Boundaries and Longing

At my last appointment, my T and I spent time talking about boundaries and how it's not my responsibility to maintain them. I'm supposed to be allowed to ask for or want anything, and it's her job to help me examine why and what those longings mean. It doesn't mean they will all be fulfilled (which is obvious), but all can be talked about. And I don't know whether I want to. I don't want to talk about some of that stuff. It makes me feel selfish and ungrateful and bad, for some reason. I don't want to discuss what I know I can't have, because it's easier to just push it away and pretend it's not so important. Someone remind me why I have to deal with some of this again? How in the world does it relate to trauma, depression, or anxiety? I don't know whether it's worth it to deal with this stuff. It's one thing to talk about the past, or to talk about the present. But I don't ever talk about the things I want, because it feels selfish and bad to want things I can't get on my own.

Any words of advice?

It's something I struggle with too Hazelgirl, so I'm not sure I have any advice. When I started on my therapy journey I had a lot of shame about having needs. Even saying the the word "needs" made me balk. I was 32 years old and I didn't even know that apparently we all have needs and it's ok to ask others to fulfill them sometimes.
The more I've talked about that, about what it means to have needs the easier it has gotten to accept that it's ok that I have needs.

I still struggle with it, because needing people isn't comfortable for me and it seems to have moved on from not wanting to "need" to knowing it's ok to have needs but still scared to ask people to fill that need. The rejection side of it is still huge for me. I suppose it's all just a continuum and learning process.

I guess just keep talking about it, get comfortable with them or at least acknowledge you have them, take baby steps, eventually it all filters through.

My cbt T and I just discussed needs too. He wants me to ask for what I need and yet he reserves the right to set limits and boundaries. I told him that I worry that if he refuses a request that I will feel suicidal.

But he still wants me to get in the habit of asking for what I need. I'm trying, not easy!

I don't even know how to find or acknowledge them. When I do identify one, it invariably feels so shameful that I don't dare mention it. It's so difficult.

I don't think I would feel suicidal. My problem is that I would then go "well, I didn't really need that anyway. I was stupid for asking." And then shut down.

I haven't got a clue how that relates to trauma recovery. I can see how being able to set your own boundaries can help deal with the fallout from trauma. Honestly, the only time boundaries have ever come up in therapy is when they relate to my being able (or unable) to set them. I wish people in therapy weren't being so pathologized by therapists' boundaries.

Well as most people on here know, I have much difficulty in understanding boundaries, so I understand what you are going through.

I guess I'm not being very clear. My T is trying to encourage me to drop my boundaries a little and not try so hard to protect her from me. I refuse to talk to her about things that I think might possibly step on her boundaries and she is encouraging me to trust her to maintain her own boundaries and allow myself to bring whatever I want to into therapy.

For example, I almost didn't tell her about how I am jealous of some foster youth she works with whom she threw a Halloween party for. I didn't want her to feel bad or to feel like I was asking for too much, or hinting at the idea that I'm not grateful for what she has done for me. And since I know it's not allowed for me to do something like that with her, I didn't want to bring it up. She is encouraging me to talk about that sort of thing, when I am worried it might step on her boundaries or when I think or know it's "not allowed".

Can you try to ask her for something little that you're not that invested in getting. Like ask her for a pen or if she could bring you in a stone or if she could right your name on a bit of paper. Just start practice asking her for things. Agree with her before hand so she knows why when you ask her every week for something. Might that be "do-able"?

That absolutely terrifies me. First, I'd have to ask if that's okay. Then I'd have to ask her for something every week, something I don't really need and that might annoy her.

It wouldn't annoy her if you talked about it with her first. That it was actually an intervention of sorts. She might actually think it's a very good idea to get you acclimatised to asking for things. Because how are you ever going to learn to ask for big things or for something important to you if you can't even ask for a pebble? It would be good for you to learn experientially about how it feels to get your needs met.

It is terrifying but therapy is terrifying. It would probably be a worthwhile exercise.

Gosh I remember rhow I used to freak out after sending my therapist an email, because to me this was being needy and asking for something and was wrong. I panicked so much early on that he said he thought maybe we ought to schedule me sending emails to ask for things regularly!!!!! I said NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!.

But I have become much more used to asking for what I need from him, thankfully, and only now realise that this alone is a HUGE step for me. Even last week I asked for an addictional session without too much angsting over it.....and mostly accepted his response as not being about me as a bad needy client.

