My T is Wrong

I felt the same, had to look twice at the user name. My first thought was "what triggered this?" My second thought was "I'm too far away to hug her." I'm sorry you're hurting HG!

I think I can relate.

Does it feel similar to: being alone in a room full of people and then someone telling you you're not alone?

I feel that way a lot. I put myself out there, I put forth effort, and when I turn to someone I thought was there, they're a mile away. And then I think "what's the point?"

It’s difficult. It's difficult to be there and it's difficult to remember it doesn't last forever. We have to remember who we are: our strengths and value. But the stregnths and our value do NOT disappear. It's just clouded by emotions and thoughts.

You are valuable. Not perfect; but no one is. Your feelings are valid, but they do not define who you are.

“...Emotions themselves are neither good nor bad. They are simply our psychological responses to the events of life” Gary Chapman

((((HazelGirl))))
Sometimes we're so desperately in need of comfort that we just can't believe it's true when someone offers it. I know I do this. I push away all offers of comfort because I think I'm being mocked for being pathetic or something. So I end up with no real friends in my life, only leeches, because I'm good at making others feel good, but lousy at letting others make me feel good.

I wish I could come to your birthday btw. I'd show up with a bunch of balloons and an obnoxious musical card and a small present (I saw a lovely friendship bracelet the other day...) packed in the biggest box I could find. I'd encourage the playing of silly party games and dancing on the furniture and probably drink too much and embarrass the life out of you. It'd be a helluva party

I am always my own worst enemy. I told my T one day that I wasn't so much afraid of her response to the things I said, but my own. I don't know what to do with that or how to change it.

My T is wrong, when she says that other people care. Everyone else is lying when they say they care because their actions tell a different story. My T doesn't know these people and doesn't interact with them. She doesn't know the first thing about their opinions or actions.

I hate comments like this. Not because you're not trying to be nice. I recognize that you are, and your comment was meant in a compassionate way. But they make me feel like I am not allowed to have problems of my own. I'm not allowed to be hurting because I'm the "strong" one. And that's the role I played in my family, the one who can handle everything, who doesn't complain, who doesn't hurt or react to things. It makes me feel bad when I get that same message from others, like they don't want me to talk about my problems because they want me to be the calm and put together one that they can rely on. I know that's my own past at play, but I did feel like I had to mention it.

Yeah, a little like being in crowd but feeling alone. But it's more like realizing that you're only there and you were only invited because people felt like they had to. Or realizing that the party isn't really happening in this room, it's happening next door, but no one wanted to tell you that because they didn't want you to come. So they pretended it was in this room to keep you away from the real party.

That actually made me laugh a little, which is quite an accomplishment right now. Thank you.

I certainly meant no offense. You may have a long history of posts such as these, but in my relatively short time on this forum, this is the first one I've seen. FWIW you don't "have" to be the strong one for me, feel free to be yourself, I don't like people to show me fake emotions either. My sentiment was true. I'm sorry you're hurting. I wish I could hug you. I hope you find what you need. Goodnight.

I totally recognize that's not your intent. I know you didn't mean it like that. And I do appreciate the kindness you were trying to convey. But there were two comments in a row that said that exact thing, and that's how it ends up hitting me when I say anything about my own pain. It's what I am afraid of when I post here because I feel like people will dislike the fact that I am hurting, too. So I try not to say anything and try to keep it together. Until a day like today comes along and I just can't.

Let's say your T says, "I don't find you a very likeable person" or "I could see how others might have a problem with you."

Where do you go from there? Are the things that you think others find unlikeable about you, are they things you can change (or want to change) or are you saying you're doomed and want the therapist to agree?

p.s. I'm actually asking you these (on the slight chance you think they are rhetorical questions).

I don't know why people don't like me. I wish someone would tell me. But no one wants to. So I have no idea why, and I would want to know why my T thinks that and what I could do to change it.

Oh, I can so relate to this! And let me tell you, it's a real problem. Strangely enough, people don't feel comfortable with 'the strong one'. I've noticed that sharing my own stuff a little has made interacting with people a lot easier. Everyone has their own problems and if you're not sharing yours you're not part of the group.

She probably is coming from a place of trying to build you up, but you can't build someone up with lies. I have the same disconnect from the people in my life. I think it's partly my disability. The therapist says it comes from childhood emotional neglect and I often can't identify what I feel if anything. Interactions are very tentative seems like and I haven't made myself a part of their lives so they go about their routines and never think of me. Like you say though, I don't know the people in your life so can't say for sure

Perhaps your T is in a difficult position. T validates you by focusing on the positive aspects of you, and seeing the best in you. I think that's what most T's do. Because they are aware how many of us have been kicked down and mocked and invalidated for our "shortcomings" (imagined or real). This actually came up for me cause I remember smirking at my T long ago when she said, We've known each other for a while now and I'm sure you can succeed in whatever when you put your mind to it.

