why the need?

reading the pain that some here have felt when there T pulls away after you telling them how much you care about them.

thank god im not really all that attached to my T as some are but i still go through the fear of abandonment if she gets angry with me and all that stuff that i think comes from my up bringing,not my relationship with my T. i remember i quit once for about 3 weeks and then asked her if i could come back. i was crying uncontrollably in her office as she was not letting me off the hook all that easy. my upset was all about ,omg im being abandoned again and it feels horrible and unbearable .it didnt matter if it was my T or anyone else . i struggle with this a lot.

through all this i have never ever felt the need to tell my T how i feel about her, i dont think i have ever even talked about our relationship. im not saying i have never been angry with her and convinced she hates me and is going to abandon me . i have just never really felt the need to talk to her about it , i think i tried only once .and i started with " i never wanted my T to turn out to be about T "but she had done something .it was hard we talked about it and moved on . i cant have my T be all about the relationship .i have other things i need her to help me with if i can ever get myself to deal with them , that would be just about impossible if i was always talking about my feelings for her . it just seems so hard.

i dont want my T to be my go to person, she is not a permanent fixture in my life . at least i hope not . i want her to help me with the crap in my head and to help build my life skills and confidence to be able to exist, i dont think i need to be attached to her for that . i do find myself trusting her more but it scares me when she does something i see as over and above her job like seeing me for an extra session last week. the pressure to talk was way miserable .and i was also terrified she was to close and i was at risk of crossing that line of becoming attached and dependent . i couldnt handle that pain.in the end the T always seems to back off at that moment and i see it hurts like hell . nope not for me

I'm going through this right now. It's terribly painful, it's heart break for sure. I'm having such a rough ride at the moment with my T.
It's good you don't get too attached, if you feel yourself getting too close don't bother telling you T. It makes them tighten the boundaries. I won't ever talk about my feelings like I have done, the back lash from it is too painful.

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T's don't ALWAYS back off at that point though. Some of them create a safe loving space within the boundaries of therapy. Not everyone needs to work on attachment issues but if you do then you often need someone to attach to who isn't dysfunctional in order to do that. My T has always honored and protected my attachment to her and I am making progress that I could not make if I wasn't attached to her.
It depends what you need though. I truly needed the "reparative experience to begin putting my soul back together

im sorry .it was reading your post that prompted this .it seems to be the norm .you open your heart to a T about how much you care about them and they run like a jack rabbit . like my caring repulsed them or something .it hurts like heck

It's so unfair. The rejection is the worst, it makes me feel she doesn't care at all. The way I'm feeling now I will never go back to therapy after I've finished with this T.

I'm so thankful my T hasn't backed off and has walked with me through the attachment need and hasn't changed. She understands that the attachment is what I need and she's willing to be there in that capacity until I'm ready to 'wean myself' away and become stronger on my own.

My T has been very gentle regarding my attachment. He is skilled in that area

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The main thing I take away from this is that you DO care about tumor T's reactions, especially when triggered. And it is ok! I think for you, there is great fear in becoming attached because of your past. It makes perfect sense to me. I don't think you "have" to talk to your T about your relationship, but I also don't think if you do, that is all you will talk about. I think when you feel she hates you, that is when you need to talk about it with her, so you can see over and over that she doesn't.

I do not really talk to my T about our relationship either, except extremely recently. I had e-mailed her after our session about not coping, and her response convinced me she was done with me, so so sick of me bothering her. I apologized and said I promise I will stop bothering her. She wrote back that I wasn't bothering her at all.

You would think that would end the fear that I am a giant annoyance to my T, but it didn't. I knew on some level that my reaction is out of proportion to the situation (an old T told me that means you are being triggered by something from your past), so I forced myself to write my T an email telling her how much I hated myself for feeling so needy, and that she has a family and other clients, etc. I told her that she did not need to write back, but knew I wouldn't say it in person.

Well, she DID write back, and was really kind and said I am not a burden to her, that neediness is not a bad thing, and she loves her job. I know we'll have to talk about this in person next week, and even though she has been nothing but nice, I still will be very anxious. What if she changed her mind? What if she thought about it more and realized that I DO contact her too much?!?

