[Soccer mom]

My T. has been telling me each session how guarded I am and that I need to tell her my feelings more. I'm going to attempt today but am so nervous. I wrote out what I want to say at the beginning of the week so the emotions are more raw than now. I've realized I suppress my emotions days before I come to therapy so then I am in the room thinking "it's not THAT bad". I leave and feel horrible again. Plus I've realized I never wanted my mom to have ANY effect on me so I never showed her my emotions or let her in - just like I'm doing with my T. Damn transference. It's only taken me 3 months to realize this. I have so many emotions and feel like I can't really explain them since I grew up not being able to express them.

Need some positive thoughts!

[Petra5ed]

Good luck! Push through it even if it's terrifying to do so. Say as much as you can. Just keep telling yourself, your therapist is probably bored out of her mind unless you say something real. Don't be boring, take a plunge and shock her! LOL.

Soccer Mom I can really identify with what you are saying, I also grew up not expressing emotions, and would never show my mom any emotions. I talk to my therapist about things that I am emotional about, that make me want to cry at home, but when I speak to her I never (well, only once) cry. Since I have been seeing my therapist I have started to experience emotions as sensations in my body - when we had a summer break I felt it in my body tissue. I couldn't put a name on the emotion I was feeling.

I hope your session goes well, i think we have to talk about the difficult things if we are going to get the most out of therapy.

[Raging Quiet]

How did it go?

[Soccer mom]

It's in 20 minutes.

[guilloche]

Good luck Soccer Mom... I guess you're probably there by now! I'm sending you some good thoughts... *woosh*!

[Soccer mom]

It went SOOO well! NOW, I think she knows everything. She commented that I had come a long way in all my realizations. And, I do think that in between sessions is affected by whether I feel insecure or secure in our relationship. She said that she needed to push me to talk (the silent session, etc) to keep our connection. There are maybe just a few things I haven't told her but I do think I can tell her anything now. She never really responded to my needs but I didn't expect her to and it didn't bother me. I told her I'm not doing 2 weekends in between sessions anymore. She made a comment that I only have to wait till Monday so I think maybe she understands how intense all of my emotions were. As usual, I wish I had told her a long time ago. I asked her if she was ever going to tell me realizations she's had. She said probably not. She said now that I have the concepts down (my realizations about attachment, transference, validation, etc) I need to head over to the emotional side and let my grief out about my mom. She said it makes sense I did so much reading because I'm the type that wants to understand the process.

[musinglizzy]

Sure, Soccer Mom.... you had a great session, and mine was kind of opposite. MY T told me today that I'm just not open enough yet. That maybe we need to take a different route. I don't know what that route is, but she says her worry is that I will quit. I told her that I have enough respect for her to talk to her about it before I quit, if I ever did. She doesn't think what we're doing is helping....so she wants to switch gears. I told her my fear has always been to go see one of "you people" and have them tell me "I can't help you." She assured me she's not going to say that. I believe it's frustrating for both of us right now that I just can't come up with answers to her questions. And I can't think as highly of myself as she wants me to. I didn't shut down this time like I did last.... but I still felt angry. Maybe even bitter. And I think she saw all of that in me today.

[mapro25]

good luck