"I'm not gonna play your game"

My T told me today that she "won't play my game" referring to me either passive aggressively or straight out asking her to tell me she cares about me or expressing some sort of negative emotion towards me. She says there is nothing she say to prove to me that she cares so she isn't going to tell me that she likes me/cares about me at all. I don't understand why. She says she wants me to find the care and love for myself within myself, but how can I feel love for myself when I don't feel like I've ever received it? Do I even know what it means?

I want her to take care of me. She wants me to take care of myself. By her not literally saying "I care about you" or "you're special to me" when I ask, she is basically telling me that she won't be the mom I need in my life. I have to parent myself and that is scary and I don't know how to do it. I always just find myself following her around or asking for her attention (I see her in a residential situation so she's here all day every day except Saturdays). I don't know what to do or if I can even do it.

I know you may not like this answer, but she is trying to protect you. She is not your mom, and she can't become that emotionally attached to you because you are still her client, and making the relationship more than just a client T relationship makes it much more difficult to help you.

Do you have anyone else that can be that caring, loving mother figure? Even a good friend can fill that role if necessary.

But I do understand your need to feel loved and cared for and I hope you find it in someone soon.

Your T is setting boundaries with you because you want her to be boundariless. You want her to mother you and take care of you and pay constant attention to you. She can't do that, and you won't begin to learn some independence (which you really lack for your age) if she feeds into your desire to be completely dependent all the time.

Honestly, she knows that no matter how much she would tell you she cares, no matter how much attention she would give you, it would never be enough for you. You would doubt her words, be dissatisfied with the amount or quality of her attention, want more from her or different from her no matter what she does. You kind of seem to want to curl up into a little ball and do nothing and let everyone else take care of you and be responsible for your sense of well-being and safety (this is not new for you).

The way to learn it is to actively make choices to take care of yourself. Find activities and choose activities away from and independent of your T. Come up with ways to nurture yourself: walks, journalling, artwork, listening go good music, reading a good book, talking to OTHER people than her, etc. These are choices you will have to actively and deliberately make in order to nurture yourself and start thinking and living independently. These aren't complicated steps to take. You can do this. No excuses here. You are in a protected environment right now. Take advantage of that and start practicing NOW what you will have to do when you leave that protected environment.

I get the point the therapist is making....but seems kinda harsh.

I think that everyone who has read any of my posts knows that I'm emotionally about six years old. I'm not trying to deny that anymore. I just don't know how to break out of that desire to have someone take care of me. I know why I have that desire, but I know having a reason only explains why things are the way they are and doesn't excuse it.

I have been doing activities outside of her. I've been drawing a lot and writing along with my normal music. It just acts like a distraction and doesn't really nurture me. Maybe it does and I'm just being stubborn about the kind of nurture I want.

T says I need to start taking care of myself in order to prove to myself that I can do it. She's having me track whenever I brush my teeth as juvenile as that sounds. I have to start somewhere I guess.

Do you have any friends that you can rely on?

Not like a mother. I have some good friends, but if I rely on them too much, they get all of the pressure of my mental issues and don't have the skills to handle it. I just have to come to terms with the fact that I'm never going to have that person in my life and I have to let go of wanting it in order to grow up and function

It can be difficult to accept that a desire is just that - simply a desire. It does not have to be acted upon or satisfied. Acknowledgment is a starting place. I am not saying it is fun, or happy, but one may have to try a number of things to learn to nurture oneself. Sometimes one can gain some nurturing in some ways from others and the ability to accept that amount that is freely given and take it in and move on, while not an easy thing, may make it easier for you. It does not have to be all consuming or satisfying or nothing.

I'm voting for "stubborn" here. You've always been pretty persistent in finding excuses and reasons why you can't do things to improve your situation. You ARE absolutely stubborn about it. (I say that with affection, but it is true.)

