forgetting

I either am euphoric after a session with T or I am falling apart. This week falling apart wins. My eyes are raw and my head aches. All my energy gets sucked into trying to deal with the falling apart and I forget most of what we talked about. I know it was a good session and there was an association that she made that I liked and was like a lightbulb moment. But I can't even remember it.

She asked about the men. She asked in the sweetest welcoming warmest way. And I told her. And I wish I hadn't. It's too hard having it out there.


..................
"I wish I had a river I could skate away on... I wish I had a river so long.... I would teach my feet to fly.."
...Joni Mitchell/Sarah McLachlan

Echoes, yes its so hard and confusing at times!!

Take care!

Echoes, methinks you wish you could forget :-) Doesn't sound like, if you wish you hadn't "And I told her," that you have forgotten what the conversation was about at all.

Good job responding to and telling your T. Sorry it is so scary for you. I hope it feels more "liberating" as you find your T doesn't use it "against" you but only to help you deal with it. I was warmly surprised once when I told something I'd been hiding from my T for over 20 years at my T's response. It changed the rest of therapy and my life and how I thought of myself from then on.

(((((((( ECHOES ))))))))


Hang in there, you're making progress. And it hurts.....

PS I was wondering if on some level you link your falling apart emotionally to what I would have felt as a physical falling apart, and my body "failing" to protect me, as in major abdominal surgery. Sorry if I'm way off track. The "falling apart" emotionally is part of your minds healing itself, and like someone else said, part of its protecting you too

I have to take my own notes after each session, because I always dissociate afterwards, and I would never remember anything if I don't write it. Sometimes I think I need to get out my paper and pencil and write it down while I'm still there so that I can get it right, but I haven't gotten brave enough to try that yet. I shut down towards the end of a lot of sessions, and everything goes blank.

I'm sorry you had a hard session. Sometimes the hardest ones are the most productive though.

Echoes...

I am pleased that you have been able to share this with your T. It is not an easy journey..... You are doing the work, the painful work, the necessary work. I can relate you your not remembering what exactly was said. This is common in therapy I think... well it is for me at least. I can not even recount all that has happened in the latest month. Therapy involves sharing and resharing often repeatedly the same information so that you recount it in a number of ways so that both you and the therapist understand it a bit differently and work it through. It takes time to understand and to work through all of the emotions connected.

Sorry if that is too much schtuff for right now.

Bottom line... you are growing, you are increasing your trust in your therapist, there is much pain that you are finally finally releasing. Nurture yourself today.



I know that you worry about falling apart... I hope that with that you will not deny yourself the acceptance of the need to mourn or feel what you need to feel. This is a valid experience, what happened and what it brings out. That is part of the healing...is to take it in and look at it and as you can, feel it. You will find your time and way to do this bit by bit. The remembrance is part of protecting yourself.

((((ECHOES))))

It's so hard to share and you haven't known this T for long. I think you are moving along really quickly if you can share something so major so soon. It speaks to the strong degree of trust you have already developed for your T.

I also tend to forget what happened in my sessions. Like Rapunzel, I try to write them down. But sometimes I don't get around to it. I just got back from out of town and didn't write down my last session before I left. Now I've kind of forgotten a lot of it. I'm just left with general feelings. Like I feel it didn't go well or am down or vaguely upset or something like that. Or the converse, I'm so happy I'm flying or I'm euphoric. I actually tend to remember the euphoric kind better. It's so important for me to write stuff down so I don't lose it.

(( SecretGarden ))

Thank you for all your kind words and encouragement. No it isn't too much schtuff

I'm so glad to hear that my forgetting isn't a major defect that could thwart the therapy process.

I did nurture myself. Didn't think I would be able to at all today. But I cleaned the apt, made fruit salad, played Scrabble, and cuddled with Max.

As you suggested, I allowed the falling apart to just happen (are you reading Pema Chodron, too?! ) and it was there that I realised that it was the revealing and wanting to take it back, wanting to forget that was panicking me.



ECHOES

mouse,

yes it is so hard and confusing sometimes.

thanks for being here

ECHOES

(((( Perna ))))

You are so wise. You are right on all counts!

Thank you very much for making me think more.



ECHOES

((( Fuzzy )))

Yeah, I get the connection. My mind failed me by revealing and now I want a do-over!



ECHOES

((( Rapunzel and Sunrise )))

Thank you so much for saying you don't always remember--I thought it was a major flaw that was going to get in the way of therapy, ruin it!

