the silence

why is intimacy so hard why is it hard to just be sharing the moment with someone ? why can i sit in a room silent with a stranger but not with t? is she being to intimate with me? i need her to back off. why is she focusing so intently on me? watching my every move? what does she want?

Hello Mouse. Your therapist just wants to be able to help you to the highest level of her experience. She is watching and observing you to see how she can help you in your therapy sessions. I hope things get better for you soon Mouse. take care Soidhonia

i know exactly what you mean mouse. its really really excruciating emotionally for me. so powerful it becomes a physical discomfort. and its just because she s looking at me or asking me questions or listening to me or thinking about me and it totally freaks me out. i spend half the sessions recently trying to avoid panic attacks and totally crumbling and i dont even know if thats the right thing to do or if that means im sabotaging therapy and annoying her.
the only thing i can say to you is what she says to me. try to stop focusing on her and what she might be thinking or feeling and focus on what im thinking or feeling. she says shes just sharing the moment with me and not thinking anything so i am trying my hardest to trust that. its not really happening though.
this week im going to try to focus on my own stuff and write some more out so i have something concrete i want to work on in the next session and i can try to focus on untangling that puzzle instead of on her. i dont know if its going to work though since we re dealing with stuff thats bringing up so many emotions and i cant really handle having emotions in the same room as someone else.
not sure if all that made sense. just wanted to let you know i really really get it and it struck me to hear you say exactly what im feeling.
let me know if you figure out anything on this.
take care
biiv

ah...

i've been reading about attachment...

i'll post something later today / tonight (though maybe tomorrow for you guys in the northern hemisphere)

less than 24 hours till i see my t :-)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAk!!!!!!!!

biiv yes it is a physical discomfort, like my body is going to bleed out and i will evaporate and why let her near anyway she isn't going to be with me for life just another person that wants to get inside you only to then leave you

I was going to do a big long quote (fair use) from the book "affect regulation and the origin of the self". But... It is half past 12 and I need to get up at 5am to go see my t...

:-)
:-(
:-)
:-(
etc. etc.

I'll post it tomorrow, I promise.

who am I? who do I want T to think I am? does letting her share me in a shared moment threaten who I think I am? will she like me if she really knows me? but how she experiences me is for her to feel and totally out of my power? Is it time to put down the wall and risk allowing another to have their own experience of me? am I afraid to experience myself? yes I think so! I feel my own space up with words. The anxiety level is to high for me to just "be". The fear that evil in me will consume me. The evil eye. Is it the fact that I am being made to experience myself when the silence hits? Is it not fear of how T experiences me but more that I can't bear to be in my own skin? The time is coming to end for words. The time is coming for silence.

((mouse)).. and ((biiv))

It is so hard to be looked at when we wish to be 'not seen'.

It isn't the outside of us that we don't want seen. It is the inside, the part we think there is something wrong with and that we have protected for so long. We are afraid to let it out to be seen, looked at, examined, judged.

She isn't meaning to scrutinize you, she is looking with wonder and care and joyful anticipation of whatever parts of you that you wish to share. She is ready whenever you are and she can handle anything you want to let out.

ECHOES

okay... this is going to be hard... i can't quote the whole damned book ;-)

'Kohut asserts that defence-resistences perform specific self-preserving functions, and that strong resistences are mainly motivated by shame. In this process the therapist needs to be sensitive to the hidden expressions of the defences against and the experience of this nonverbal affect. These become especially prominent at points of 'intersubjective disjunctions'. Are there any preconditions in the therapy that increase the probability of such disjunctions? As a result of the empathic process of the initial phase of treatment, the patient develops a positive anticipation of a continuing self-sustaining relationship with the therapist, and on the basis of this expectation of mirroring he or she engages in an open self-display of his or her affective inner world. The therapist's failure to do as expected is experienced as a non-confirmation that triggers shame. In a previous chapter I suggested a developmental model that serves as a prototype of all shame experiences. The individual, in a high energy state of excitement and elation, exhibits itself to a menaingful object. Despite an expectation of an attuned mutual amplification of positive effect, the self suddenly experiences a misattunement, triggering a shock-induced psychobiological state transition and a deflation of narcissistic affect. The object-inducing energy depletion causes an impairment of self-cohesion and it phenemenologically experienced as a discontinuity.

