[Yearning0723]

During today's session with new T, she wanted to know about my mom kicking me out. I told her. Dispassionately. I guess you might say I was feeling numb. I explained it in a very detached, clinical, rational way, and gained some sort of vicarious thrill at how upset she seemed to be getting on my behalf. She is very, very expressive, as I've mentioned. Her eyebrows kept going way up when I said something she found "shocking" and then her face was just so sad for me...and the funny thing is, I didn't feel anything, except faintly amused.

I told her about my mother kicking me out and me having no one in my corner and having to advocate for myself, and the things the social worker told me, and about the situation with the Minnie Mouse when I was six and about my mother locking me out of the house in the cold when I was nine, and the situation with the teacher who I told about my mom abusing me who then decided she wanted nothing to do with me...all of that was very upsetting to T, and it pleased me. She said one of the worst things for a little kid is for the adults around her to be unpredictable and that must have been so anxiety-inducing, and she told me a bunch of times that in no way was any of this my fault, although she correctly identified the guilt I was feeling about the whole situation...she said we should work on that.

She asked me how I felt about all of this, and I said I didn't feel anything (which I didn't), and she asked me if I knew why that was. I said of course it was because of cognitive dissonance, because if I accepted all the things my mother had done to hurt me, I would have no way to justify the fact that I love her dearly and continue to spend lots of time with her; it would be irrational, since how can you love someone who did all those terrible things to you? It's much easier to think it must have been my fault (T repeated again that it wasn't; I was a thirteen year old kid).

And I explained to her how everyone had always treated me like an adult when I was a kid, and I always wanted that and acted like an adult, and she said she understood that, but I was still a kid, and my mother guilt tripping me about all of the money she spent trying to get me back and about her attachment issues stemming from me "leaving" is completely inappropriate, because she's the adult and I'm the kid.

I told her about what happened a few weeks ago with mentor figure telling me about her mom making her sit in the corner and how that triggered me so much that I had this blow up with my mom where I brought up all this stuff about what had happened, and T said that's one of the things that tends to happen when you repress all those emotions - they just explode out of you like a volcano, and that's why therapy is important to process them, and my relationship with her might change, but it's important to do that work. And she said that we also need to work on the guilt and the overdeveloped sense of responsibility for everyone in the world...

We talked a bit about attachment issues, and the way I tend to be drawn to people whose roles are boundaried but who personally have no boundaries...and that was about as much time as we had. I was completely numb and not connecting with any of those emotions at all, which I think unnerved her, and I was fine just walking out the door without even asking for another session.

But now the numbness is starting to wear off and I'm feeling all this anxiety and guilt for telling her all that stuff, like maybe I misrepresented the situation to her or maybe I didn't give her the full story or maybe I said something wrong...because I think it sounded to her like there were all these adults in my life who were really terrible and uncaring who just didn't understand or support me, and I cringe at how all of that must have sounded, talking about my father who didn't support me, my mother who hurt me, the social workers who didn't believe me, my teacher who refused to speak to me after that, mentor figure, even old T...and it just feels wrong somehow.

All that guilt and all that anxiety is swirling, and I want to email her to ask about another session this weekend (that's my instinct), but I also don't know if it would accomplish anything, or if it's a habit I want to get into. I guess I really just want to give her a fuller picture of my mother instead of just as this evil demented woman who destroyed her child's psyche, which I know will come in time and I don't need to rush it, but the anxiety...and also I really do want to talk about old T, which I didn't, and the way I talk about old T to new T makes me cringe inside, because I seem so negative about her, when really I just am so, so attached to her and so, so hurt and sad...