Rapunzel, I was thinking Friday about taking notes while there but felt it would be too intrusive for me. I will continue to write when I get home when I can.

Sunrise, yeah I do have trust in the T. Enough anyways to go as far as we did. This transference stuff... well... the way she asked, stated really "You haven't told me about the men in your life" in the way she did... was just so open and warm and welcoming that I couldn't have resisted if I'd wanted to, it seems. Really this was pretty superficial stuff but I've only ever told one person any of it. There will be more to tell and talk about and I suppose I am doing what I do... running down the road to see what's 'there' when I can't possibly know until I get there. That just feeds my anxiety. I know this but.... sigh...

Thank you for sharing about being left with general feelings and that it's ok.

to you both.
ECHOES

I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I forget what T said.... Sometimes when he is talking, I'll be concentrating so hard on not forgetting, that I miss what he is saying. I ask him to repeat; I forget after the session. Sometimes things come to me during the week when I least expect it. When I saw him on Friday, he spoke a lot. A lot more than usual. He even commented on how much he spoke (I just remembered that now, lol).... I wish I could have a script of every single thing he said because I only remember bits and pieces.

my memory is pretty bad. i had one therapist who used to let me tape the sessions. i'd listen to them during the week and was often amazed at how different the session was from what i remembered! sometimes i thought her comments had a bit of a tone on them but they didn't seem to have that tone on the tape. sometimes segments of the conversation (about hard stuff) would have been conveniently 'forgotten'. i saw some of my repeated patterns of interaction. i wish i could still do that...

Hi Echoes,

This is the yin and the yang of therapy isn't it? All or nothing at all. It's such a disappointment to me when I can't remember what went on, but then I think well, maybe we aren't supposed to remember that detail on a conscious level, but rather let us work on it subconsciously. Our psyche has a marvelous way of protecting us from things that are too painful or difficult at the moment.

(((((((((Echoes))))))))))

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alexandra_k said:
my memory is pretty bad. i had one therapist who used to let me tape the sessions. i'd listen to them during the week and was often amazed at how different the session was from what i remembered! sometimes i thought her comments had a bit of a tone on them but they didn't seem to have that tone on the tape. sometimes segments of the conversation (about hard stuff) would have been conveniently 'forgotten'. i saw some of my repeated patterns of interaction. i wish i could still do that...

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Wow, I could never tape my sessions. The only way I would tape my sessions would be if I could filter myself out, and only listen to what my T said. That's how much I can't deal with myself. I wouldn't want to listen to the sound of my own voice. I would get too consumed with things like: "Oh, %#@&#!! How could I have said that to him? I'm such a %#@&#! idiot."

I can't wait until I get home to write things down. I sit in my car and write notes as soon as I come out. More stuff comes to me while I'm driving sometimes, and I have to pull over and write notes again. I've tried specifically to remember something because it wasn't a convenient time to stop and write it, and 10-15 minutes later, it's gone.

The nice thing about email is I could go back and read what she wrote to me later. And the tone does seem different the I come back to it later. I'd love to have tapes of what she says to me during sessions too, but just like pinksoil said, I hate listening to my own voice, so that would be pretty hard.

I agree! Having a tape of what my T said in our sessions would be great, but it definately would have to have my voice muted out. I can't even stand it when she repeats back to me something I said.

I try to take notes right out of my session too. What I would love is if not only could I have what she said, but to somehow know what she thought the 2 or 3 most important moments of the session were. I'm really curious if it would be the same as mine or completely different and something I forgot or wasn't aware of yet.

Wow.. that recording thing... that is something. Not sure how I would feel about that but ... I probably would catch myself in some of my perceptions.. Might be a good thing.

I used to journal ALOT... have not lately but recall that I would write them down which offered another way for me to take it in and then.. I do not think I read it much afterwards. When I was journaling I was so busy with what was currently going on that looking at the past in the journal was like full time work.... But yes.. it is work we are doing.

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Lemon said:What I would love is if not only could I have what she said, but to somehow know what she thought the 2 or 3 most important moments of the session were. I'm really curious if it would be the same as mine or completely different and something I forgot or wasn't aware of yet.