Thus, the immediate, proximal internal event of any shame experience is activated internal fantasy of a symbiotic attunement, of a motivation to move psychologically closer to the therapist who has become an emotionally significant object, but the external reality does not match that need and so the patient rapidly and reflexively withdraws from view of the therapist. Clinically this means attending to the patients 'non verbal expressions of the self' such as turning the face away, gaze aversion, covering the face with the hands, or blushing... Postural changes are seen in slumping or seeming to shrink, as if hiding. It is also important to recognise the *language* of shame; rarely is the specific word used, and when it is it usually denotes a critical moment in the psychotherapy session. More commonly the patient will speak of feeling foolish, ridiculous, pathetic, insignificant, worthless, etc and will talk about feeling exposed or wishing to make himself invisible...

The patient who constantly defends against experiencing and exhibiting conscious shame in the presence of an emotionally meaningful other must at some points experience it in the transferential relationship with the therapist. As mentioned, these moments are critical events in the ongoing interpersonal process of psychotherapy as they are associated with breaks in the positive transference. In the same way as the bond between the infant-mother dyad was tested... The therapeutic relationship is 'stress-tested' at exposed moments of the painful emergence of shame into consciousness thereby vulnerably revealing the affect regulatory deficit...

Patients can tolerate increasing amounts of conscious shame (narcissistic pain) under the aegis of the therapist who can serve as an external regulator of this painful affect. The therapist, in the same way as the attuned practicing mother, mediates affect regulatory selfobject functions for the patient, especially in disjunctive state transitions. This is specifically accomplished by the therapists repeated demonstrated ability to consciously, and especially unconsciously, affectively resonate ith the patient allowing him or herself to stay emotionally connected with and available to the patient during the oscillating seperation and reunion periods of the dynamic transference that occur over the course of the theraputic relationship. In order to do this the therapist must be able to tolerate the painful affect in him or herself. This requires that the clinician must recognise and deal authentically with the intersubjective shaming that occurs in the therapeutic session. The 'recognition and acceptance of the patients shame lies at the heart of empathetic listening in the analytic process'. This process is extremely important during periods of stress which propel the patient into dysregulated affect - intense, spiralling shame states which are beyond the range of active coping and therefore beyond his capacity to resolve by himself. At this point of failure of narcissistic defences against shame, narcissistic pain breaks through into consciousness. Much to his shame, the patients intense attachment need is, at the same moment, reflected to himself and exposed to the significant other. Consequently, he feels the intense anxiety of needing another, of being forced into reunion, and experiences this need as a narcissistic injury.

http://www.amazon.com/Affect-Regulat.../dp/0805834591

interpretation to follow...

but right now i need to zzzzzzzzz

.. too late to edit my post, but I wanted it to say that the therapist is not there to judge.... it is our fear of being judged that I was refering to here.

ECHOES

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
ECHOES said:
.. too late to edit my post, ....

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Sorry, off topic, but ECHOES, why do you say it is too late to edit your post? I have the ability to edit posts I made days ago. I think everybody here does? (i.e. I'm not special.) There is no time limit on ability to edit, is there? You just click the edit button and edit away.

mouse, I hope you can continue to go to therapy and share with your therapist, letting her "see" you little by little. I've been through times when I censored myself in therapy for fear it would affect T's opinion of me in a negative way. Slowly, I've gotten better about that. His reassurance that he sees the real me and his opinion will not be swayed by anything I say is really helpful. It took us a while to get to that point where he really knows me, but it was worth it. Good luck. (((hugs)))

Hello Sunrise,

Yes, there is a limit on how long you have to edit your posts. If you can still edit yours after an hour, I need to know.