Anyway-sorry for the long tangent (clearly still on my mind), what I am trying to say is that I understand your fear, but also it doesn't always go bad when talking about it. I think you have a good T, and if you think your perception of your T is interfering with your ability to talk, then it is probably a good idea to try and tell her.

do you mind telling me what brought you to therapy and how long you have been seeing this T

I don't want to say anything that could identify me, sorry. The possibility of T finding me here is slim but I don't want to risk it!

ok no problem im sorry

It's ok

The problem is that for people with attachment issues, it is very shaming.

What do you mean by it's shaming? I don't understand.

I just wanted to agree with those who mentioned that Ts won't necessarily tighten boundaries, change how they act, or distance themselves. (I just posted about this in another thread, actually.) A couple months ago, I told my T how I feel about her, and I'm really glad that I did. She handled my confession very kindly and graciously. I actually feel like our relationship has become stronger and we work together better than before. (I did have a rough few sessions after telling her, but then everything started to flow much better and I'm really happy with where we're at now.)

I'm really sorry for those who are going through difficult times with their particular situations. I would just hate if someone reading this thread made the assumption that all Ts would react by pulling away and tightening boundaries... and then have that influence their very personal decision as to whether or not they should open up to their therapist about how they felt. I think that when you feel something strong enough that you know keeping it bottled up isn't helping, it's important to talk about it, no matter what comes next. I think that trying to keep it inside and suppressing the feelings will ultimately do more harm than good.

I've had a lot of sessions where I "confessed" my need for t1. They've been spread over a lot of years, but each time I feel horrible (anxious, embarrassed, ashamed, afraid) afterward and t1 just hangs in there with me. I am going thru this right now. I had a 2 hour session with t this morning and then called afterward. Ugh. Embarrassing.

My hope, itjustis, is that your t isn't rejecting you. And by that I don't mean the mealy mouth crap about it's for your own good, I mean that t continues to engage with you on the same level as before.

Maybe your t is taking some time to reflect before she answers.

When they tighten boundaries because you shared how attached you are, it has the unintended result of making you feel ashamed and punished.

I definitely feel like she's punishing me. Not so much ashamed as she said it's ok for me to feel the way I do about her.

I hope so too. But I'm afraid it'll be me who won't open up now. She's hurt me and I'm angry. I doubt she's taking time to reflect before answering, it's been all day and still nothing from her.

What made her make this decision? I know you talked about how attached you were, was ita specific thing that made her respond like this? Did she explain it first?

We're coming towards the end of therapy. I told her I loved her very much. That's it. She asked me to try not to text her but I obviously failed! She didn't tell me she wouldn't respond anymore. She once said to me about her maternal feelings towards me so I'm thinking maybe she has some sort of issue too?

I don't understand why she would do this at the end of therapy when you are already struggling with feelings of abandonment. This sounds awful to me. Hugs.

It is awful. Had a major meltdown earlier today about it which I posted as another thread. I text her and told her I really hated her. I'm dreading next session and discussing the messages but I need to talk to her.

It's hard to trust anyone with our feelings if we've been hurt by our first relationship, and even harder to trust a therapist given the nature of the relationship, and its constraints. I was stupid, and threw caution to the wind... and it was the best thing I've ever done for myself, because life is now worth living.

I don't know, granite, why the need - I'm one who suffers from it off and on. I'm suffering right now from it. Not anything she did, though, it's all coming from me. I feel wrong in my feelings for her, I don't want to love her, but I do and sometimes those feelings get so overwhelming I don't know what to do with them and usually I can talk about it with her, but yesterday I couldn't, I just felt something has changed between us, even though she has not done or said anything to make me think that, it's still there anyway. I can't say that I wish I never got attached to her though, because all of the healing I have found has happened within this relationship, convoluted as it feels sometimes, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's been within and because of this t relationship that I've come as far as I have. I just don't understand why I feel like I do right now. It makes me want to run away from therapy. Sorry for rambling. I'm a jumble of emotion right now.