[rainbow8]

I should have known. We just got home from visiting our kids and grandkids last night. I had a great time and didn't think about T too much, but I was exhausted. I wanted to talk about a few issues but didn't know which. I also had things hanging from my last session. I just couldn't settle down. My T never brings up anything from my emails to her, which always annoys me. She just wants to know how I feel NOW! So I kept going in circles, accomplishing nothing! I didn't feel connected to her. I didn't miss a session, so it's not that.

One issue is my hatred of how I look, and how I have trouble losing weight. I told her it's hard to talk about that with her because she doesn't have a problem. So I said I didn't want to talk about it, so she said "okay, so let's talk about something else." That comment annoyed me because I DID want to talk about it. In 5 years, I have not talked about that subject much at all.

The time was almost up so she held my hand for 5 minutes. When she asked how I felt, I said the usual things like safe, good, protected, I then said I felt like a child. She said "Then we have to grow that part up!"

What happened to accepting the child parts and letting them be? Instead, she sounded like my former T. She wants me to hold my husband's hand more since I said that felt good too.

I was frustrated when I left, and emailed her 4 "fat photos", and wrote some other stuff.

I haven't had a session like this in a long time. T didn't help me find a topic at all though I brought up a few.

Now I have to wait 2 weeks.

So, it's black and white for me again. I either have a close, connected feeling with my T or it feels like nothing at all. You can guess which state I'm in now.

My gut reaction is that it isn't your T you didn't seem connected with. You seem very disconnected from yourself from what you wrote.

[growlycat]

Hopefully for us both, that black and white state shifts back to light gray soon. I hate feeling disconnected from T. I don't know about you, but I start to get panicky that I have to fix it NOW.

Has your T ever been willing to talk about how you see yourself physically? With some T's I feel like there are certain subjects they are not interested in touching but i don't know why. I can't remember if your T ever had a eating disorder? I just remember how slim you said she was.

[rainbow8]

Originally Posted by lolagrace

My gut reaction is that it isn't your T you didn't seem connected with. You seem very disconnected from yourself from what you wrote.

You're usually right about me but I'm not sure what you mean. How can someone be disconnected from themselves? Thank you, Lola.

Originally Posted by growlycat

Hopefully for us both, that black and white state shifts back to light gray soon. I hate feeling disconnected from T. I don't know about you, but I start to get panicky that I have to fix it NOW.

Has your T ever been willing to talk about how you see yourself physically? With some T's I feel like there are certain subjects they are not interested in touching but i don't know why. I can't remember if your T ever had a eating disorder? I just remember how slim you said she was.

Thanks, growly. Yes, I panic. That's why I emailed my T twice and sent photos right after my session. I want to fix it now, just like you said. She might not answer me until Thursday but I wanted to explain how I felt. I can't do the "sit with your feelings" thing.

No, my T told me once that she doesn't have an ED. She's just thin. If I lost 25 or 30 pounds I'd be at a good weight, but I can't do it.

It makes me feel vulnerable to talk about it with my T.

[growlycat]

We must be on the same rupture schedule! Even though he called me back today, the stuff he said made it worse. So I emailed.

Ever worry that if they don't respond you won't go to the next session? I'm in that place right now. I hope you are coping better than I am.

[rainbow8]

Originally Posted by growlycat

We must be on the same rupture schedule! Even though he called me back today, the stuff he said made it worse. So I emailed.

Ever worry that if they don't respond you won't go to the next session? I'm in that place right now. I hope you are coping better than I am.

I'm sorry you're feeling worse after your T called you. What did he say to make you feel worse? I NEVER want to skip a session for any reason. Of course now I only go every 2 weeks so I'm forced to skip a week. I'm feeling so so. I know I need to start lessening my T's importance in my life. That's what she wants for me but it's hard. I think maybe my wanting to talk about my weight, and the other issue bothering me, the clutter in my house, could be steps in that direction. They are adult topics. But I'm afraid T will forget my child parts who still need her love.