I wish you well,

January

*Now back to your regulary scheduled thread.*

What does it mean? I'm not sure...

I used to get this horrible pain sometimes. Would feel like I was breaking up. Fragmentation. Freud thought it was all about the 'guilty man' (the oedipal conflict) Kohut thought that with narcissistic (and borderline conditions) that are meant to be more 'developmentally primitive (in the sense that they occur earlier) it was all about the 'tragic man' (the security needs going unmet). Fear of fragmentation. Being left with this horrible horrible horrible horrible intense emotion that one is unable to regulate (gradually turn into positive affect).

When I was in hospital I used to say sometimes that I hurt. The conversation would go like this 'where do you hurt'? And I'd look puzzled. It wasn't really a located kind of hurt. Though if pushed I'd locate it in my stomach. They told me after a while that it wasn't pain, it was an emotion. I didn't believe them. Emotions don't feel like that. I didn't see how it was an emotion.
Shame
shame
shame
I guess the passage is saying that the pain is a narcissistic defence against shame. Against having to feel shame.
Shame is thought to be a response to a significant other viewing you with contempt or disgust.
Shame makes one so self conscious and one can feel like one is breaking up.
If you let someone be emotionally close to you...
You give them the power to shame you.
To hurt you.
To result in breaking up...

i guess I try and avoid feeling attached (I start to panic when people feel too close) cause they will only hurt / shame me.

But... Maybe that is what the problem is... Thats what always happened before. T might not be that way... Might not... Isn't supposed to be.

(((((((mouse)))))))

i havent been able to post at all recently cos i just cant talk/think but this thread is really really hitting me hard. its like its saying exactly what i need to get my head around and i just cant understand it.
alex the way you describe shame is exactly how i feel. never would have called it shame though.
and mouse everything you say is articulating the confusing thoughts in my head far clearer than i can manage.
how do we make the decision to trust T enough? how do we get past this? anyone?
i feel like if i dont do this the next time i see her i will have to stop and i cant stop or i dont want to think about what will happen.
how much is it going to hurt? am i going to show her the shame, totally shame myself in front of her and then she doesnt make it any better? or she leaves? or she pushes me so far by speaking the harsh truth to me that i lose it? i can see the truth myself so clearly and it only leads to one final solution where i cant go so i hold on to the hope she can give me another reality, another truth. if she cant what happens? i dont think i can take it. and i dont see how she can give me another reality when i know this reality is real. this horrible one that means i have no life.
oh god. sorry. shutting up now.
mouse and alex please keep talking if you can because it means something very important to me. not that that matters but if it helps you too i would like to keep listening please.
(((((((((mouse))))))))))) ((((((((((alex))))))))))))
thank you both and i really really hope it all gets easier and clearer for you both.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
biiv said:
how do we make the decision to trust T enough? how do we get past this? anyone?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
biiv, here are a few ideas that have helped me.

1) Therapist self-disclosure. I found it really helped me if he told me stuff about himself. It made me feel like I wasn't there alone in the room, like I wasn't abandoned. He was there with me and our interaction was mutualistic. It was like I could not share if he didn't too. Of course, it is mostly me sharing, but he'll throw in stuff from time to time if he thinks it will help and because he knows I need it. I realize my desire for T self-disclosure is a peculiarity of mine and not for everyone. But for me it was the number one thing that helped me share, so I wanted to throw it out there for consideration.

2) Sharing little things with him to kind of "test" him to see how he responded and if he was supportive, helpful, caring, kind, trustworthy with these smaller things. Seeing that his "good" opinion of me did not worsen if I shared the "bad" stuff. Having him tell me that directly to reassure me. Then I worked up to sharing bigger things, like shame.

3) He's also open to working with my dreams, and I can often share stuff in dreams that reflect real life, whereas it is harder to just blurt out the real life stuff. So we get to the topic I need to share, via dreams, if that makes sense.

