What does my T think of me??

I would never presume that I could know what someone REALLY thinks of me.

I don't care nearly as much as I used to. It's not something I can really control.

I can see why it might be something you care about in therapy though.

Hmmm. That is a good question, and it's a little difficult to answer. In a way I do want to know. (Some days more than others. Some days I just want to be a hermit and live in a cave and be known to nobody.) But my default belief has always been that people basically dislike me, and I'm just as happy if I don't know that... so it hasn't been something I have been thinking about that much, it's just been a fundamental knowledge of how the world works. I haven't really wanted to know that urgently, because I've been certain that I did know. Which hasn't stopped me from trying to please people as best I can, mind you.

But now I have been seeing my T for almost three years, and I've seen him twice a week for two and a half years, and I know that he likes me (I asked a couple of years ago, and he said "Yes" without a moment's hesitation), and more than that, he respects me. I know that it is his job to do that, to some extent, but I also don't think that those are feelings that can be forced. All this despite the fact that he knows more about me than anybody has ever done. I also have a very close friend whom I occasionally talk to about very personal things, and he also knows a great deal about me; not nearly as much as T does, but on the other hand he sees me in my natural habitat, grazing among other mastodons, so he knows a different side of me, perhaps. And he also likes me a great deal, despite that, and he respects me as well, both personally and professionally. I haven't asked him that, I don't think I could do that, but he has volunteered the information. I have known him a little longer than I've seen my T (in fact he is the one who prodded me into starting therapy, way back when).

It hasn't come to me as a profound sudden insight, rather it has been very slow, and very gradual, but it has finally penetrated my thick skull that if these two highly intelligent and insightful people like me, in spite of my every instinct telling me that they should dislike me, then my instincts clearly cannot be trusted. It is of course possible that they are just faking it, but the evidence suggests that they are not. And this has, also very gradually, become something that I "know" emotionally as well as logically.

I'm sorry, this is a wall of text and it is very much about my personal journey - I'm afraid it's probably not very generalisable. But at least it might perhaps show that deeply rooted convictions can change.

I have asked my therapist that very question.

She answered but not in the blunt direct way that I wanted, I was ready to be hurt if she didn't think well of me, but she didn't really get into her true feelings but more of her observations of me.

(((Mast))) your wall of text was very helpful. I constantly wonder "is that person laughing at me?" or "that person is giving me a dirty look" and "this one is pointing at me and whispering to their friends" and I'm just as positive of that as if they had a blinking sign over their head.

I've been telling myself the Earth doesn't revolve around me, those people have other more interesting things to talk about than me, etc. etc. but at the end of the day, my poor little abused psyche just knows that the whole world is laughing and pointing at me.

So I'm trying to learn, a. they are NOT laughing or pointing at me, and b. it is NONE of my business if they are. They are strangers to me, whose opinions of me should not matter to me in the slightest.

But their (perceived) opinions just reinforce my own flawed thinking, that if even strangers don't like me, then my family/friends/coworkers can't possibly like me, even if they say they do.

Thanks for your help!!

Laxer, sorry to hijack your thread!

I have never asked but my T but she tells me all the time what she thinks. And thankfully everything she says to me is nothing but positive. She has been the first person in my life to tell me good things about myself so it means so much to me when she says them. Don't be afraid to ask...I think it's your right to know!!

I have to challenge this. Why would one NOT care?? A T is a pretty big part of someone's life and wanting to know what they think of you is extremely normal.

My marriage counselor mentioned in our session this week (in response to something I was afraid to tell him) that he has a pretty set impression of who my husband and I are at this point, and not much would change that. I'm incredibly curious as to what his impression of me is, but also kinda terrified of it (particularly since I have some erotic/romantic as well as paternal transference for him--which he knows about). I'm also very curious as to how his impression of me compares with my T's impression of me. Like whether I express myself differently to them (especially because with MC, with the exception of a couple sessions to deal with transference, all my communication with him is in front of my husband).

But I'm too scared to ask them. Maybe I'd ask T. Maybe. Though she's said a few times that she thinks I'm a good person, so maybe that's all she'd say. (Way too afraid to ask MC.)

If others care, it is fine with me.