[Perna]

It can be hard when we first start out in therapy to figure out how to tell our story and feel or relive our story and rationalize the loving of people who did some pretty crappy things to us (your mother throwing you out when you were 9 in the cold? My stepmother put a pair of panties in a doll suitcase and pushed me out the front door and closed and locked it on me when I was 5, suggested I go down to my girlfriend's house and see if her mother would take me in). My T taught we a great deal about that though, how we can love people but not like them, that that's okay. Our parents are pretty much all we have when we're young and we don't get any "variety" of upbringing, not many corrective influences to help us with our decision making and judgement. We pick up bad habits (like that we're bad on some adult's say so). We literally have to please the adults because there are no other sources of food, shelter, clothing, "life"? We're prisoners and if we get lousy keepers then it is harder when we get free to adapt to "real" life?

I certainly would go back. Your T knows all this, has heard stuff as bad as any you have to tell her; just not "your" particular stuff. But she has the advantage at first, she has been "out" in the real world for awhile and has learned who she is and how things are, and would probably love to help you with that? Go a second time, if only to tell her about your difficulties with going and worries about her and how you feel you are mis-representing yourself or your situation?

[Favorite Jeans]

I can absolutely relate to the weird perverse pleasure of watching T be sad about some terrible thing that I've come to feel kind of detached from. I think it's not just cognitive dissonance for me because I can be totally detached about events involving people I have no trouble hating. There's definitely an element of wanting to protect myself from the intensity of the memory or whatever.

Anyway I think this is the T's job: to have compassion for us and help us internalize that and find compassion for ourselves. I don't know what the perverse pleasure is about though. Maybe it's feeling some kind of satisfaction at having elicited the empathy we've craved for so long but being unable to connect to the empathy and really take it in. Also for me there's a kind of messed up feeling of being tough when T looks sad and I'm all like "hey, no biggie, shite happens..."

I'm really glad you found this T, Yearning. She sounds like a keeper.

[Favorite Jeans]

Re: asking for another session. Go ahead and ask if you want to. If it doesn't work for her, she'll say no. It's a totally reasonable thing to ask for and maybe you need to go twice a week for awhile. I always thought it would be helpful to have therapy twice a week, two days in a row so that I'd have a night to reflect on the first session and then continue the conversation while it's still fresh in both our minds. I just can't really afford it right now unfortunately!

[Yearning0723]

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

Re: asking for another session. Go ahead and ask if you want to. If it doesn't work for her, she'll say no. It's a totally reasonable thing to ask for and maybe you need to go twice a week for awhile. I always thought it would be helpful to have therapy twice a week, two days in a row so that I'd have a night to reflect on the first session and then continue the conversation while it's still fresh in both our minds. I just can't really afford it right now unfortunately!

I guess my hesitance over this is just residual because old T and I saw each other twice a week for awhile; then she cut back her hours and would get very annoyed if I asked for an extra session, even when I really needed it. I know new T's schedule isn't as full and most people don't turn down the chance to make some extra money when they have the time, and even if she said no it wouldn't be the end of the world...I guess I just don't want her to get upset like old T did and think I'm being too needy.

[Yearning0723]

I sent T an email to ask about another session...

Commence anxiety fit.

[HazelGirl]

Yearning, I'm so glad you emailed your T. What you're feeling is very normal and something that all of us in trauma therapy go through. Hang in there.

[Yearning0723]

Originally Posted by HazelGirl

Yearning, I'm so glad you emailed your T. What you're feeling is very normal and something that all of us in trauma therapy go through. Hang in there.

Ah, but it's only the fourth session.

Well, good for me for getting all the trauma stuff out there in the fourth session, I guess?

[Yearning0723]

She said we could do a session at 12:30 tomorrow. I am so grateful...but also feeling so guilty...ugh. I hate that I work myself up like this.

[Asiablue]

awww so proud!! Well done!

[stopdog]

I don't get why dispassion is a problem. Do you want to be more passionate about telling the therapist things?

[Yearning0723]

Originally Posted by stopdog

I don't get why it is a problem.

Old T left after I sent her an email asking for an extra session...she hated when I did that.

[stopdog]

Oh - I thought the dispassion was the thing you were worried about, not the extra appointment. I am glad this therapist has an appointment for you tomorrow. The therapist I see actually said she was glad I set up a second appointment the one time I did so.
They are all quite different in how they operate it seems.

