I seriously think I am too broken to ever heal. I know I'm being overly dramatic again and taking up too much space here, but at the moment I don't really care. I just keep rediscovering all the ways in which I am an alien, and it makes me tired, and I am exhausted with the effort of trying to fit in. I probably need to bring this up with T, but I don't even know how to begin.

Take this whole business of connecting to other people and learning from their experiences. I have no problem sympathising - and sometimes empathising - with others when they talk about their problems. I can also feel genuine happiness for other people when they talk about how they overcome their problems. But apparently, real people can take others' experiences of overcoming hurdles, and learn from them and use the knowledge in their own lives. For me, the only reaction I can ever have when it comes to applying anything to myself rather than just being a sympathetic listener, is a profound and complete sense of failure because I am a loser who can't do those things. So I try to avoid seeing any parallels whatsoever with my own life - in other people's real life stories, in novels, in movies. My closest friend recently suggested that I try to find a close friend of my own biological gender to confide in. How could that possibly help me feel anything other than an even bigger failure? How do real people do this? I know I ought to be able to, if I were a real person. I just know that I can't. (It's not because I don't have female friends - I do, I even have some rather close friends. But I have left female therapists because I can't talk to women about certain personal things. It's just how it is, and I know it is not human.)

And I keep pushing people away. I hate that. I hate that I do it. I am not actually an unpleasant person, I think, but I am scared stiff of letting anybody get close enough to hurt me. Or close enough that they will discover that there is nothing human inside me.

Therapy is the only place where I feel safe and like a person. (Not quite true. I sometimes feel like a person when I'm singing in my choir, and sometimes when I'm with friends. But I also push my friends away. I am tired of being me.)

This forum is not a safe place either, of course it's not. I'm not sure why I am posting this, really. I know that the only safe and sane thing to do is to shut up and try to conform.

It is just so exhausting to do that.

[Leah123]

I'm sorry you're feeling so out of place, feeling like you can't change, and scared of trying to connect. Is there something that triggered your feeling of alienation just now or in the last few days? What's going on over there?

[unaluna]

What? Who are these real people who learn from others' experience? No one here, i presume.

I think the best i do is resonate with someone. Like the last time you and i had a word thing, i forget what it was now. Or this morning in t, we were talking about bacon, and i got quiet and t said what are you thinking, and i said i was thinking about the pre-cooked bacon i bought for him in the hospital gift shop and we both laughed at the irony - heres precooked bacon to bring to your friend in the cardiac care unit

My dad often said, laugh and the world laughs with you; cry and you cry alone. Which is weird when you consider english was not his first language, for him to choose that saying to repeat. He was pretty depressed, but he didnt talk about it. He kept busy.

[Perna]

A trick I use is to triangulate things. Just listening and sympathizing or empathizing with another's story or book, movie, etc. doesn't get it "back" into one's own life; a space is needed that doesn't exist. I use story details to do that? I had a friend on these boards 15-20 years ago who would overdose on Tylenol periodically, be hospitalized, etc., damaging her health. I suggested she overdose on grapes, instead? We thought and laughed about that and enjoyed each other. Now, to this day, when I go into a grocery store or have/see/think about grapes I think of this friend and my fondness for her, etc. See if you can create a "hook" to other people's stories that is meaningful to you in a personal "alien" way.

When I was about 12 and my parents, youngest brother and I were driving across country to my father's new job we went through the badlands of North or South Dakota and there was nothing there but the road and the telephone poles going on forever? I looked at a telephone pole and deliberately said, "I'm going to look at you for as long as I can see you and remember you the rest of my life!" and did that, trying to imagine what it would be like 50 years in the future, what I would be like and how I would think of that moment, etc. Just grab something arbitrary and make it yours/meaningful with your will? Make up your own stories that are helpful to you. That telephone pole (approximately 52 years ago :-) I can use as a marker to show change and growth? It was all "Me" and "I" am still here, still that person, can remember what I was like and how I felt and who I "am" across time.

[AmysJourney]

My usual response would be: You ARE a real person and you are human and you're neither an alien nor a loser.
But I also suspect that this wouldn't change the way you feel at all. And you're right - this is not a safe place here. But it is a place where you can write a post like you did and if that helps even a little, I am glad you did.
So all I can think of saying is to take your signature quote and remember that what makes a person human is not how great he is to adapt to life or how well he manages to live, but knowing that being human is to feel and reflect and what makes him a good man are the little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love. As long as you know you are able to love, you are human. And there's no pressure to be what you think you should be. I see you as wonderfully smart and great at giving advice.
I am sending you hugs and love,

Amelia

[WikidPissah]

((((MAST)))))

It makes total sense to me. Honest.