[growlycat]

Thanks, rainbow. My T said something to the effect that my progress or lack of progress only hurts me, not him. I know he meant it in a positive way, but all I hear is that he isn't invested in the outcome of my treatment aka he doesn't care about me.

You have made progress Rainbow, there is a shift in the way you talk about your T. Growing up certain parts doesn't mean you lose emotional needs. You still get those.

[rainbow8]

Originally Posted by growlycat

Thanks, rainbow. My T said something to the effect that my progress or lack of progress only hurts me, not him. I know he meant it in a positive way, but all I hear is that he isn't invested in the outcome of my treatment aka he doesn't care about me.

You have made progress Rainbow, there is a shift in the way you talk about your T. Growing up certain parts doesn't mean you lose emotional needs. You still get those.

Oh, I thought you talked to him again ABOUT what he said about lack of progress only hurting you. I wouldn't like it if my T said that either. It's like when she brings up that we're not friends. But both of our Ts DO care a lot about us. You're hearing something that's not true. It's just that they don't care the wah we wish they would, but those wishes are probably transference.

Thanks for saying I've made progress. Yeah, I realize T can only satisfy me partially, and temporarily. It's hard to accept that but I know it's true.

I have to go to sleep now so can't post anymore. I hope you feel better tomorrow, growly.

[rainbow8]

Originally Posted by lolagrace

My gut reaction is that it isn't your T you didn't seem connected with. You seem very disconnected from yourself from what you wrote.

Lola or anyone. Can you explain what the above means? I feel frustrated and overwhelmed with stuff in my life I have to deal with. I need structure but I don't have it. I feel incapable of action. How does that make me disconnected from myself? I also feel like my T didn't help me yesterday. She let me flounder around. She did say "You're awfully hard on yourself." She also said its okay to feel sad when I had to let go of her hand. She said that since I felt good on my trip, why don't I stay in vacation mode. That's stupid. I'm home now and have a house that's full of clutter.

Sorry, hadn't had time to get back to you. It was sort of my gut reaction to your original post. You seemed a bit all over the place, unsettled, antsy or something. Could just be from being tired from traveling, maybe not quite in the frame of mind to focus well. It was just the feel I got from your post.

I get that way sometimes: very unsettled, not sure what is going on with myself, thoughts scattered and not even sure the thoughts I'm having are really what the problem is . . .

[rainbow8]

Originally Posted by lolagrace

Sorry, hadn't had time to get back to you. It was sort of my gut reaction to your original post. You seemed a bit all over the place, unsettled, antsy or something. Could just be from being tired from traveling, maybe not quite in the frame of mind to focus well. It was just the feel I got from your post.

I get that way sometimes: very unsettled, not sure what is going on with myself, thoughts scattered and not even sure the thoughts I'm having are really what the problem is . . .

That's why I titled my thread " all over the place..." and you're right, I was tired and unsettled. I couldn't focus. It's interesting to think of that as disconnected to myself. That's what I was wondering about--your use of that word. Thanks for responding.

I think my observation was that you ended your post focusing on the lack of connectedness with your therapist when it just didn't sound like this had anything to do with your therapist at all. It's hard to connect to anyone when you aren't settled at all within yourself. I didn't seem like it was about your T and your relationship; just about you being really scattered and antsy. It happens.

[peaches100]

Hi Rainbow,

I know how disappointing it is when you use up your 1 hour of therapy that feels so important, and then you leave feeling like you didn't accomplish what you wanted to. Uggghhh!!! I'm sorry to hear you had a session like that!

This kind of disconnected session happen more often for me when I've been really involved in other things for awhile and haven't been thinking about therapy. So when I go back, I want to talk about things, but I can't seem to get my thoughts organized, or can't decide which thing I should talk about, etc. Then, before I know it, the hour is over and I feel like I didn't accomplish anything! It's just. . . frustrating!

I think I understand too why it made you feel bad to have your t suggest you hold your h's hand. We both tend to think in black and white, as you say. So when t suggests you hold your h's hand, you probably think she is trying to tell you that she doesn't want you to hold her hand anymore. Is that it? If so, try not to worry! She didn't say that! It's just your fears talking.

