T's professional caring hurts...

I don't know how to express it well. Been crying and crying at work!

I've shouted at her in a few sessions "Your care as part of your f!@king job is more than the parents ever did! It f!@#king hurts when you care because of the contrast!"

Sometimes the emotional agony is so bad, I behave horribly by leaving deep scratches on my arms or pounding the table to hurt myself in session.

T tries to "see" me, hear me. T accepts me for who I am even though I am worthless, angry and awful.

She was so gentle when I hit myself and cried about how I've considered conversion therapy (I am bisexual and am deep in the closet and have homophobic parents).

She is kind and compassionate even when I'm sarcastic and hostile about how she is paid to care.

Her professional compassion is more than what the parents (who slapped and beat and left cane welts lasting hours and bruises) or the abuser siblings (who were allowed to switch me with thin flexible rattan canes) ever had for me.

The parents don't see or hear me, they only demand from me. They never did emotionally parent.

T likes to say "everybody is worthy of care. There is no why."

Yet her care as part of her job is the most care I have received in my life.

I'm in my mid 20s and keep crying like a baby...

Believing that someone could genuinely care for you after all you've experience in your life is, in my experience, one of the most difficult parts of therapy. Accepting that care at face value can be the beginning of real healing. For me. It helped me change some long held assumptions about what I "deserved". I know it's hard. I wish you peace in your journey.


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I too have had the thoughts that my T's care is one of the more painful parts of therapy. I'm trying to slowly let her in but it's hard......hard to want it and then for it to be so good it hurts.

It is hard to accept something that is so foreign. It is weird. I explain it as I am terrified of the thing I yearn for most.

It is painful for me but not because it's professional.... I do believe it's necessary and it does feel good sometimes, a lot of the time, but sometimes it is painful.

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This therapy thing is so scary sometimes. I too feel the stark contrast between caregivers in my past, and T, despite the fact that he has never told me he cares. By the way, I'm in my mid 40's and I still cry like a baby. In fact, I think I'm the only one who uses the tissues in his office.

((QuietMind))

Painful. But this is how we make progress.

I always had a hard time accepting her caring until one day it just hit me that it was genuine and I should embrace it. Her caring began to get painful when she announced she was closing her practice and we had our final sessions. I keep it inside me now and it will live there forever. Maybe its painful because you just need to accept that she does indeed care. Thats only my opinion and only you know your T.