I told her you are saying it because it's your job, which she disagreed with. It was not easy but I finally got her to admit my weaknesses, that if I go back to college, I'm unlikely to succeed in certain areas and more likely to succeed in other areas. I showed her that she is validating me even more in being truthful with me. That I would not be mad at her (or fall apart) if she saw my shortcomings too.

But I doubt if you T will ever make a kind of a blanket statement that you are or were, say, "awful." Nor is your T necessarily going to agree with you in terms of what you see as being wrong with you or your reasons as to why you don't have the kind of relationships you want.

Before I forget, you said: "I was abused as a child because I was awful and unlikeable." Come on, HazelGirl, you don't believe that, do you?! That reasoning is insane! It takes at least two people and whole bunch of other factors for abuse to be possible and finally to take place. All kinds of people get abused. Tall and short, gifted and low IQ, old and young, aggressive and passive, beautiful and homely, innocent and "sinner", rich and poor, etc, etc.

You got abused "because" life sometimes sucks, no, because life sometimes is terribly cruel and unfair and crushes our heart and soul.

My post with the self-injury comment wasn't meant to convey any kind of negative message at all or deny you the right to post about your struggles. I know you have problems (or issues) but I wasn't aware of the self-injury. It surprised me because I did not imagine you doing that. My image of you had nothing to do with being strong and composed during periods of adversity. That is not strength. I just thought you had more effective and healthy ways of coping.

Sorry you are hurting.

I think she might be addressing your splitting in one way or another. People don't only split in context with others like we often hear about with BPD, etc.; often a person will see themselves as all good or all bad. It's a type of defense mechanism, so it's protecting you about something, some of which you've already explored.

It's common to feel distressed when defenses start to crumble. And those defenses are distorting, so yeah, your going to be uncomfortable with what she says. I do understand the fakeness too, but that might be linked to this, but separate.

(Just a coincidence I mentioned defenses also on another recent thread)

Hang in there, she's on your side.

Difficult to know what to say really but that is sorta the topic overall in a way and the way the thread is reading. I'll try something completely off the wall and see.

Once my therapist just said to me, "I don't really like you right now."

Just like that. No warning, no prep, no soft pedaling, just straight out with it, and no real explanations after either. And certainly no apology. He meant it. I was being a total pain and he had reached his limit.

We never discussed it but it sure stood out. See, he could only say that if he felt that first we had a solid relationship that would not break over something like that. And if he had belief that I would not break over it either. It didn't actually bother me that he said he didn't like me; I actually don't really care all that much about being liked, much for the same reasons as you, or parallel in a way at least. It simply hasn't been part of my life that being liked was something that happened all that much. There are different reasons, and they are not the same as yours, but I think maybe the general experience has something in common with anyone who feels alienated, has been rejected or outcast or lied to or whatever has happened with people so that they are just not reliable.

So my therapist, knowing this history of mine, still said, "you know what, I don't really like you." What would you do with that? is that what you would prefer to hear? or is it more about her evaluation of others whom she just really doesn't know so can't really say much about unless you've provided lots of details.

I actually really learned from my therapist saying this to me. It stung because at the time horrible things were happening and everyone was being a ****, so for him to add to it felt awful. But he could only say that if he trusted me and the relationship. And that he was taking as real, not based on money, but real like any other relationship, where you fight and don't like what people say or do and finally get pissed off enough to say something.

He didn't baby me. He didn't pretend everything was okay. He didn't pretend at all. Therapists aren't governed by money. They actually don't make all that much given how much they have to do. It really isn't for the money. It may be for something else that doesn't feel real, but there are therapists who are in it for the real stuff. Be careful because you may get what you wish for. But then for me, I actually ended up appreciating this and now feel fondly about it. It did take balls to do though. Or just plain being fed up.

Hazelgirl, how do you KNOW your T is wrong?

I ask this because I could have written much of your post. I have always had to be the "strong one" in my family, too. I have a hard time believing others like me or want to be around me because of my own feelings of unworthiness.

I have found myself disappointed by friends. Through the years I have come to realize it's not that they don't care about me, or our friendship, but more like they have their own issues and sometimes, (selfishly), don't think about anyone outside of themselves and this includes others, not just me.

I have to remind myself just because they don't respond the way I had hoped, doesn't mean they aren't a friend.

I believe it's important and valuable to have a conversation with your T about your concerns and what you shared here.

Didn't read all the posts before responding.

The people you are referring to--were they your friends before you started therapy? Before you got major depression? Maybe there is something in that...