I too hate it when I leave the session and something feels unsettled. I agree that it is very hard to "sit with feelings." I think it is a really good thing for both of us to practice, though. Because sometimes in life, things happen that you just can't fix right away. All you can do is wait for the time being. That's hard!!

It sounds like a bad session.sometimes we get those. I hope your session next time is better.

[Rive.]

I may be off-base but I think you should be gentle with yourself.

Seems you were frustrated with yourself(?) for not being able to open up & maybe at her as well for not reading you properly? If the latter, may I gently suggest that maybe she couldn't 'read' you seeing you weren't saying the words... or maybe she was being dense!

I think you are hard on yourself because you say you emailed her 4 'fat' photos. The wording seems as if... you are/were trying to put yourself down... trying to push her away? or to punish yourself? As in, "see how bad/ugly I am; now do you still love me anyway?" Not sure if there is any validity in it, just my perception from what you wrote. As for the child part. I think (speculating) maybe she saw the pain you were in, you know vulnerability of child part, so she said if this child would grow up they'd be less vulnerable and have an armor or protective shield...

I know it's hard to have to stew in all this for 2 weeks but see it only as a blip on the road.

[SallyBrown]

It does sound like you had a bad session, and maybe that T was off her game a little.

It's a little hard to tell from this post how much you actually said, and how much you thought but didn't say. Did you tell her you had a few issues to talk about and didn't know which one? Does she know it annoys you that she doesn't follow up on e-mails, and seems to expect you to bring them up if you want to talk about them? (I feel like you might have mentioned this before, but I don't remember.) Are you sure she "just" wants to know how you feel now?

I have sessions like this periodically, and it is frustrating. Sometimes it's because T is feeling off, sometimes I'm feeling off. But a lot of times it's because I am thinking a lot of things that I don't say, that I really can't expect him to figure out. I'm wondering how much of that is going on here.

It's certainly happening in this part -- and this is something I am also guilty of:

Originally Posted by rainbow8

One issue is my hatred of how I look, and how I have trouble losing weight. I told her it's hard to talk about that with her because she doesn't have a problem. So I said I didn't want to talk about it, so she said "okay, so let's talk about something else." That comment annoyed me because I DID want to talk about it.

Gently: if you tell her you don't want to talk about it, you can't always expect her to pick up on the fact that you mean the opposite, and then press you to talk about it. I have done the same thing in the past, and it has given me similarly frustrating results, and I have realized that when I say, "I don't want to talk about it," sometimes I actually mean, "I want to talk about it, but I don't want to deal with the difficulties surrounding talking about it." Which seems to be what you mean. I think it would help if you really worked through the reasons you avoid talking about it -- it will help you both find a good way for you to discuss this issue, which is obviously an important one to you.

I have trouble talking to T about my body, too, but for different reasons. So a lot of times we end up talking about why it's hard for me, before I can get to actually talking about body stuff.

Originally Posted by rainbow8

She wants me to hold my husband's hand more since I said that felt good too.

I can't really comment on the "child parts", only because it's something I don't relate to and a concept I'm not sure I totally understand, so I won't muddy those waters by bumbling around. But I wonder, why is it a bad thing for you to hold your husband's hand more? I know this is an ongoing issue for you. Try not to regress back to resenting the fact that your marriage is the most likely source for comfort and good feelings in your "real life".

I'm sorry you're frustrated. Bad sessions are extremely frustrating. And feeling fat is frustrating. I hope that writing to her was helpful -- it stinks that you have to wait a couple weeks before you can talk face-to-face again.

[Yellowbuggy]

So I said I didn't want to talk about it, so she said "okay, so let's talk about something else." That comment annoyed me because I DID want to talk about it.

I used to do this all the time until I realized that I wasn't getting what I wanted because I wasn't asking for it. If you tell her you don't want to talk about something, she's doing the right thing by not talking about it... just in case you were serious.

(((((rainbow)))))

Do you think your 'inner child' was triggered by the visit to your children/grandchildren?

