be a bad thing? What do you feel would happen?

I'm working on very similar issues at the moment, about attachment, letting people get close to me, and how to accept support and sympathy. It's so scary. I'm coming to see that a lot of the fear is rooted in the past, not the present, and very very gradually starting to change my behavior and assumptions.

[unaluna]

Peaches!!!

Anyway, nurturing is a renewable resource. You're not coming here or going to t to learn how to be MORE alone. We do it to learn to be with people more comfortably, I think. Without irritating them, and without them irritating us so much.

[deepestwaters40]

(((Peaches100)))

Everything you just said sounds exactly like me right now. Even the closeness and stuff about wanting nurturing comfort. I know the only way its gotten better before is talking to her about it no matter how much I don't want to. Which is something I know I have to do tomorrow and I'm dreading it. Have you talked with her about it?

[blur]

peaches, it sounds like this is a transference reaction. i know you've mentioned in the past feeling very abandoned by your parents when they'd go out. why not do some work on that so as to get the focus off your T and onto the real issue.

[tinyrabbit]

Peaches! I was wondering where you'd got to. Re your T, I remember you once wrote something about how you detached from your mother in order to cope with her going away. I wonder if that might be just what you feel you should do with your T now, but that feeling is in conflict with the part of you that knows your T is offering that nurturing and support. It makes perfect sense in the context of your story that time apart from your T would be triggering and hard to deal with.

It strikes me that maybe you need to spend some time figuring out the fact that your attachment to your T is different - that it's not a dangerous attachment that's going to end up with you getting hurt and abandoned, so the nurturing doesn't come at the price of being set up to get hurt. By the way, kids who are independent learn to be that way because they've first had a secure attachment. The way to learn to be independent is first to allow yourself to depend.

[peaches100]

Originally Posted by _Mouse

Allow yourself to feel how you're feeling. Sometimes we appear to take a step backwards just before we're about to leap frog.

Thanks, Mouse. For some reason, I was expecting everybody to tell me to GROW UP and quit acting like a baby! But I guess that's my own "critic" talking. I will work on trying to allow what I feel, rather than criticizing and shaming it. That's the hardest part for me!

[peaches100]

Originally Posted by Tarra

It seems like you're trying to train yourself not to need the attachment so much. But maybe instead of trying to get rid of the natural need, you could work on finding ways to fulfill it. Both by asking your therapist for more nurture, and by developping more nurturing bonds in the rest of your life.

Maybe you would want more. But would that be a bad thing? What do you feel would happen?

I'm working on very similar issues at the moment, about attachment, letting people get close to me, and how to accept support and sympathy. It's so scary. I'm coming to see that a lot of the fear is rooted in the past, not the present, and very very gradually starting to change my behavior and assumptions.

Hi Tarra,

You are probably right. . .I need to "accept" that I need attachment and work toward letting myself feel some of it with t and with others. It's so hard for me to label my need for attachment as weak and needy. Before I had my breakdown years ago, I never felt that clingy, needy feeling toward anyone, nor did I fear being abandoned. I guess I had "forgotten" the awful experiences I'd felt as a kid, and had put them far away from me! Now, they can't be put back into oblivion, and I am forced to feel them inside, which I hate! It makes me feel soooooo vulnerable.

You asked a good question: I had said I was afraid that if I allowed any attachment/nurture, I woudl want more. You asked me if that was necessarily a bad thing? I had to think on that awhile. I guess that I wouldn't call it a "bad thing" to want more attachment and nurture, as long as that desire/feeling wasn't so strong inside that I became demanding of others or starting to feel too entitled to it. I seriously doubt I would ever do that since it kills me now just to express that I have the need for a hug or some support! But that's my fear anyway.

The comparison came to my mind about somebody who is alcoholic. They can't have "any" alcohol without overdoing it. So they have to avoid it completely. There are times that I feel like a starved child inside who has needed love and acceptance for SOOO LONG. But has learned to "go without." And even though that is so sad and lonely, it is what the part of me has become used to, in order to avoid loving or depending on someone again who might abandon me later.

I worry too that l simply will be incapable of handling the feeling of being attached or depending on someone again. When I have accepted a hug from my t, it feels good. But not long later, I am struck with extreme anxiety and fear. I don't want to, but it happens anyway.

I feel like a mess!

[peaches100]

Originally Posted by hankster

Peaches!!!

Anyway, nurturing is a renewable resource. You're not coming here or going to t to learn how to be MORE alone. We do it to learn to be with people more comfortably, I think. Without irritating them, and without them irritating us so much.