Anyway, those are 3 things that have helped me share in therapy.

sunny

It took me a very long time to trust my t, and I still "test" it all the time. Hmmmm, how did we build it? It was so many sessions of me, sitting across from her, curled up cross-legged on my chair crying and crying. I kept saying I was sorry and I couldn't articulate or say the words out loud. She liked me and I was happy with that and I didn't ever want to say anything that would change how she felt about me. Why her care and her opinion of me mattered, I don't know, but it really does....

Anyway, she kept softly encouraging me and saying we didn't have to talk about anything I didn't want to. She promised and reassured that nothing I could say to her would alter her opinion of me. If it got silent or too intense for too long, she made some funny remark or talked to me about something random like my favorite TV show.

Eventually what got me trusting her was:

1. Her disclosure. She disclosed private and personal struggles she had overcome or dealt with.
2. She addressed my fears about her thoughts/opinions of me.
3. She constantly reassures me.
4. She stayed past appt times (once or twice) when she felt we were close to something and said she knew it was a particularly difficult session for me.
5. She thanks me and tells me I'm courageous after I share something personal.
6. One time, she shed light tears after my story and it touched me so deeply that I knew she was genuine.

I hope you can tell your t that you are embarassed to say things because you fear the feeling toward you will change. I think addressing that feeling inside you might help you draw some of the courage to say the difficult and scary stuff.

It's awfully embarassing to reveal the things that cause you to feel shame, you are strong and you will face it when you are ready.

gently gently gently does it
i think it isn't so much about changing reality
as it is about making sense of the reality
making sense of it in a way that it is easier to cope with
making sense of it in a way that one is able to respond differently, in a more manageable way to it.
but gently gently gently does it

i really like the idea of little tests / disclosures
i think it is important to build up this sense of attunement
and part of that is experiencing that a lot so that one feels secure and safe in t's presence
and part of that is being able to rely on that sense of attunement to regulate intense negative affect
that way when you start to disclose little things that are hard and t responds with attunement which regulates your feeling ashamed into your feeling empathetically understood
you have that little bit more faith and confidence in their ability and willingness to emotionally hold you rather than their judging you or shaming you or being unable to contain your emotion
and gradually over time you can share harder things...
i think that is how it is supposed to go
but gently does it yeah.

it can be really scary to trust someone when you have been hurt by attachment figures in the past
it can be really scary to find yourself becoming attached when you have been hurt by attachment figures in the past
i guess that is why people talk about going slow and building trust
and the first stage of the process (and a stage that is often returned to)
is a stage of building trust and building that sense of security
so that that becomes internalised as a backdrop and little empathetic failures such as when the therapist responds in a not optimally empathetic way or little empathetic failures such as when the therapist takes time off are better able to be contained by you.

i guess it will happen at its own pace...
but it can be one hell of a scary ride,
that is true.

thank you all. slow i guess is good. just have to try to stay long enough and not get scared away cos ive been seeing her for 8 months and still find it so hard to access real feelings with her. bad bad bad.
keeping quiet now.

i've been seeing t for close to 5 months...
and i'm only just starting to talk a little about feelings...
it is really really hard.
he keeps saying 'and you felt sad?'
or
'and you felt ashamed?'
(well, that one just popped up today after what i said last time no doubt lol)
and stuff like that...
and i try and look a little stern...
and ignore it and move on ;-)
but the point is that feelings are hard, yeah.

i don't know if other people do this...
but i think i tend to somatosise them.
i feel a 'force' inside me like a 'pressure'
but %#@&#! if i know whether that is a feeling or not...
and i feel 'pain'
and i could mime how they are reacting...
but not lable it
(and no i'm not about to mime it either...)
but it is hard, yeah.

bad bad bad...
sounds like shame to me
(((((hugs))))))
(sometimes shame can be a secondary response. one might feel angry and then feel ashamed because one thinks it is bad to feel anger)

etc.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
alexandra_k said:
What does it mean? I'm not sure...

