[Virginia1991]

I had a not so good therapy session this week. My t said some things that really triggered me. I shut down immediately. It is hard for me to remember the exact words/context of the conversation. This is what I came away with though(real or perceived):
"you are not a little kid anymore" and "as long as you realize what you feel/want is "not real" and the kicker for me ......"you have to find and give that love and nurturance to yourself". (I don't want to give a lot of detail)

Whatever..... if I could do that I wouldn't be coming to therapy once a week, I wouldn't feel empty on the inside, I wouldn't obsess over any woman who shows me a tiny bit of nurturance. I never received love and nurturance growing up so how is it possible that I give it to myself? I don't want to give it to myself. I need to feel it from others before I can give it to myself.

And I know I am not a little kid and I know this particular person is not and cannot be my mom. You don't have to tell me that. I know this which is why this whole thing is so disturbing to me. I hate myself for feeling the way I do so I doubt I am the best person to give myself love right now.

Sorry, I am in a foul mood and wanted to vent. I can't believe I am putting myself through all this. I want to quit but I am so attached to my t that I can't. I am writing on this forum so I don't send my t a text/email laced with maternal transference issues. Any advice would be appreciated.

[sideblinded]

I know for myself that I get triggered sometimes by what others say to me. I know these triggers stem from my childhood and she may have triggered something in you very deeply. I would try and figure out the exact cause of why you feel this way. I usually am helped when I get a negative reaction or one where I want to pull away. I hope that you can figure this out before you stop seeing her. Best regards.

[MoxieDoxie]

It eerks me when others say you need to be proud of yourself, love yourself, self soothe yourself and not need it from other people to feel good and whole about yourself. It is true that if I could do it all myself than I would not be in therapy or coming around here. Instead of being accussative your therapist could break it down and explore the core reason you feel the way you do. That is what therapy is for.

[magicalprince]

Yeah T's saying that kind of stuff... um, barf. Why can't they see they are obviously invalidating you? I think they just don't know what it's like to have truly fallen through the cracks, and they don't want to have to accept that you can't fix everything in your own head, because it would make them feel less heroic. But it's really ironic, because when they do that, they actually take something from you, they bolster their self esteem and their perspective. They wouldn't survive alone either, but they are loved all day long. Humans are not meant to be alone, it is not something anyone can do alone, and any T who says that should seriously get a reality check.

[Myrto]

Originally Posted by Virginia1991

I had a not so good therapy session this week. My t said some things that really triggered me. I shut down immediately. It is hard for me to remember the exact words/context of the conversation. This is what I came away with though(real or perceived):
"you are not a little kid anymore" and "as long as you realize what you feel/want is "not real" and the kicker for me ......"you have to find and give that love and nurturance to yourself". (I don't want to give a lot of detail)

Whatever..... if I could do that I wouldn't be coming to therapy once a week, I wouldn't feel empty on the inside, I wouldn't obsess over any woman who shows me a tiny bit of nurturance. I never received love and nurturance growing up so how is it possible that I give it to myself? I don't want to give it to myself. I need to feel it from others before I can give it to myself.

And I know I am not a little kid and I know this particular person is not and cannot be my mom. You don't have to tell me that. I know this which is why this whole thing is so disturbing to me. I hate myself for feeling the way I do so I doubt I am the best person to give myself love right now.

Sorry, I am in a foul mood and wanted to vent. I can't believe I am putting myself through all this. I want to quit but I am so attached to my t that I can't. I am writing on this forum so I don't send my t a text/email laced with maternal transference issues. Any advice would be appreciated.

I'm so there with you. I don't have any advice unfortunately.
My therapist says the same stuff. It's like: I come with a problem and she wants me to find the solution right away.
If I had the solution, I wouldn't be here, would I?

I think the point is you have to find it within yourself but man, it's so hard.
And so infuriating too.

I also want to quit sometimes but like you, I love my therapist so much that I can't bear the thought.

Yes, I think we do tend to hear things like that with the voice of a 'bad mother'.
I remember T telling me "I'm not a child now so can't be abandoned any more'.
Thus was before the many yrs of work we were to do, and now I 'get it' and don't hear it in a negative tone.
There is hope, it really does get better.

