[retro_chic]

So I had my last session with T before the Christmas break. I tried to keep some emotional distance this time because I didn't want to be a mess like last session while T is gone. We did talk about those feelings though and how no one is enough for me. I told T how I had trouble remembering what had led us to that point in the last session. I don't know why but I often have trouble remembering things from session. T commented on this and said something about how I have trouble connecting the different "parts" of me and how that is a way for me to cope with unpleasant emotions. I think this is true but I couldn't explain why.

We also talked about how I feel others can't meet my needs and that I am too needy. T asked me if I think I can meet other's needs and I thought about it for a while and realised the answer is no. I said it feels like there is nothing inside me to give to other people. I feel as though I am both too much and not enough for other people and I am just going through the motions when it comes to any sort of relationship. I also told T that I feel pathetic and like a bad person but I couldn't really explain why. It is like another piece of me that is disconnected from everything else and I don't know where it fits in.

So... what do you call this disconnected/can't remember weird feeling? Where does it come from?

[coolibrarian]

Anxiety, maybe. Be kind to yourself.

Dissociation maybe?

Do you not get things written down by your Therapist? Do they not make a summary of the session and establish an agenda for the next? I just assumed this is what every Therapist did for their clients.

Apparently this isn't happening then. However, are you able to request that your Therapist might do this? What if you were to keep your own notes; if not during the sessions, immediately following.

It seems to me that possibly too much time is being spent at a session going over what happened at the last.

I'd call it 'early days'. The level of disintegration depends on early childhood.
As therapy progresses, the parts all come together more.

[CharlieStarDust]

Wow, I feel like I could have written this word for word.
For me, those feelings of disconnect and not enough and too much relate to my BPD traits. It's like everything is too much and nothing is enough. I have some trouble remembering things too - and I attribute it to the fact that I don't have continuity between episodes; whether it's friends, therapy, work. Every interaction stands alone, not part of a thread. I've gotten better at the continuity part, but it still has its challenges.

[retro_chic]

Originally Posted by justafriend306

Do you not get things written down by your Therapist? Do they not make a summary of the session and establish an agenda for the next? I just assumed this is what every Therapist did for their clients.

Apparently this isn't happening then. However, are you able to request that your Therapist might do this? What if you were to keep your own notes; if not during the sessions, immediately following.

It seems to me that possibly too much time is being spent at a session going over what happened at the last.

My T doesn't write down a summary (actually none of my T's have done that). The issue I'm having is can usually remember the general outline of the session but I have difficulty remember the exact words used and how they connected the different topics.

I don't really feel too much time is being spent going over the previous session. I usually have a bunch of reflections/thoughts/feelings that come up after session and I like to talk to T about them. Also, the whole "no one is enough for me" thing came up towards the end of a session and I wasn't really done discussing it so I wanted to continue with that topic in my next session. When I have "gaps" I'll just ask T to "refresh my memory" and we then continue on with whatever the topic is.

[cinnamon_roll]

Hi retro_chic

the gaps/discontinuity sounds to me like some form of dissociation. Many trauma survivors tend do dissociate, when things get too overwhelming. I'm not talking about DID, more like some "milder" expression. If you think of dissociation as some kind of continuous spectrum, there's mild every day type of dissociation on one end, things that almost everybody tends to do like daydreaming. and on the far end there would be DID.

This "checking out" in order to protect oneself would be somewhere in between. Basically it's your brain going into "survival mode" which might have been important in terms of self-protection at some earlier point in your life. Trouble is, that the brain keeps doing this whenever it decides there's some imminent (real or percieved) danger...
It's got a lot to do with the fight/flight/freeze response, and this form of dissociating would be some form of freezing...

It happens to me a lot, especially when we talk about emotionally difficult things in therapy. I tend to ask my T in the next session to summarize the most important points, quite often by talking about the same stuff, but in a more "indirect" way a lot more really interesting aspects tend to come up. My T often asks me, at what point I checked out... Which again might be really interesting: Did I feel threatened? By my T herself? Or something she said? Or did I feel cornered? etc..
I still talk, and I can still have a fairly coherent conversation, so from an outside perspective it is hard to notice that I'm going blank...

Hope this helps, if not, just ignore...

Best wishes, c_r

It sounds like she is talking about splits, which is unintegrated parts of your ego or sense of self.

Its the same as dissociation, imo, though people often talk about dissociation as a process, whereas your therapist is psychoanalytic so might think of it more as splitting.

That concept goes all the way back to Freud but just gets renamed or reconceptualized according to different schools of thought.

I think of it developmentally, as infants have simple, black and white emotions or states-good vs. bad, hungry vs full. Complex emotions dont develop until later. So when the psyche becomes too overwhelmed, consciuosness gets split off as a way to cope. If it happens over and over, it becomes part of your cognitive style then personality.

