[Yearning0723]

I think I want to tell T about this dream I used to have starting when I was about nine. When I was little, I had six dolls who were pretty much my best friends, five who were American Girl dolls and one of whom was a cheaper version I bought at Wal-Mart with my own money when I was nine. And I always felt super guilty inside because I knew I loved my American Girl dolls more than this other doll. I liked the other doll a lot at first and I acted like the dolls were all sisters and Ashley was just adopted, but eventually Ashley’s hair got tangled and matted (which never happened with the American Girl dolls) and I realized she couldn’t do a lot of things the other dolls did; she couldn’t sit properly, I couldn’t make her stand on her feet, she couldn’t fit properly into all the clothes I had for my dolls, she wasn’t as soft when I hugged her, I couldn’t balance her on my hip like I did with the other dolls, she wasn’t as flexible, etc.

And even though I tried very hard to treat all my dolls equally and each of them got a turn to sleep in my bed and to wear the nicest outfits and to have a spa day and to come places with me, I always dreaded when it was Ashley’s turn because I knew in my heart that I liked the other dolls more. And I hated myself for this, because my dolls were like my children and my sisters and my best friends all rolled into one. Whenever I would have these thoughts, I would go and give Ashley a big hug because I never wanted her to “know” I didn’t love her as much as her “sisters.”

Starting when I was nine I had this dream that something happened to the house, like it burned down or something, and all my dolls were inside, and someone brought me out one of my dolls and said she had managed to save just one of them, and it was Ashley. And in this dream I always had to act so grateful that Ashley hadn’t “died” in the fire, but in my heart I was always disappointed that it was Ashley who was saved instead of Lily, who looked just like me, or Sara, who was the first doll I ever bought, or Samantha, who was the historical doll from my favorite American Girl book, or Nellie, who was Samantha’s best friend, or Stephanie, who looked exactly like Stephanie March (who I was madly in love with as a teenager).

I had this dream over and over again until I was about fifteen or sixteen, and every time I would wake up and feel so ashamed of myself and I would go give Ashley lots of hugs and kisses and bring her into my bed because I never wanted her to feel unloved. And I think this is why I hated myself a lot when I was little – I never tricked myself about my feelings; I always knew that some of the feelings I had just weren’t “okay,” and I was really sensitive to this situation because I always felt like my parents felt differently about me and my brother, and I hated it, and I thought I was doing the exact same thing to my babies. This dream always REALLY upset me. Perhaps this is a start to sharing real emotions with T?

[HazelGirl]

I think this is a great thing to share with your T.

Also, make sure to mention the hotline thing, too. Because I know that's been bothering you a lot lately, and I think your T can help you with it.

Yearning, stories and dreams can bring insight, and that's good; they can also be ways to distance from emotion and intellectualize, rather than feel. Not always, but it can happen. You'll have to judge whether or not this brings up feelings in you or is a way to bring up feelings in your therapist so that you can view them from a distance.

Like HG, I hope you can bring up the hotline issue. Maybe it's just me, but I felt a lot more emotion coming from you about that. It's immediate and something that's concerning you right now.

Have a good session today. Make the most of it.

[Anne2.0]

Originally Posted by Yearning0723

And I think this is why I hated myself a lot when I was little – I never tricked myself about my feelings; I always knew that some of the feelings I had just weren’t “okay,” and I was really sensitive to this situation because I always felt like my parents felt differently about me and my brother, and I hated it, and I thought I was doing the exact same thing to my babies. This dream always REALLY upset me. Perhaps this is a start to sharing real emotions with T?

Where do you stand on the idea that feelings and thoughts-- as distinguished from actions-- come in all forms and all types, "good", and "bad", and everything in between, and one does not need to attach great significance to them. Look at any great hero, and you'll find a person who admits to thinking and feeling horrible things, and most times, doing them as well. That it's just natural, and human, to have goodness and badness coexist in all forms.

My version of this has come to a head lately in working with my 13 year old, who on the cusp of adolescence had a very contentious relationship with his Dad, who then died suddenly. I just try to emphasize with him the feelings and thoughts just are, they come in and out of your consciousness, and if you accept that this is just what thoughts and feelings do, then it's easier to let them do their thing and then they'll be gone. That whatever he feels and thinks is just fine, but also that acting on those thoughts and feelings may not be the right thing to do. You can feel really really angry, for example, and it is not required to act out on that. And what I discover for myself, as well as observe in him, because this is one of the side effects of parenting that is so healing-- that when you let go of the significance of negative thoughts/feelings-- they don't have to mean I'm a bad mother, for example, because I want to get away from my kid sometimes-- it becomes much more tolerable, almost as if acknowledging the feeling pops the bubble of its power over me.

Expressing feelings is one step in this process, and it's critical. For me it has been useful to practice unwinding the "charge" of the feeling by understanding all the interpretations that attach to it, and seeing whether those really hold up to scrutiny.

I find Pema Chodron's books very illuminating on understanding this practice. This is from her Living Beautifully book:

"You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts. Embracing the totality of your experience is one definition of having loving-kindness for yourself. Loving-kindness for yourself does not mean making sure you’re feeling good all the time—trying to set up your life so that you’re comfortable every moment. Rather, it means setting up your life so that you have time for meditation and self-reflection, for kindhearted, compassionate self-honesty. In this way you become more attuned to seeing when you’re biting the hook, when you’re getting caught in the undertow of emotions, when you’re grasping and when you’re letting go. This is the way you become a true friend to yourself just as you are, with both your laziness and your bravery. There is no step more important than this."

[Yearning0723]

Originally Posted by HazelGirl

I think this is a great thing to share with your T.

Also, make sure to mention the hotline thing, too. Because I know that's been bothering you a lot lately, and I think your T can help you with it.

I will definitely share the hotline thing with her...I just also want to find something I can tell her that will bring out little kid emotions, because little kid emotions are the key to working through some of this stuff, I think, because I don't acknowledge them and then they end up coming out in the form of made up stories on hotline chats...and that was a BIG emotional thing for me when I was little. Maybe there's something better that will connect with loneliness more than guilt/self-hatred though...loneliness is probably the biggest part of this.