I used to get this horrible pain sometimes. Would feel like I was breaking up. Fragmentation. Freud thought it was all about the 'guilty man' (the oedipal conflict) Kohut thought that with narcissistic (and borderline conditions) that are meant to be more 'developmentally primitive (in the sense that they occur earlier) it was all about the 'tragic man' (the security needs going unmet). Fear of fragmentation. Being left with this horrible horrible horrible horrible intense emotion that one is unable to regulate (gradually turn into positive affect).

When I was in hospital I used to say sometimes that I hurt. The conversation would go like this 'where do you hurt'? And I'd look puzzled. It wasn't really a located kind of hurt. Though if pushed I'd locate it in my stomach. They told me after a while that it wasn't pain, it was an emotion. I didn't believe them. Emotions don't feel like that. I didn't see how it was an emotion.
Shame
shame
shame
I guess the passage is saying that the pain is a narcissistic defence against shame. Against having to feel shame.
Shame is thought to be a response to a significant other viewing you with contempt or disgust.
Shame makes one so self conscious and one can feel like one is breaking up.
If you let someone be emotionally close to you...
You give them the power to shame you.
To hurt you.
To result in breaking up...

i guess I try and avoid feeling attached (I start to panic when people feel too close) cause they will only hurt / shame me.

But... Maybe that is what the problem is... Thats what always happened before. T might not be that way... Might not... Isn't supposed to be.

(((((((mouse)))))))

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Oh boy isn't this the truth..yes, yes and yes!!! I need to sit and think about this.

Geez, this is so resonating with me I can't get it out of my mind. Or should I say my body? I understand now that ciruclar all encomposing discomfort feeling. That feeling that I thought was ME. Shame is me, I am shame, its like a wheel that just goes round and round with no ending, I always end up just where I started? shame. But is it that its more spiral and the round and round isn't ending up exactly where it starts but is getting nearer and nearer to the epicentre???

I stuff my shame with food. I know when I get that circular discomfort I run to the cupboard and soothe myself with food. Knowing that I carry this shame now makes it so much easier to put it down and know it is not me! I am not shame! I am real and as worthy as everyone else.

AK, I could kiss you lol

I use to get all tangled up in the silences and when I could finally talk, years later, we discussed the silences and I wished I could have known what was going on sooner :-) I didn't realize yet that it was "my" therapy 100% and so my T was only listening for me; when I talked, when I was silent, waiting for whatever I wanted to do with the "space" whereever I would lead. We sort of laughed later because T's aren't sure about silences either she said, they don't know if they talk too much or too little or when is a good time to talk. . . they're only supposed to take clues from us (and often I wasn't giving out very many). I use to wish desperately for her to say something, but realized that was my "job" so use to struggle alone and when we talked later we both wished I'd been able to express that since I wasn't alone and maybe she could have figured out how to help, etc. It's a complicated thing, is therapy.

I dont agree that its just "my" therapy. T always includes herself. She always says "we" can work on this. The therapy is the relationship between us both. I feel anyways.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
mouse_ said:
I dont agree that its just "my" therapy. T always includes herself. She always says "we" can work on this. The therapy is the relationship between us both. I feel anyways.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">I feel the same way, mouse. T and I are a team, working together.

I do feel, though, that it is my responsibility to choose the path or direction. When I first started to see this T, he told me that I know best what it is I need to heal, and so that is why I must be the one who chooses the direction for each session. Somehow that just seemed so true. Like, how could he know what I needed to deal with that day? He is after all not a mind reader. So over the last few months he's let me take a really circuitous path to where I needed to go. He's been really good natured about it and trusted me to know what I needed. Sometimes I wasn't clear myself on why we dealt with certain topics on certain days, but I just trusted myself to know what was best and let something inside myself tell me what we needed to deal with that day. It was almost not conscious, but a willingness on my part to listen to something within that was telling me what I needed. Rambling...