[Asiablue]

I think when you're at the beginning of the grieving process for what you should have got from your mother, but didn't, hearing those things your T said is excrutiatingly painful.

For me, and maybe you feel this too, it felt like when she said that I had to love myself, be my own mother, learn to nurture myself etc, it felt abandoning. It felt like she was saying " go deal with yourself all on your own." It was the lonliest feeling in the world to be told I'd never get from others the one thing I crave. And I didn't have a clue how to do it for myself and like you didn't want to. I felt anger and rage about that.

One thing I think you're wrong about though is that you need to get that love from another mother figure, another person to feel whole, to fill that agonizing space the exists within you, the place your mother was meant to fill. The truth is, once that wound is made, no amount of love in the world will heal it. It is a huge gaping hole that consumes anything and anyone that tries to fill it. It is never saited. Healing the hole that was left HAS to come from you and only you because that huge overpowering sense of need is most likely old feelings from infancy or very early childhood and the sad fact is that those baby needs can't be mothered anymore by anyone else because you're not a baby anymore, you grew up.
The healing comes from therapy, lots of it most likely, learning about yourself, learning about attachment trauma helped me it might help you. Learning how to take care of yourself. Learning how to love yourself, how to be nice to yourself and a s-hit ton of crying and letting out the anger and unfairness of it all.

Eventually, that huge hole of longing does begin to heal and get a bit smaller, I promise you that! And eventually you do start learning to give yourself love and nurturing and it feel good to do that. And best of all, you stop NEEDING all this external love from other people, so that the love they do offer you IS enough, more than enough and that feels wonderful.

It's a really slow process and really hard one at that. Your therapist is right in what she says but she's maybe skipping a step, you're not ready to do those things yet and that's okay. I doubt she has any expectations that you will go home next week and start doing those things for yourself. Just that, she is explaining that it won't always feel this way to you and eventually you will WANT to do those things for yourself and that is what is going to help you heal and feel like you have "enough" of what you need. You will learn it all through your therapy. Eventually you will internalise all your therapists care and words of encourage and as she models kindness and unconditional positive regard, it will rub off on you and you will start doing it for yourself one day.

[Soccer mom]

I pretty much spent from last June - January crying over what I never got. My T. would stir something inside me like asking what my needs are. I told her I want her to say she cares about me. She wouldn't and would say I should feel it. It would just make me mad and I'd cry once I left. I cried more during this time period than my entire life. And, really deep painful cries that I had never experienced before. Slowly, I am feeling better. I'm still very attached to my T., have the maternal transference but I'm no longer worried she's going to leave me or that she doesn't like me. On a scale of 1-10, I went from a 15 last summer to maybe a 3 now.

So, it does get better but I think Asiablue is right that we have to grieve over what we're not going to get. My T. has never told me to give it to myself. Maybe she's thought I should grieve about it instead. About 4 months after I told her my needs, she did tell me she cared. She met some of them on her own terms/time and it actually meant more to me then than if she had said it when the little kid in me begged for it.

Keep talking to your T. You CAN get mad at her and express anger. I've done it all and my T. hasn't left. You'll have to talk about it over and over to process it.

[buggles]

i have strong feelings towards my therapist but we haven't talked about it at all. I am scared to trust her with my feelings because i feel like this is exactly what she will say.... so i feel why bother. I am really hurting. I want to tell her but i feel like i can't if that's how she will respond. I would rather she doesn't know.

I am very sorry. I would feel hurt and invalidated too. I am like you. I KNOW those things in my head, but knowing doesn't fix it. I don't know what does. I know it hurts so very much.

[Virginia1991]

Originally Posted by _Mouse

Yes, I think we do tend to hear things like that with the voice of a 'bad mother'.
I remember T telling me "I'm not a child now so can't be abandoned any more'.
Thus was before the many yrs of work we were to do, and now I 'get it' and don't hear it in a negative tone.
There is hope, it really does get better.

Thanks for all the replies. What I really need to do is tell her this (what I wrote). Mouse---your first line struck a cord. I do hear things like that with the voice of a bad mother.