Hazel, this sucks. All of it. How you feel your 'friends' have treated you, and your therapist saying what she did(whether it was to be supportive or not), and how it has affected you right now.

I asked my therapist once if he only said nice things about me or to me because he was paid to? I told him I didn't believe him when he said no! I also told him I wanted him to be straight with me, and his response was, that he was honest with me and when he felt that it wouldn't hurt me significantly to do so he would point out when I said or did things that could be perceived by others as annoying or whatever.

I wasn't happy about that initially, but I now understand. Because if he took the direct route too soon, then our relationship potentially could have been ruined. It is still developing and in hindsight he was of course right. Maybe this is what your therapist is doing for/with you?

Also, I relate to much of what you say, and today I found out that I was excluded from an invitation to a group gathering by someone that I thought I got along ok with. It really stung! To be honest though, I sensed in the last week at uni there was a disconnect with this person, but I had no idea what I had done! You are not alone with these struggles. ANd I'll say again, it sucks.

Okay, I've waded through the whole thread (whole cup of tea!) and gone back to the start. Cos I read it that, when your t says that people do like you, and care about you, she probably means her. She's not assuming or implying that anyone else in your life does, she's just saying that she does. Might be way off, but that's how I have read it.
Re self injury...owwwwwww....hugs and germoline.....I do the sleepy bit after too. My friend now takes a sleeping tablet when she gets SI urges and sleeps it off, might be something to try?

I hear that you say no one likes you, and you don't know why. Whilst I'm sure that's not true, I'm not going to argue with you. I live thousands of miles from you and I've never met you. I guess if it was me, I might think about joining a brand new group, when I feel up to it. Maybe an art class or something? And say exactly what you've said here, I struggle to have friends, I feel I'm unlike able. I'd like to change that, but I can't til someone tells me what to do differently.

I'm also thinking of people I don't like, and why I don't like them, friends I've avoided...
Ummm, I avoid one friend because she talks about her self all the time, non stop. Witter witter. Ummm, another one is very melancholy, everything is miserable....and one is just really hot and cold, either on the phone wanting to have lunch like NOW, or don't hear for weeks.
Don't know if this is helpful. Probably not just trying to be constructive.
One of my old friends ignored me, and I asked her why, she said it was because I talked about people behind their backs. I did used to, and I consciously changed that behaviour. This was years ago, I don't do it now (so much), although that criticism was devastating at the time, I'm grateful for her honesty.
I guess I'm saying that, I understand the confusion of not being liked, and I know it's not always helpful to be told that you are liked, if you still feel something is going wrong. I'm sure you are very likeable, and loveable Hazelgirl, and I hope that you find someone special who can show you that.

Xxxxx

I haven't read all the posts because I got a bit lost but I think you and your T are actually talking about two separate things here.

1. Whether you, as a person, are worth caring about and should naturally expect to be cared about.
Your answer to this is shaped by your beliefs about yourself and how you imagine other people regard you. Your T's answer to this is shaped by her experience of you. If you think negative things about yourself, they are beliefs and not facts. Your T can see through them!

2. Whether the people in your life right now are actually doing a good-enough job of caring about you.
Your answer to this is shaped by your experience of these people. Your T's answer to this is shaped by her beliefs about these people and how she imagines they might behave on the basis of what she knows about them and about you.

Thing is, this isn't cause and effect. It isn't the case that 1 if you are good-enough and worth caring about then 2 you will experience good-enough caring from other people. It's so easy to mix up your opinion of yourself with how other people treat you and assume that if you're being treated badly it's because there's something wrong with you. But if your relationships aren't good-enough, it doesn't mean you aren't good-enough.

So your T can be wrong about the quality of your relationships, as she hasn't seen and experienced them first hand. But she isn't wrong about the fact that you should expect to be cared for and that this should be happening.

If I was you, I think I'd probably tell my T that I find it invalidating and upsetting because she seems to be confusing whether you SHOULD be cared for and whether you ARE. The fact you should be doesn't mean you are, which is where she's going wrong.

The fact you aren't doesn't mean you shouldn't be, which is where you're going wrong.

Hope that makes some kind of vague sense...

I think sitting with the feelings you have regarding others liking you or not would be more honest.
But, mature adults don't necessarily live in a B/W world where you're either liked 100% or disliked 100%. There's normally a mixture we feel about people.
My world view was like yours before therapy.

I attracted wounded people, because that was all I knew, if anyone stepped outside of my world view, ie, I met a healthier, mature adult, I didn't hang around them long because that challenged everything I understood.
Stepping outside our story, is very scary.
I can like someone sometimes, unyet dislike them too.
It's being able to bear that paradox where new life happens.