You are right. You have to start somewhere. She may be onto something with having you write down brushing your teeth. Have you considered writing down everything you do for yourself and by yourself for a day or so? I suspect you do a lot more for yourself independently than you give yourself credit for. You seem to think you are completely helpless. I suspect you have a few more skills and abilities than you realize. Yes, they may be very simple, very basic things, but they are a place to start, a place to give yourself credit and recognition and a place to begin to build your greater independency and self.

Well, she said this within a larger conversation. It's difficult because when this conversation happened, she was in my room and she said "you deserve to be nurtured and cared for and it's awful that you didn't get that as a kid" and then spun around and said she won't play my games and that I need to take care of myself. Then she told me to take a shower. So it's like she is leading me on in a way and then pushing me back but at the same time, I know it's just me clinging on to some words more than others and over analyzing everything she says.

I don't think this is a desire that you can have satisfied, nor satisfy yourself. It's too big and elemental a need to meet consciously. What you can do is accept that the need exists and try to take action despite the need. Not a distraction, but a putting the need on the back burner and allowing yourself to go on without focusing on the need.

As you become stronger, the insistence of the need will lessen and your ability to take in the caring you have in your life, including from a T, will increase. Your acceptance of caring will broaden as your demand for it decreases.

Yes, we all have only one real mother, and unfortunately she isn't always a good one. Your T can't be your mother. Your friends can't be your mother.

Trying to make people be someone they can never be is unfair to them and fruitless for you.

Let your T be your T. That's not a bad thing. She serves an important purpose.

Let your friends simply be your friends. Also not a bad thing, and friendships are serve an important purpose.

You are going to have to learn to be independent. If you are waiting for a mother before you get there, it isn't going to happen -- not the mother you have in your imagination anyway. You can function very well, happily, and independently in life if you can get past the fear of stepping out on your own. Your growth and independence is not contingent on that mother existing first. With or without a good mother in our lives, we ALL have to take that step at one point or another; you aren't different that way. It IS scary at first, but you take it one independent step at a time.

One thing you may eventually discover is that when you do grow and become strong, independent you, your friends and other people in your life will actually be more open to real relationship with you because the relationship will be mutually supportive rather than you wanting all of the support alone.

I am doing things to help myself. I'm asking for help now when I need it. I was just sitting around hoping someone would notice. I partially cleaned my room yesterday. I really just moved the trash around. I've been spending hours just drawing and listening to music and stuff. I wash my hands.

I actually have a tendency to focus all of my energy in my friendships catering to their needs and letting mine fall back because I know mine are too great to be resolved in that situation. And then if I do let a friend take care of me at all, then things get sticky.

Part of the problem is that I want a mother as in the sense of a six year old wants a mom. If I wanted a mother in the sense of what a normal 20 year old wants, I could get that from my T. But I'm not there yet and I have to figure out how to fill that gap before she or anyone else could possibly fill the rest of the void.l

Rather than waiting for someone to notice, YOU notice. YOU praise yourself for what you do. YOU give yourself that recognition. YOU bring it to the attention of the people you want to know. You can do this.

Don't just "move that trash around", complete the task so you really feel some pride in your accomplishment. Rather than drawing without much purpose, maybe come up with a drawing project to decorate your room or the dayroom or as small tokens of friendliness for others (not to get praise from them, but as a true gift that YOU want to GIVE without expecting return).

I completely agree with everything you said, except that there is a first step that is missing, and that is acceptance. And until Growlything finds acceptance that there is no do-over, there is no "good enough mother" and probably never will be and that the time for that type of mothering is over, then no matter what positive steps she takes to independence, she will still constantly look for women to take care of her. That's not to say that she shouldn't do the practical things you mentioned and learning to look after herself in the meantime but the acceptance thing? That takes a looong time.

Growlything, i swear i get how you feel and it's only recently that it clicked into place for me that i need to be my own parent and i am in my 30's so much older than you, and the agony i've put myself thru trying to look for someone to look after me in the way i should have been when i was little, just isn't worth it. I did want to accept that it was time to grow up, but i just couldn't. Cognitively i knew that i was an adult now, i really wanted to not feel like i desperately needed a "good enough mother", but i just felt this empty longing that i could not get rid of.