Like Asia says, I bet she would really appreciate you talking about it and wanting to begin to work on it. Remember, (I think it may have been you who said it to me even?) just 20 seconds of bone chilling courage is all it takes that first time.

But then I have to admit that I need to practice that, rather than pretending that things are fine, haha.

But seriously, it makes me want to throw up. I have asked for very small things, phrased in a hypothetical way, before. But I don't ever just straight-out ask for things. I always clarify, and try to explain why I'm asking, and try really hard to show that I'm not trying to be a pain in the butt, but that I really need someone's help. I don't want to be seen as lazy or manipulative or nagging or needy, which are all things I was given the message I was if I asked for anything as a child. And it causes me so much anxiety to ask for anything.

What's really funny, is that I used to freak out so much over sending my T a text. But I have gotten used to that and it's not hard for me at all. I've never called her, though, even when I was struggling very badly and definitely would have benefitted from talking to her. I hate the idea of interrupting her life with my neediness. All that to say, I relate.

And no, I'm not the one who came up with that phrase. I heard it here, and I think it's brilliant, but it's not my creation.

You know, IMO, usually these issues are rooted in some kind of conscious misunderstanding we are protecting, I mean inside, about our own feelings. We say they're one thing, and they REALLY feel like one thing, to avoid making them about another. I wonder, are you really worried about protecting T, or maybe on a deeper level, are you a little worried about protecting yourself from asking for something and not getting it, but as a child, you didn't know how to make it about your own needs, because it wasn't your job to meet them? It was terrifying to ask for something that might cause a bad reaction then! It was an issue of your survival, and I'm sure that is how it feels now.

It can be very painful. To essentially be a child who needs something before your T, who is unable to ask because T is supposed to know, at least, who your heart believes T really is, is and was supposed to know, but didn't.

But, that's the thing, you're protecting T from something you believe she doesn't want, when she has said she wants it. Maybe she could find a way to ask that little child about it, who is so afraid to lose her by just having some needs, some real human feelings. Maybe you could ask, too. Why did that child need to keep behaving that way all this time? What needs is she still trying to get met from T, real needs that were very serious? It's about your needs, and your own protection, never really about T's, don't you think? It's not that you are saying anything unreasonable... And you're only doing that for your survival, because you had to at some point. Maybe you could explore that and write a little about it, and show that to T. Just a little bit, just a small step. What do you think?

Eventually, you might start to find that what you *know* logically, can begin to affect what you really feel. It really can be more like that. I hope you find your way.

I hear your fear. T r trained to deal with everything in a professional manner. My Ts would have loved to have someone like you. I asked my Ts for lots of things every session many times a session. My advice would be just do it. The only bad thing you will have to hear is "no" and all the crappy reasons why his/her answer is no.

You know I was reading about this... About it being one of the paradoxes of therapy that therapists encourage you to use them to meet needs and when you do they turn around and interpret it as childish. I'm probably not using the right words, but for instance they encourage transference for you to see them as nurturing your needs and then want you to reach out and maybe ask for a hug and then tell you your wanting that hug was somehow based on some childhood need. Very frustrating, almost manipulative. I think my therapist has done this too, subtly encourage me to text him and show my neediness and then sometimes decide just not to reply to force me to interpret how pathetic my feelings are.

I guess my whole thing with this needing thing is that I'm always painfully aware of how little the other person can really meet my needs. I feel like my needs are so huge that I'm always left with the pain of knowing that what they give will never be enough. My T can never really be the close companion that I need her to be. She will never be a part of my life in the way that I wish she could, and she can never hold me and cuddle me the way I want her too. It is so painful to know that these things won't happen, that I often just end up trying to push the need away. For me I think this why I do sexualizing, obsessing: they are my way of not feeling the need.

I really started to feel it last night, and it was so painful, and the longing was so intense, I just don't know how anyone could ever be ok with living with such a huge gaping hole. I wish that T's could do more sometimes. It just doesn't seem fair that I sit across from her every session, and tell her the most intimate and embarrassing details of my life, and she can't even hold me. It's just so alienating for me, and I wish that I could make her do it all different. But I can't so it just hurts, and hurts, and hurts.