[Favorite Jeans]

I find you pretty relatable Mast. I'm sorry that you're going through this feeling of isolation and feeling too broken. What is it exactly that seems like it needs to be fixed? It sounds like you feel like you should be different in some way. It is hard for me to imagine that there's nothing human inside you. A fear of being hurt, for example, is quintessentially human.

I can learn limited things from other people's mistakes. Like slow down when I reach an intersection where my friend told me she got a speeding ticket. But I don't think that I can listen to a friend talk about her struggle with depression and come away having figured out how to avoid depression.

What if for a week or something you didn't try to change and just imagine accepting what comes? What happens when you're hurt? Does it hurt profoundly forever?

When you say that this forum isn't safe, do you mean that you'll be misunderstood? Treated disrespectfully? Humiliated in some way? It sounds like that fear of unsafety (good new word huh?) is a big part of the problem. Is there a way to change your fear of hurt into an acceptance that it's inevitable, upsetting, but temporary and not devastating? Some degree of hurt is pretty much the price of admission for any relationship as I see it. What is the deeper, earlier hurt that subsequent hurts evoke?

[growlycat]

I used to wonder as a kid, after hearing the concept of reincarnation, if my real problem is that this is the first lifetime in which I am human. I'm not very good at it and other people seem to "get" how this is all supposed to work. That was my theory as a kid, anyways. I don't have a spiritual orientation at all so I don't have a great explanation today why this is so hard for me.

So I relate to what you are saying. I hope there is something we can do to help you feel safe here. Everyone deserves a place to feel belonging or understanding.

You are very thoughtful, well spoken and insightful, I've always seen you as being a supportive member of pc. Hurting but never broken.

I want you to feel you can say whatever you need to here.

I've been scared to return to this thread because I knew I'd get support and understanding. I really am broken. Thank you, all.

I'm very low at the moment. T for some reason found it necessary to tell me today that he is not somebody I can turn to when I feel lonely, that that is not the purpose of therapy - as if I didn't already know that. I will not be txting him again between sessions unless I should be actively suicidal, and that doesn't seem at all likely.

I just have to learn to be alone without being lonely. I have said many times that that's the point of therapy for me, I just need to really believe it, because right now I don't think it's possible.

that's so hard to hear when you just want to be heard and listened to and to know you are not alone

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Yeah. He wasn't dismissive or anything, he definitely does not think I should cut down on my therapy (I asked) but he reinforced the obvious boundary - of course he cannot provide me with genuine caring or affection, I have never expected that. But when I was hurting yesterday and reached out to him I needed a human being, not the T script.

I'm unreasonable, I know that. I just need to lose the need to feel connected and understood.

You are NOT unreasonable! Please don't beat yourself up for needing a human being at that moment and not a t
I hate boundaries, I think they hinder progress when you just need something so human, something we all need- contact!
You are important and so is this feeling you are experiencing.
Have you considered looking for a new t? One that will have deep empathy and allow contact, the contact you are yearning for right now

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[unaluna]

Originally Posted by Mastodon

I'm unreasonable, I know that. I just need to lose the need to feel connected and understood.

Isnt that what mkac says also? You both want the t to help you stop needing, yet you both also wish the t would fulfill that need? This seems very contrary of you both. To state the obvious, no t is going to help you stop needing. I know you are speaking somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

I think that if you can put a name to the feeling, like loneliness, then a t is not so interested in that feeling. A pre-oedipal feeling would not be able to be named; the infant doesnt yet have words. Your career in words seems to me to be like my career in computers - i was constantly bringing order to chaos.

When you wrote elsewhere here that your t learned from his past mistake that he should wish you well on your trip, it struck me funny. Could i find a parallel with me and my t? I dont think so. It seems his saying that gives you a certain sense of security, as did your h bringing you breakfast for your birthday. You equate that security with secure attachment, with functionality, with health? Yet you feel lonely. So here you say the problem must be with your feeling lonely, but i think the problem is that your assumption/equation is faulty.

[Fuzzybear]

Actually, I think that if I could genuinely lose the need I would be happier and more functional. I don't know whether it is possible to do so, though.

No T is perfect. I have a T who genuinely understands me, who sees me twice a week (and has said that he'd see me more often if he worked full time), who is completely professional, who has a lot of experience, who shows genuine professional interest in me, and who is a native English-speaker. I'm not going to get all those things in one T elsewhere (especially not a T who's paid by the county.) And he does allow between sessions contact, he has not said that I can't txt him.

All right, I have to get up at 4am tomorrow so I'd better go to bed. Thanks for putting up with me.

Mast, I do feel for you, and did not get the impression that you were trying to get your T to fill some need for you. I think I understand how frustrating it is to keep struggling with the same thing over and over.