^^^^^ this

[rainbow8]

Originally Posted by peaches100

Hi Rainbow,

I know how disappointing it is when you use up your 1 hour of therapy that feels so important, and then you leave feeling like you didn't accomplish what you wanted to. Uggghhh!!! I'm sorry to hear you had a session like that!

This kind of disconnected session happen more often for me when I've been really involved in other things for awhile and haven't been thinking about therapy. So when I go back, I want to talk about things, but I can't seem to get my thoughts organized, or can't decide which thing I should talk about, etc. Then, before I know it, the hour is over and I feel like I didn't accomplish anything! It's just. . . frustrating!

I think I understand too why it made you feel bad to have your t suggest you hold your h's hand. We both tend to think in black and white, as you say. So when t suggests you hold your h's hand, you probably think she is trying to tell you that she doesn't want you to hold her hand anymore. Is that it? If so, try not to worry! She didn't say that! It's just your fears talking.

I too hate it when I leave the session and something feels unsettled. I agree that it is very hard to "sit with feelings." I think it is a really good thing for both of us to practice, though. Because sometimes in life, things happen that you just can't fix right away. All you can do is wait for the time being. That's hard!!

Thank you, Peaches. What you wrote about having a disconnected session when you haven't been thinking about T and then not knowing what to talk about is exactly what happened to me!! I was overwhelmed. My T suggesting my H and I do more "homework" didn't make me feel bad. We like the homework! Her telling me we have to grow up the child is what hurt.

I'm a little confused because I sent T 2 emails on Tuesday night, saying I can't sit with my feelings. Then, because I hadn't heard from her yet last night I sent her another, a more calm one, saying it's hard to wait to hear from her but I'm managing. She finally emailed me back early this morning, writing "I'm glad you're working on sitting with your feelings. I know it's hard." What???? I emailed right after my session! Is waiting until today to email again called "sitting with my feelings?" Maybe she never read my first 2 emails, which is unlikely. Idk. In any case, now I feel bad because I am NOT working on sitting with my feelings while T thinks I am!

Originally Posted by Annaflower

It sounds like a bad session.sometimes we get those. I hope your session next time is better.

Thank you, Anna. I hope so too!

Originally Posted by Rive.

I may be off-base but I think you should be gentle with yourself.

Seems you were frustrated with yourself(?) for not being able to open up & maybe at her as well for not reading you properly? If the latter, may I gently suggest that maybe she couldn't 'read' you seeing you weren't saying the words... or maybe she was being dense!

I think you are hard on yourself because you say you emailed her 4 'fat' photos. The wording seems as if... you are/were trying to put yourself down... trying to push her away? or to punish yourself? As in, "see how bad/ugly I am; now do you still love me anyway?" Not sure if there is any validity in it, just my perception from what you wrote. As for the child part. I think (speculating) maybe she saw the pain you were in, you know vulnerability of child part, so she said if this child would grow up they'd be less vulnerable and have an armor or protective shield...

I know it's hard to have to stew in all this for 2 weeks but see it only as a blip on the road.

Thank you, Rive. Yes, I was frustrated because my T wasn't reading me right and wasn't too helpful. I knew I wasn't getting anywhere and was frustrated because I let the hour go by without focusing on any topic. In her email to me today she wrote that it's impossible to "mess up a session," and that it's all learning. I liked that! Yes, I do want her to say she loves me in spite of how I look. I want her to agree with me about my "fat photos" but I don't think she will. I need her to be honest because I don't have a realistic view of my appearance. I want to discuss that with her but I'm afraid/self conscious, especially because she is thin. I told her during my session that she could eat all the candy in her candy dish and not gain an ounce! She said that's not true. I think I'm angry with her, and at myself!

Originally Posted by SallyBrown

It does sound like you had a bad session, and maybe that T was off her game a little.

It's a little hard to tell from this post how much you actually said, and how much you thought but didn't say. Did you tell her you had a few issues to talk about and didn't know which one? Does she know it annoys you that she doesn't follow up on e-mails, and seems to expect you to bring them up if you want to talk about them? (I feel like you might have mentioned this before, but I don't remember.) Are you sure she "just" wants to know how you feel now?