We are not bullied because we're horrible, we're bullied because it fits the role we have taken on. Abeit, unconsciously.

At the same time, I don't feel like they feel comfortable with me when I'm honest about my problems, either. Or at least, it makes them see me as "less than" them and as immature as a result. Like if I admit to my problems so openly, then I'm not mature or adult enough to handle them. But maybe that's just the people around me.

I'm slowly improving on the "I can't identify what I'm feeling" thing. It's a little better, but I feel like it has made everything more painful. I cry so much now, and when I can't cry even though I want to, I feel even worse. And I don't know how to fix the fact that people don't include me in their lives and ignore me when I try to include them in mine.

I was a difficult child. I have ADHD and was really bad as a kid. I was moody and stubborn and unhappy and alone. Yes, I believe my own attitudes contributed to it and that if I had been better, then it wouldn't have been as bad.

Sometimes I can use healthy coping mechanisms. I almost never cut. Maybe once or twice a year, and sometimes less. It's never been the most effective way for me to manage my emotions, so it's never really become a major problem.

But when she says things that she can't possibly know are true, it doesn't help. It just feels like she's making things up to make me happy, when my own perception is the exact opposite.

I wish mine would be honest like that. I think that if she did it well, that I could handle it. But she wouldn't ever say something like that. She would rather continue to pretend that she likes me.

Hi hazel,

I can relate to feeling that no one cares about me and it's been a longstanding pattern so....must be me, right? Something I'm doing wrong...maybe I'm just wrong. And now T doesn't get it even, the one person I thought understood me!

One time I told my T I felt like a "bad mother" and he said he doesn't imagine I'm a bad mom. While I appreciated the sentiment, I thought immediately, "how the hell would you know!?!" But I thought later, what if he had said, "yeah,you probably are pretty lousy at it. Look at all your huge issues!" Welllll....something tells me that wouldn't go over well either. The answer is probably for the T to respond to the underlying issue rather than the presenting problem.

Like when I went to my dad as a small child and sat next to him and began writing horrible things about myself (probably in the hopes that he would help me ) and he glanced over from what he was doing and angrily said that's NOT true! And the went right back to what he was doing. Nothing more. Well, my t said he was accurate that those things I was telling myself were not true, but he missed that they felt true to me. And then missed the opportunity to help me with them (and find out why! Hello?!) Yeah, he sure did......

I'm sorry, hazel. I wish I could help. I have no adult who shows me that they care about me and it isn't just how I feel. It's true in my actual real life experience but as little as this might help, just know I care about what you're dealing with....

When your T denies or does not recognize your feelings, and does not join you in them, you can experience therapy as a reenactment of the negative social events you describe: She excludes herself from connecting with you.

I don't understand how they can think of each other, but totally ignore me. The Facebook world makes it much easier to see that they are all off hanging out with each other, having a great time (and I'm talking many of my friends all together), while I didn't receive any invitation. That's purposely excluding me. And I don't know why.

I have had major depression my whole life. I only started therapy a few years ago, but dealt with depression for many years before that. They don't ignore me because of my mental illness, although it would be easier to understand if they did.

I've been seeing my T for over two and a half years. I know she can be more honest with me. I also don't think she's purposely lying, just being careful about what type of truth she shares, if that makes sense. If I directly asked her "why don't people like me? What is it about me that is so repulsive?" she may correct my word usage, and say there's nothing repulsive about me. But she would follow it up with "there's some things we all could work on". That's probably the closest thing to an answer I will get from her.

And it's one thing when one person doesn't invite you somewhere one time. That sucks, but you can survive. It's another thing entirely when no one invites you anywhere ever. And you spend your time staring at your "friend's" adventures on Facebook with each other while you sit at home.

The sleeping after SI is really weird. It's like I get all built up, then collapse into sleep. And it happens whether I SI or not, I will hit a point where I've just been so upset and emotionally worked up, that my mind hits a point where it just can't handle it anymore and I fall asleep. It's helpful because half the time I end up waking up in a totally different, and better, frame of mind. Yesterday, that didn't happen. But sometimes it does. But it is bizarre.

As for everything else, I really feel like I am horrible at talking to people or holding a conversation. I feel boring and dull and awkward, and I don't know what to say to people. My life is really boring and I am really shy. Out of the things you have listed, the only one that I could possibly relate to is the inconsistent one. I can be very inconsistent, thanks to things like depressive episodes and anxiety attacks. I don't want to do anything while those are happening.

This did make a lot of sense and was extremely helpful. Thank you.

I try to make friends in other places, but I always end up in the same situation. Everyone acts nice to me, but excludes me from everything.

Can you elaborate on your last comment about bullying? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.