In my own therapy, today, we were discussing again my feelings and frustrations in my relationship with my husband and MIL. How I want to stop wanting things I will never get so I stop getting my feelings hurt. T was trying to say that their actions do not mean that they are choosing to prioritize other things over my feelings, or over me. He tried to talk to me about how some other client's biological father lived in the same city with her, but never contacted her, and how she sees that as her father never choosing her. Yeah? Well, she sees it that way because it IS that way. WTF? How is that NOT the reality of the situation? T said seeing that way was just painful for her. Well, yeah. So? It is painful, but it is REALITY. How is helpful to her to not face that reality, and learn to deal with that reality and her feelings about it? How is it helpful for me to not face the reality of the limitations of my husband or MIL's feelings toward me, and learn to deal with that reality in a way that keeps me from feeling so much pain about it?

I do not go to therapy to develop some delusional ideas about how people do or do not feel about me. I go so that I am better able to deal with the REALITY of the situations I am in, and better deal with my feelings about that reality. I would have an easier time with my feelings about the reality of never getting certain things if I could just stop WANTING those things. Having the person I hire to help me do that just keep insisting that wanting those things is normal and reasonable is just NOT helpful.

I wish I had something more helpful to say.

Take care of yourself. Remember, we need to be able to attach before we can detach sweet dreams

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[unaluna]

Mkac, your story about your t's client and her father never contacting her reminds me of the time a gf and i were waiting for her older brother to travel miles after work to join us at a bar for a drink to celebrate her birthday. I was like, this is so nice of you, my brother would never do this! He was like, no big deal, i just live in x city. I go - oh - my brother lives in x city too! We were all like, oh well!

This thread sounds a little like bluebird's thread - if you loved me, then you would do x. This is such a hard question.

I didn't read that thread, Hankster, so I'm not sure about the similarities. I do think there are certain things we do for people we love, particularly after we have been told repeatedly how important that thing is to the person. I know I have made big changes in my behavior as a result of marriage counseling, and knowing how important certain things are to my H. I love him and I don't want to cause him pain, so I work hard at avoiding the things that cause him pain, and doing the things that help him feel loved.

[Aloneandafraid]

Oh Mast. I wish I could say something meaningful but I just want you to know that you are not alone in feeling this way. I relate so much to what you have written. It is such a deep and personal thing to go through with a T. I don't have any answers or advice but want you to know how much I understand what you write and how you are struggling with this. Please continue to write and share your feelings here. Wishing you a good trip.

[Leah123]

Wow, it doesn't sound like your T handled that too constructively. Transference much? I'm really sorry. I'd feel pretty hopeless to hear that from my T. I understand the value of you finding others to engage with, and I understand well the value of being comfortable alone. Still..... it pretty much sucks to be brushed off as you were, how can it not sting.

I'm really really sorry. You're not alone.

What T did was to make sure he's not encouraging dependency - it's the ethical thing for a T to do. I know that, intellectually. And therapy is about getting the emotions to agree with what the intellect knows, after all.

I do not go to therapy to develop some delusional ideas about how people do or do not feel about me. I go so that I am better able to deal with the REALITY of the situations I am in, and better deal with my feelings about that reality. I would have an easier time with my feelings about the reality of never getting certain things if I could just stop WANTING those things. Having the person I hire to help me do that just keep insisting that wanting those things is normal and reasonable is just NOT helpful.

Yes, this. I agree so much (as you know.)

**Trigger warning for mention of death**

In other news, on the train from the airport yesterday I saw on Facebook that a close relative of mine had passed away. Not really conducive to a good conference experience. At breakfast today people were asking if I was okay. This is not good, at all.

I'm not sure how I'll stay in one piece - it's fortunate that I'm not sharing a room with anybody, but unfortunate that there are people here who know me. I just have to put on professional face and try to get as much as I can out of the conference papers.

[Favorite Jeans]

Originally Posted by Mastodon

What T did was to make sure he's not encouraging dependency - it's the ethical thing for a T to do. I know that, intellectually. And therapy is about getting the emotions to agree with what the intellect knows, after all.

Yes, this. I agree so much (as you know.)

**Trigger warning for mention of death**

In other news, on the train from the airport yesterday I saw on Facebook that a close relative of mine had passed away. Not really conducive to a good conference experience. At breakfast today people were asking if I was okay. This is not good, at all.

I'm not sure how I'll stay in one piece - it's fortunate that I'm not sharing a room with anybody, but unfortunate that there are people here who know me. I just have to put on professional face and try to get as much as I can out of the conference papers.

Would it be terrible to say "I'm feeling really sad because I just found out about the death of a relative" or something to that effect?

You might feel less alone if you let people in a little. It sounds like they care. Why do you want to be so inscrutable that no one around you notices that you're upset?