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Lemon, I read a really interesting study on just this topic in the psychology literature. Therapists were asked to listen to tapes (or maybe it was watch videos) of their sessions and pick out the most important/key moment. I think other therapists were also asked to listen to the tapes and do the same (listening to another therapist from themselves). Then the clients were asked to pick out the most important moment of the session to them. The therapists and clients rarely picked the same moments! It didn't matter if it was the therapist who had been providing the therapy or the third party therapists. They did not match to the clients' perceived most significant moments. The therapists tended to pick moments when they made "important" interpretations. The clients tended to pick "smaller" moments that nevertheless held great significance to them, such as "when he looked at me and smiled and I suddenly knew that there was hope for me after all." Or "when she used the word 'risk' near the beginning of the session to describe something and later in the session I realized that I was ready to take a big risk in my life and that I could do it." Therapists tended to pick out moments when they made insightful interpretations or even transference interpretations and made big connections for the client that they thought the client had not made on their own.

I would love to have a tape of my sessions. I hate to hear my voice on tape so I too would prefer to have just the T parts. Or even a transcript would be good.

I read some other papers in the psychology literature that had actual transcripts of psychotherapy sessions and every line spoken was identified as being in one of a number of categories (e.g. transference interpretation, frame discussion, etc.). What I most learned from these transcripts is that people can talk about really boring stuff in therapy! I'm sure other people would feel the same way if they read transcripts of my sessions.

{{{{{{{ECHOES}}}}}}}}}}

Take gentle care,

i hated hearing the sound of my voice to start with too. the first time i listened to a tape i just about died of embarrassment. the second run through was fairly cringe-worthy too. i used to see her weekly and i've leave with the tape. i'd listen to it about 4 times during the week... by the third or fourth run through i was able to think a bit more objectively about it, however.

i'd see where she misunderstood me (so i could clarify next time)
i'd see where she asked me something and i couldn't face it and i couldn't understand what she meant (so i would be able to come to understand what she was asking and answer next time).

i would tape over it the next time. didn't want to have a whole library to ruminate over... but i found it beneficial, yeah. and... i found her voice really soothing so i'd play the tape if i felt distressed. i could relive... that emotional connection.

You know I was just chatting with one of my 14 yr old daughters yesterday morning, we were talking about how much of where we use to live can she remember? She was 3 1/2 when we moved to our house now. She remembered a few things, the original curtains in her bedroom, moving some toys in before we actually moved "in" and then she started talking about other memorys but she said she thinks they are what she's seen on the video recordings that we took over the yrs.

She seemed upset that the recordings have been damaged and some parts are now gone. I thought about it and said "you know I dont think it matters to much that the recordings are not all there, I think our memorys hold the memorys for us that we need to have, and maybe having video evidence of our growing up isn't always as needed as we think?"

I wondered if actually we ruin what memory ability we do have by having our past right there, right in front of us, remembered for us? Maybe it takes away the natural ability to remember?

I think I'm rambling here, but I then put this thinking to our T's and wondered if we panic to much??? if we dont have enought faith in the natural remembering ablity? anyways just got me thinking, helped me put my forgetting T into perspective, took the panic out of it. My mind will remember and feed me the info I need???

I definitely think I panic too much about remembering/forgetting... because I am very aware of it. So sometimes during therapy while he is talking, I'm saying to myself, "Ok. Pay close attention. You need to be able to remember this." Then I miss what he said.

I am beginning to think that I'm unconsciously forgetting what he says because if I remember when I go home, then I might be soothed. God forbid! Another thing to add to the attachment. Right now I'm disconnected when I leave. I am unable to take therapy outside of therapy.... maybe I am unconsciously forgetting so that I can keep myself safe... from being safe. Damn.. This is stuff is getting crazy.

I was in therapy because I had the "opposite" problem; my T use to say I carried my memories around with me on my back like a tortoise his shell/house :-) I've always been a stickler/good with remembering/memories and use to get extremely upset if I'd forget things. I think I had to keep everything the "same" when my mother died/"went away" for when she came back?

I think literal words still take on different meanings for different people. I think that's why therapists and clients or different therapists would pick different parts of a session as important. I'd wonder, "important" how? The "job" of client and therapist are very different too, so I'd think it was natural they'd pick different parts as more or less meaningful.

I agree with Mouse about having to exercise one's memory in order for it to work the best. I wouldn't want a tape of sessions both because it might influence what I wanted to "focus" on, what stood out, (like with a dream, you have to go with what you remember) and it would seem too much like a looking at the "past." After each session I always started getting ready for the "next" session; it was an ongoing process and I think listening to a previous session could possibly get me too hung up on somethings at the expense of moving forward.