YEs, yes you would

You are the only other person besides myself that I have heard say that they try to protect their Ts from them. When I try to talk about this with my T she says things like "you won't break me" "you do not bother me" "you do not need to protect me". It makes me feel good when she says those things but it doesn't make me stop feeling like I need to protect her from me. I'm sorry I don't have any advise. Just wanted to let you know you're not alone

Probably. And my T probably knows all this. She has said similar things. I think I'm trying to protect myself from me, too. I know that the little child inside is terrified of me, and of my judgment. I know she would like to come out, but she knows me well enough to know I will smash her reflexively, like I do every time. It's not a choice I make. It just happens because her feelings are so scary and embarrassing to me.

And I don't think I'm afraid of being told no. That's not a big deal to me.

I actually think it's beneficial, if a T does it right, for them to do this. Although it absolutely feels like hell for a client.

I think I'm in part afraid of it becoming like this, because right now I don't feel such overwhelming pain. But I am afraid it can become like that, and it scares me.

I don't know how to stop, either. My T knows I try to protect her from me, and she has said similar things. But it doesn't fix the problem. *Sigh*

I getcha. I think the only way that can change in the moment for you is probably to work through it with T in that moment and think it through. I am sure it must be overwhelming when it's happening though. That's why it might be helpful, with T, to just gently and mindfully examine the past before you even worry about changing how you act in the present, examine with her what maybe even seemingly ordinary experiences could, for a child, have contributed to some of these beliefs that are making it really hard.

The nice thing is, if you change your feelings about the past, the present will follow naturally! You'll just find yourself feeling and knowing that the present is different. What the present IS useful for, is as a guide to what's wrong, what you need to explore still.

Being heard, helps process the emotions that have become stuck causing, depression, anxieties etc.
Having the conversation in our heads isn't the same as having it with T. There is relief to be had with T's input.

I think feeling the shame tells us there's a need, and the need reflects an injury. By verbalizing any part of this, it opens it to healing. Therapy isn't necessarily about whether or not the need is fulfilled; it may feel so because the injury often comes from childhood , and we often respond with a child's emotions. I think that's why it's so easy to perceive boundaries as rules, and as an example of withholding. But really, it's about revealing the need to ourselves, coming to understand it, and the healing comes from those feelings being accepted by a T without judgment which begins to heal the injury. Over and over again. Whether or not the needs are fulfilled is separate. Some needs, once the feelings surrounding them are accepted, don't require further response. Others, after the acceptance and understanding, can sometimes be fulfilled because at that point, fulfillment isn't substituting for our emotional work. At that point, we're able to accept the fulfillment fully without dependence. We're ready to respond without the childhood distortions.

It's important because the boundaries and longing and pulling close-pushing away takes place in many forms in other relationships out in the real world. It becomes the pattern of our lives and we keep on ending up feeling alone and isolated, abandoned and betrayed. We don't recognize that we're often the ones doing the rejecting when people don't read our minds, give us what they have no power to give us, take care of themselves first, get annoyed or act plain clueless.

It's often not safe to talk about it with people who don't know us well or who have their own agenda about what they want from us or are clueless. We keep getting in these push-pull situations were we long to feel close to someone and then end up pushing them away and then feeling awful and hurt about it.

Therapy is the safe place to learn to understand that, to see the patterns in our lives and begin the process of changing it. It's not about your relationship with just your T. It's about your life. I think. Pretty sure. It's about recognizing our patterns and learning how to change the patterns that keeping causing us pain.

I'm sorry, but I think that weather or not the need get's fulfilled is important. It's very nice and idealistic to talk about the need and all the pain that it causes, but at the end of the day people really deserve to have their needs met, not just acknowledged. We live in an emotionally bankrupt culture, and we frequently do a poor job of helping get the needs met that have been pushed aside over, and over again. If the therapist cannot meet the need themselves they should help the client as best that they can to find ways to meet the need in another way (perhaps with a friend or partner). And we are all responsible for helping each other cope with and meet these needs.

I also don't see why fulfilling a need necessarily has to interfere with emotional work--that is the emotional work. And this whole thing about discouraging dependence is just really messed up. People--mammals--are dependent on each other in a profound way. That is how the biology works. I quite possibly need my therapist, and am dependent upon her more than any one else in my life. Assuming that the current cultural status quo on this whole topic is fine is highly problematic. It should not be that we just go to therapy to discuss our needs and resolve them, there needs to be a large cultural change so that people can really support and love each other, and so that people don't have to live with these horrible unmet--seemingly unresolvable--needs their whole life. It doesn't have to be this way.