My curiosity and urges are making me waste my time

Luce, I love my T and would like to do that. She would be proud of me! But right now I still have this compulsion to find the answer, solve the riddle, find the information. Not sure which part of me will win.

This is so stupid but I want to find out who T's bf is. I am used to looking for needles in haystacks. I have a first name and the fact that he's a T and lives in my city or nearby. I know something else besides the actor he looks like but I don't want to divulge that. Now it's a challenge to me but I know it's unproductive and wasting my time. If T told me I'd know and then I wouldn't have to find him. I don't think it's about the picture; it's about knowing who he is.

I know I'm crossing T's boundaries but I still want to find him. The first name isn't so common but I don't see any possibilities when I google. I found one but I think he's too young for T.

I realize this thread sets me up for all kinds of attacks. I hope maybe some understanding too.

Hi Rainbow,

Did you get anywhere with this issue? Did any of your exploration efforts help?

Or do you think you are in the same place as before. Curious if you feel like answering.

I started answering the responses in order last night. As of now, I'm not searching. I don't know what to tell my T tomorrow that would be productive, because I still am not clear on the reasons I want to know things. I'm confused by it all. I don't want to waste another session going around in circles.

How it works in my therapy, which is psychodynamic therapy, is that exploring the therapist relationship issues gets to the deeper issues within the self. It's the opposite of avoidance.

For example, being hurt or feeling alienated from my therapist's not meeting my needs allows me to process those feelings and understand them by linking them to past relationships/history. The therapist's not meeting those needs is what provides the opportunity to explore. In the process, the focus is removed from the therapist and placed on the self.

Here, Rainbow's therapist did not meet her need of sharing her personal life, providing rich opportunity to explore her feelings so that she can understand them which results in them having less power over her. Ideally, resolving the conflict that leads to the obsessiveness.

Though I don't want to assume that's how others psychodynamic therapy works, it's the basic tenant of that modality. I wondered if her therapist has the ability to facilitate a discussion of the deeper feelings rather than arguing about the trigger/action itself (not showing the picture). Anyway, that's what I assumed was what her therapist did not want to discuss-reasons why she didn't show the picture because it blocks looking at the feelings behind it.

Exploring the darkest corner of our minds!! The therapist relationship is just the vehicle to get there. In the process, the focus is removed from the therapist and placed on the self. Makes me wonder how other therapists work. And if Rainbow you have to make that work rather than your therapist. But I should probably quit posting on this thread as I have to many thoughts about this and there is no point in going on and on. Just really struck me as a long-standing unaddressed pattern. And I know what it's like to be stuck.

I think it is important to explore this more with T rainbow, but that doesn't have to be figuring out its cause directly (ie is it my relationship with my parents etc). I would suggest exploring the feelings as they are in the here and now, and working to accept this part of yourself. You are a curious person. That is not a bad quality. You also sometimes are insecure about relationships. That's okay too. All great material for therapy and grist for the mill on the journey of self-acceptance.

I'm confused by it all. I don't want to waste another session going around in circles.

I started answering the responses in order last night. As of now, I'm not searching. I don't know what to tell my T tomorrow that would be productive, because I still am not clear on the reasons I want to know things. I'm confused by it all. I don't want to waste another session going around in circles.

Are you going in circles or are you just trying to get the answer you want to hear?

Not when you're an infant or even a small child. You rely on others to help you with the physical world and also help you shapen out your inner world. There are multitudes of people in our life that help us one way or another. When one lacks that kind of support in early life it's a little bit unfair to spout "cold hard truth"s. Also what is even more problematic in your post is that you extrapolate or rather summarize a person based on the way they speak. What if that passivity you speak of in Rainbow's posts is actually some sort of higher awareness - devoid of the self. Inspecting oneself objectively, stepping out of self to observe it and maybe heal it.

You don't have to find him even if your therapist doesn't tell you.

I wonder, where does this need to know come from? Are you aware what the reason for it is? What does it mean for the process you and your therapist are involved in together? What might be its significance in your life? That would probably be very useful for you to be aware of, whether or not you look this guy up. (You don't need to answer me, I'm just saying this because I personally find questions useful to help me think and decide in difficult situations).

We're all different and it's up to you what to do. I just want to say though, without knowing all the details (so I may be wrong), but maybe your therapist has a very good reason not to tell you who her boyfriend is, even beside her own personal boundaries. I got to know my therapist's ex girlfriend when they were together and it caused me a whole lot of issues in my therapy, in my studies, in my private life. I learned a lot from my difficulties but I think my therapy would have been a safer space for me had I not known who his girlfriend was.

Now your experience will probably be different. I'm just saying, sometimes, even if not knowing may trigger a lot of curiosity and fantasies, knowing can be worse in a very intense long-term therapy relationship, like mine was and like yours also seems to be. So please keep that in mind too when you decide whether or not to look him up.

I'm not sure it's about crossing her boundaries. I've done what you've done, googled information about my T based on isolated facts, including googling her wife. I knew her first name, that she taught at the local university, and what her field was (it was one of those fields where it could have been several departments). Didn't take long to find her, and I thought I was correct for several years until T mentioned one day that she taught at a university an hour and a half away.

The only difference between what I did and what you are doing is that I didn't ask T for her wife's name. I think that asking for what you want from people, including T, is actually bold and a healthy thing to do.

But it does set you up for what you're experiencing now, which is being "rejected" by her not doing what you want. And you probably know that you could google until the end of time, but unless he's got a very uncommon name and you live in a very small town without other towns a reasonable distance away, the only way you can really know for sure is for T to confirm it.