Consciousness overwhelmed is equated with trauma, by some schools of thought.

It does get integrated with the type of therapy you are doing. It can really be destabilizing when you are integrating those parts. Its very difficult, but you are on the right track.

[skeksi]

This happens to me, too--T and I think it's dissociation as well.

I sometimes get very upset that I can't remember what we've talked about, but T suggested that I have faith that it is slowly sinking in, even if I'm not conscious of it, and whatever we are doing will be easier for me to remember in time. Generally, that appears to be true.

[retro_chic]

Thanks everyone!
I agree that this seems to be some sort of dissociation/splitting thing. I think it is slowly getting better because at the beginning of therapy I was so disconnected from everything that I couldn't feel anything but now in the past couple of months I have been getting emotional/teary nearly every session. To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out what "trauma" means because I have never experienced what most people would consider a "traumatic event" but obviously something must have happened for to end up like this.

[cinnamon_roll]

Hi retro,

same here. I have no childhood history of 'big' abuse, or catastrophic events. However there was continuous (emotional) neglect, and me and my siblings were brought up to completely deny our own desires and needs for a 'greater good' (grew up as pastor's kid in a fundamentalist church).

Depending on your temperament, your environment and other factors things like that can leave you traumatized. It's not just the "size" of the traumatic event/s but also continuous patterns that might run through your childhood/past. And this might seem rather "small" in comparison to physical/sexual abuse.

Pete Walker (psychologist/therapis from S.F.) has done a lot of writing on how this "small" stuff can leave you traumatized. Also he's done a lot of writing on how to deal with this. I find his books really helpful, do look him up if you fancy doing some reading on this matter, he's got a lot of articles on his website.

hugs, c_r

One definition of trauma is anything that overwhelms the psyche. I think thats because thats when defenses are deployed. And defenses shape development/personality.

Its certainly different than how many think of trauma.

I think what you just described might be your relinquishing a defense. Not sure how to describe it better, but that fits what you said about going from disconnected to feeling.

I was going to say what Skies mentioned. Trauma means many different things to people and we often associate the word with something big and destructive. I think that "checking out" can be a healthy reaction to overwhelm in the moment and does not necessarily need to have roots in the past. Just an emotional reaction to something that feels too much to process in the moment.

I don't tend to have memory blanks per se that I know of about my therapy sessions but often have delayed emotional reactions in many situations, not specific to therapy. It often serves me well because I can focus on a task at hand, or a crisis situation that needs to be resolved, without freezing or collapsing. But when I try to recall what I was feeling, it seems a bit like a blur. I also have similar memories about fragments of my childhood: remember events clearly but not so much the emotional content. What's interesting is when later some unexpected event or stimulus taps into these things and pull stuff out of my unconscious memories suddenly, eg. hearing a piece of music that reminds me of seemingly forgotten stuff.

As mentioned earlier, anxiety can cause states that feel dissociated... eg. the concept of depersonalization/derealization. I sometimes feel that way, not in therapy, but in situations I am highly anxious about. It can be quite annoying because I can hear people asking me questions and telling me something but it's as though I am unable to process or comprehend it in that very moment.

[Elio]

I can hear people asking me questions and telling me something but it's as though I am unable to process or comprehend it in that very moment.

This is very close to how I feel when I am dissociating with t. I have several different intensity levels of my dissociation. One level is simply not processing, comprehending, or remembering what was said. In these states, my t rarely recognizes it is going on though she might be getting better at reading them.

Next there is where I can even respond to the questions at times but it is like I am talking to a speaker box. t isn't there anymore and there is no other input coming into me than the words. I no longer feel like I am in the room that has the furniture of her office, instead I will be in a purely white, empty room.

At the far end, I melt into inanimate objects (ok that is what I feel like). Physically I usually break down in tears/sobbing, try to make myself be as small as possible, tremble, shake, rock, and seek the protection of a physical object. I dematerialize, disintegrate, break apart (or want to). Mentally, I am in a locked box, untouchable by even myself. Nothing she says reaches me, nothing in the room reaches me.. ect.

I only go to these when I'm in an intense experience and feel trapped unable leave the space. T has told me that I can leave if I want to/need to. I can't in these moments, I don't have permission, in the moments - frozen.

"checking out" can be a healthy reaction to overwhelm in the moment

t and I have talked about this concept and pretty much come to the conclusion that it is what is happening with me. I am overwhelmed in the moment and has nothing to do with a specific event (trauma) in my past. And yes, she also talks about it not always being a bad thing.

What I have asked her to do is to go slower in these moments, if she can catch that I am in early stages to stop asking me questions or ask more basic questions that have nothing to do with what we were talking about - something concrete like about the car I drive or a hobby I do. Once at the far end, I need serious help grounding and not much she can do but ride out the storm.