Thanks, Hankster. I know intellectually that it's irrational to try to make myself be a "superwoman" who doesn't need anyone. But I guess that in my heart, it feels like the "only definite way" to avoid pain. Y'know, like the Simon and Garfunkle song lyric from "I am a Rock": "And a rock feels no pain. And an island never cries."

How do I get myself to "take a chance" again on getting close to people? It feels so dangerous to me.

[peaches100]

Originally Posted by deepestwaters40

(((Peaches100)))

Everything you just said sounds exactly like me right now. Even the closeness and stuff about wanting nurturing comfort. I know the only way its gotten better before is talking to her about it no matter how much I don't want to. Which is something I know I have to do tomorrow and I'm dreading it. Have you talked with her about it?

Hi Deepestwaters,

I'm sorry to hear that you are struggling with this issue as well. It is hard! Yes, I have talked to my t about this quite a bit. M t has said she doesn't have a problem with me wanting to feel close to her, nor with my asking her for a hug if I need one. But I often perceive, from things my t says or does, that she is discouraging that closeness. When it happens, we talk about it, and she invariably says that I have misunderstood her, and that she is not trying to push me away. So maybe it is all in my head, although it "seems" like I am right!

[peaches100]

Originally Posted by blur

peaches, it sounds like this is a transference reaction. i know you've mentioned in the past feeling very abandoned by your parents when they'd go out. why not do some work on that so as to get the focus off your T and onto the real issue.

Hi Blur,

I've talked about my feelings of abandonment with my parents in various sessions. I've been able to grieve it some also. But for some reason, it does not feel gone yet. I still feel it inside. I'm not sure why the pain is not gone yet.

[peaches100]

Originally Posted by tinyrabbit

Peaches! I was wondering where you'd got to. Re your T, I remember you once wrote something about how you detached from your mother in order to cope with her going away. I wonder if that might be just what you feel you should do with your T now, but that feeling is in conflict with the part of you that knows your T is offering that nurturing and support. It makes perfect sense in the context of your story that time apart from your T would be triggering and hard to deal with.

It strikes me that maybe you need to spend some time figuring out the fact that your attachment to your T is different - that it's not a dangerous attachment that's going to end up with you getting hurt and abandoned, so the nurturing doesn't come at the price of being set up to get hurt. By the way, kids who are independent learn to be that way because they've first had a secure attachment. The way to learn to be independent is first to allow yourself to depend.

Hi Tinyrabbit,

Wow, what an astute observation! I believe you are correct . . .that I am responding to my t's absences with the same detachment I used when my mom left me alone. It is a protective habit that keeps me feeling safe. . .or, I guess I should say that it keeps "one part of me" feeling safe (the part that needs to be "a rock" in order not to get hurt). But the other part of me that really desires to stay feeling connected, when I detach, that part of me is left feeling isolated and abandoned. Deep down, I must believe that if my t leaves, but I'm the one to detach, then that is a far less hurt than if I let myself attach and then she did the detaching.

Hmmm. Lots to think about.

[unaluna]

That's why there's the old saying, "Cross that bridge when you come to it." There have been a few times in my life when the child hankster spoke to the adult hankster observing something happening at the famiky home. Like a few years after my dad had a stroke, he just started getting old and slowing down. And child hankster said - in my head but very clearly - "uh-oh -- she's not gonna like that. She likes you to get better at stuff, not worse." She being my mother. And my mother didnt really have patience with my dad as he declined. Like you would expect a normal in-tune person to do? But my point is - our fears of needing too much aren't our own. They are more what child hankster said - she's not gonna like that. This is what we are trying to fix, to re-do in therapy. It's like tweaking (not twerking) a recipe.

[peaches100]

Originally Posted by hankster

That's why there's the old saying, "Cross that bridge when you come to it." There have been a few times in my life when the child hankster spoke to the adult hankster observing something happening at the famiky home. Like a few years after my dad had a stroke, he just started getting old and slowing down. And child hankster said - in my head but very clearly - "uh-oh -- she's not gonna like that. She likes you to get better at stuff, not worse." She being my mother. And my mother didnt really have patience with my dad as he declined. Like you would expect a normal in-tune person to do? But my point is - our fears of needing too much aren't our own. They are more what child hankster said - she's not gonna like that. This is what we are trying to fix, to re-do in therapy. It's like tweaking (not twerking) a recipe.

Hankster,

Thanks for explaining that using an example from your own life. What do you think is the best way to fix, or redo, this sort of a problem that is coming from a child part of us?

Peaches

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by peaches100

Hankster,
Thanks for explaining that using an example from your own life. What do you think is the best way to fix, or redo, this sort of a problem that is coming from a child part of us?
Peaches

That's why therapy is such a personal thing. My t lately keeps asking me, "how can I help you with that - ie accomplish that goal or whatever". So answer that?