Maybe it's about how you handle a situation where you feel rejected or someone close to you doesn't do what you want. I think part of the therapy zeitgeist is that we expect that our therapists will do what we want, that we will get from them what no one has has given us or what people have given us that we do not want: respect, love, understanding, etc. But then they say "no" directly or they say it indirectly by not following the approach we want or expect and boom, it really hurts.

For me, I learned that I was good at choosing people who didn't naturally give me what I wanted. And my T was very good at giving me what I wanted-- control over the sessions, making me feel normal at what felt like bizarre PTSD reactions to the world, etc. But then she didn't, and I asked her to do it differently, and she wouldn't and that felt horrible. Even when I understood that she couldn't compromise herself to give me what I wanted.

And it is still a work in progress, but it did become important to me to not force what I wanted from other people in the service of getting what I wanted. I became more about (I do not by any means have this figured out) accepting what people offered me and not freaking out when they said no. I learned that my go-to strategy was more manipulation than straight out asking, and also that sometimes I was asking, but it was more demanding. And that when I asked, I had to be willing to hear no. That people could love and support me and say no at the same time, and rejection wasn't the end of the world.

I don't of course know whether any of this applies to you, I am just explaining how it was for me.

Oh Rainbow I do understand. I have done some detective work with my own t many times. I always find what I am looking for, I make judgements about what I think I know from what I learn but I am far from the truth. It hurts but I still do it, I have never told my t I do it because it would absolutely lead to my termination. I do it to distract me from my own problems, it usually works for a little while but then I feel worse. I beat myself up and feel guilty. I tell myself I am an awful person with no impulse control but it also helps to know that my ts family are not perfect, they are a little insane. My t is very open about her children and family and this doesn't help. I think it encourages my curiosity. Sometimes I wish my t were more more blank slate but then it wouldn't be a real relationship.

I don't know why this is a boundary-exploring information online about who you are curious about. Didn't she introduce the fact she had this boyfriend?

Don't you have a boundary that others can't tell you what or what not to do with your free time?

I'd be distressed over wasting my time over non-productive things too. What would you be doing if you weren't spending time obsessing over this?

This is a good idea. My therapist always tells me to go towards the direction of the anxiety, rather than away from it.

Going with it, instead of against it, can also help stop the pattern. These types of obsessions are driven by conflict. And going against them strengthens them

I think making it about 'boundaries' might be what is keeping you in this pattern as it is strengthening it by making it 'wrong'. The need to do it + the conflict about it doing 'wrong' (guilt) are the elements that make the OC loop.

Maybe explore why it feels wrong to you, then deal with the guilt, then give up just that one part. Then you will be left with just the need to do it without getting all distressed and obsessive about it.

Doing it isn't unsafe or hurting anyone. Your therapist's boundary is to not tell you a name, not to control you. If my therapist has a boundary that he won't listen to his favorite song with me in session, I am still free to listen to it to my heart's content outside of session.

I think some T's see it as a boundary. My T was bothered that I Googled her a few weeks ago, saying I'd crossed a boundary. Yes, I found a pic of her H, but he used to work at the same practice as her (he's retired now), so if I'd been going there at that time, I'd know what he looked like anyway. And I did find T's FB page, but it was totally locked down, so I couldn't actually *see* anything.

Meanwhile, when I told my marriage counselor about my Googling him--and finding his wife's FB page (also locked down, but did see a family photo on there), his immediate response was that he forgave me. He was concerned regarding something I could have found about his wife--her sister apparently has a FB page about her, presumably with updates on her health condition (I know a little about that, but not from Googling). But that wasn't what I found.

So he asked me not to go looking around anymore about her, but I get the sense it's more because he's concerned about how finding more info on that would affect me (due to my transference/attachment). Rather than it being his privacy he was concerned about. Which was the sense I got from my T. Like *she* personally felt violated. (She never said she forgave me, incidentally.) Whereas MC was more worried about *my* reaction to finding certain things.

ETA: I have respected his wishes and not Googled him/his wife anymore. I'm thinking of it as, I care about him, so I should respect his wishes. (Even though now I *know* there's something out there to find, which must have lots of info because he's worried about me seeing it.) It helps that he's also open to my asking him anything, though there are certain things he won't answer. But he's good with discussing *why* I want to know, which it seems like your T, Rainbow, is maybe a bit less open to. I didn't feel as comfortable talking to my T about why I wanted to know stuff, because it felt like what I'd done had upset her, like "I'd been bad" (I do have some negative maternal transference toward her at times). MC being forgiving made me feel safer talking about it.

Rainbow, your T seems to be sending very mixed signals, with giving you bits of information (like what he looks like), so I can definitely see where that would make you want to explore more. Out of curiosity, did your parents or others in your life keep lots of secrets from you as a kid? I think that's a big part of it for me--particularly since my mom was secretive about health issues (physical and mental) of hers and other family members. So MC or T being secretive is a bit triggering for me--particular with MC regarding his wife's health.

I agree people need to do things for themselves. This way of relating with oneself, however, this sounds like it could be related to dissociation and having splits/different parts that are in conflict with one another.

If thats the case, imo, the solution would be personality integration. With integration, a person has new capacities.

I dont think most therapies truly help with this sort of thing. If a therapist is too kind or giving and supportive, a person never has a chance to assimilate their aggression. With aggression capabilities comes agency. Without this capacity, some can only direct aggression in indirect ways, but usually at oneself, which manifests as self destructive behavior. Those inpulses are split off, were split off, long ago and sort of get encapsulated from other parts of self.

Language can offer clues as to what might be going on inside, I agree.