I wish i could tell you what happened to make it all click into place and for me to find acceptance, nothing happened particularly, i think i was just ready to accept it finally, i'm not sure i could have speeded that process up if i tried. So now i'm faced with dealing with the grief of missing parts of my childhood. Maybe that's what i was avoiding my looking for a new "mommy", maybe i just didn't want to deal with the stark reality that i missed the boat on the mother front, so i delayed the grief by frantically wishing hoping that i somehow get a "happy ever after".

So my advice to you would be, learn to look after your physical needs. Keep going to therapy and never give up on it, read everything you can lay your hands on about attachment theory- it will explain a lot of what you're feeling. Keep a running dialogue in your head when you feel yourself becoming attracted to your next "mommy-victim" tell yourself that you are your own parent now, talk to yourself like you'd talk to your own child, reassure yourself etc. It's going to be a lot of hard work but you need to realise that no amount of whining, bargaining, tantruming, denying, manipulating is going to get you what you missed out on as a child, trust me on this, it only delays your own recovery. And you probably won't fully accept it for a long time, not until your brain can finally take it in, and is ready to, this is something you can't rush or push to happen, it just takes the time it takes unfortunately.

It sucks, the whole process sucks and you are going to feel awful about the whole unfairness of it all. But one day, if you keep working hard in therapy, you'll wake up and realise you don't feel so bad about it anymore, and that is the most freeing calming feeling in the world!

My drawing has been fine. I drew my icon :P
I have little drawing projects. I figure out I want to draw, I draw it, color it, touch it up, and then move on to the next one. No one has seen all of them and yet I'm still actually able to feel proud of some of them.

I've been trying to notice my accomplishments. It's hard to feel proud of myself for flushing the toilet after dark (doing that can trigger me). It just seems so basic and I should be doing better things for my age.

Everyone always say things like you have to appreciate yourself, but if you don't feel any appreciation from the environment around you then you have no idea how to show yourself appreciation, you have no examples.

This is so important.

I have a husband who expects me to fill the void within him. I can't do that. His expectation of that drains me and angers me and frustrates me. It is a completely unfair, unrealistic expectation that is doomed to failure. The fact is, there is no way "anyone else could possibly fill the rest of the void." His determination to "make" me somehow fill that gaping hole inside him actually has the opposite of the desired effect. It drives me away (which is probably what happens with your friends and probably is why your T is setting this firm boundary with you).

AMEN!!!

It's a semi firm boundary because she does still express caring about me. She just won't verbally say "I care". She'll still point out stuff she likes about me, be there when I'm upset, direct me when I need it, indirectly say she cares, notices me when I'm not asking for help but need it.

But yeah. That's one of the primary reasons I'm not looking for a man right now. I am not emotionally even 4% ready to be in a relationship.

Do you have a regular therapist now, one that you will see beyond the program you are in? I agree that your residential person is trying to protect you--you will only have her for a limited time.

I understand the tough love from pc people here, however, I would hate for you to think that there is no hope of getting those "mommy needs" filled. It may not happen the way you think it will, but with long term therapy the "essence" of those needs can get filled.

Anyways, that's just my experience. The neediness you describe is very familiar.

This sounds like Madame T.
She's not going to budge, so if you want a warmer relationship you'll have to look elsewhere.
((growlithing))

Yeah I do. I've only seen her 3 times and we are doing DBT. Well, attempting to do DBT because I was basically completely zoned out one session and I tend to veer off subject to challenge everything. It's hard to form any attachment with someone I've seen for only three hours, especially when I have this T with me from 9 to 5 nearly every day.

It's not like she isn't being affectionate or mothering me though. She is. She tells me that she cares about me through her actions but has just recently decided to not say it because she thinks it isn't helpful.