I have sessions like this periodically, and it is frustrating. Sometimes it's because T is feeling off, sometimes I'm feeling off. But a lot of times it's because I am thinking a lot of things that I don't say, that I really can't expect him to figure out. I'm wondering how much of that is going on here.

It's certainly happening in this part -- and this is something I am also guilty of:


Gently: if you tell her you don't want to talk about it, you can't always expect her to pick up on the fact that you mean the opposite, and then press you to talk about it. I have done the same thing in the past, and it has given me similarly frustrating results, and I have realized that when I say, "I don't want to talk about it," sometimes I actually mean, "I want to talk about it, but I don't want to deal with the difficulties surrounding talking about it." Which seems to be what you mean. I think it would help if you really worked through the reasons you avoid talking about it -- it will help you both find a good way for you to discuss this issue, which is obviously an important one to you.

I have trouble talking to T about my body, too, but for different reasons. So a lot of times we end up talking about why it's hard for me, before I can get to actually talking about body stuff.


I can't really comment on the "child parts", only because it's something I don't relate to and a concept I'm not sure I totally understand, so I won't muddy those waters by bumbling around. But I wonder, why is it a bad thing for you to hold your husband's hand more? I know this is an ongoing issue for you. Try not to regress back to resenting the fact that your marriage is the most likely source for comfort and good feelings in your "real life".

I'm sorry you're frustrated. Bad sessions are extremely frustrating. And feeling fat is frustrating. I hope that writing to her was helpful -- it stinks that you have to wait a couple weeks before you can talk face-to-face again.

Thank you, Sally. You hit on some important points. First, it's NOT bad for my H and I to hold hands. It's very good for both of us. I think what's underneath that is having to give up what's always been better with my Ts, all of them. It's growth for me, and I'm fighting it because I don't want to give up that part of me who wants/needs my T to meet my needs. It's ironic that now that my H has a terminal disease, we are connecting better. But I don't want to give up my T. That's black and white thinking. I can have both of them for now.

I knew I shouldn't have said " I don't want to talk about it" when I did. It just came out of my mouth that way! I'm usually totally honest with my T.

My T does mostly want to deal in the NOW. Her attitude is if it's not bothering me now, why bring it up? So lots of stuff from my emails just gets dropped. However, I did mention that in my email to her last night, and she said there's a lot in my emails so I should print them if I want to talk about them. I also do better when I make a list of what I want to talk about instead of letting everything whirl around in my head. But T always wants me to close my eyes, go inside, and see where I want to start. We didn't do that last session because I didn't want to waste time! Maybe I should have done it after all.

Originally Posted by Yellowbuggy

I used to do this all the time until I realized that I wasn't getting what I wanted because I wasn't asking for it. If you tell her you don't want to talk about something, she's doing the right thing by not talking about it... just in case you were serious.

Thanks, yellowbuggy. You're right. Totally!

Originally Posted by Annaflower

(((((rainbow)))))

Thanks, Anna.

Originally Posted by _Mouse

Do you think your 'inner child' was triggered by the visit to your children/grandchildren?

I did well on the visit to my family but something did trigger me there and I DID tell my T in the session. Maybe I wanted more reassurance. What happened was hearing my 2 year old gd screaming "Mommy" and "want Mommy" when left in her crib. They don't let her do this normally because she doesn't stop. She doesn't know how to self soothe and is up til midnight or later when her parents go to sleep. So they tried it again and her cries made me cry. I couldn't stand it! Neither could my d so she took her out again, so she started happily playing after midnight! That's their problem, but I felt like that 2 year old screaming for Mommy!

Originally Posted by Annaflower

^^^^^ this

[rainbow8]

Thanks, Anna.

So it sounds like you picked up all the chaos and internalised it.
I think you needed to show that chaos to T. I'm sorry she didnt pick up on it. Well enough to help you undersrand it's origins for you.