[AllyIsHopeful]

Sometimes it's easiest to go completely numb and then let it all out. I know how weird it is to see T's reactions when I am so emotionless. It is amusing at times but kind of healing because it's like someone is saying "I know this is too painful for you to feel. I see how numb you are and I'm going to feel and express the pain for you".



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[unaluna]

Originally Posted by stopdog

I don't get why dispassion is a problem. Do you want to be more passionate about telling the therapist things?

I would say the opposite of dispassionate in this context is integrated. Thats what i am working towards, all parts rowing in the same direction at the same time, aware of and heading towards the same goal. Nobody in back just goofing off not paying attention chewing gum and rowing backwards. One of the other goofs in the crew is standing up in the boat and telling the story while everybody else is freaking out.

[stopdog]

Hankster - I don't see dispassionate that way. I don't see it as parts not being integrated.

Originally Posted by stopdog

I don't get why dispassion is a problem. Do you want to be more passionate about telling the therapist things?

Well dispassion is similar to indifference or apathy. The opposite of apathy or indifference can be caring. Caring = hurting. Not caring = no pain. Being out of touch with emotions...

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by stopdog

Hankster - I don't see dispassionate that way. I don't see it as parts not being integrated.

Yeah im just saying thats how it is for me. I havent really gotten to a place where being dispassionate is a reasoned, rational, valid choice made by a whole individual - its more of a nightmare of my not being able to deal.

[HazelGirl]

Being that unemotional can be a sign of dissociation also, which is not good because, like Yearning is experiencing, it comes out later in a different way.

[Yearning0723]

I am so nervous to talk to T in a few hours. I guess I feel unsettled because yesterday she was seeing me as this little victim who was hurt by all the adults in her life, and I've just never seen myself that way - I've always seen myself as autonomous, in control, pulling all the strings...and I guess her seeing me as this kid who was struggling so hard but was still doing her best is really...new...to me.

And it makes me worry that I maybe misrepresented things to her, or exaggerated (even though I know I didn't) or left out important details, or maybe it's just because she has never seen me in anxiety mode and thus doesn't understand how it might be scary for other people and potentially warrant the kind of treatment I received...I guess I've just described everyone in my world, parents, teachers, social workers, old T, and so on, as letting me down...but part of me feels like that isn't right, that I let THEM down, not the other way around, and T seeing me as a victim feels nice, but also disconcerting and untrue.

[Asiablue]

It will all be fine today.

Go in with no expectations and just see how things unfold. Whether you like it or not, the fact remains YOU are the victim in all of this. Were you perfectly behaved at all time? Nope, but show me a child who is! You were let down by a lot of people.

She as your therapist is ALWAYS going to take your side, because she is there for you, to see things from your side not anyone elses.

[Yearning0723]

Originally Posted by Asiablue

It will all be fine today.

Go in with no expectations and just see how things unfold. Whether you like it or not, the fact remains YOU are the victim in all of this. Were you perfectly behaved at all time? Nope, but show me a child who is! You were let down by a lot of people.

She as your therapist is ALWAYS going to take your side, because she is there for you, to see things from your side not anyone elses.

I guess that feeling of someone being on my side like that is so foreign that I assume I must have lied about something or manipulated her somehow to elicit it.

[Asiablue]

Originally Posted by Yearning0723

I guess that feeling of someone being on my side like that is so foreign that I assume I must have lied about something or manipulated her somehow to elicit it.

Exactly! Now go to the mirror and repeat that 10X !!!!!!

[growlithing]

If you want me to talk with the most dry, monotone voice possible, get me to start talking about trauma. LCM said that sometimes, when people first start talking about stuff like that, they aren't ready to really process any emotions towards it so it comes out cold and emotionless. The emotions can come later after working on it a little more and even then, what emotions come out first is different for everyone.