My T said I did good work with EMDR today

T said to try not to analyze my session but I want to write about it because it's already feeling hazy. She didn't want to use the way I felt about her for the incident to focus, but something from my past where I felt shut out. Somehow we got to my mother, and how she and I didn't communicate when she was dying. T wanted me to imagine how it would have been if it would've just been the way I wanted. She says our brain can be rewired even if it's not the original experience. It doesn't know the difference between reality and fantasy even when we do. I wish there had been handholding and hugs and exchanges of "I love yous". There was none of that.

T and I agree that my mother did not shut me out deliberately, but our relationship was one of non-connection. I shut her out. There was never a closeness the way I feel towards T.

T also had me visualize my mother not telling me something I wanted to know, as a teenager, even if that never happened. What surfaced from today is that I felt alone during my life. My mother was there "too much" but I didn't feel connected. Rather than being incidents that shut me out, I never felt totally IN. I lived in my own world, not being able to share with those closest to me.

I told T I liked emailing her this week and that I could see a trade-off between the connection with her being good, and therefore not needing her to answer my question.

At the end of the session she told me I did good work; my brain got us to where it needed to go. I feel sad about missing saying goodbye to my Mom when she died, and missing the kind of connection I needed. I can see why I want T to meet those needs. She says the visualizations of what I wanted will help me.

That sounds very powerful, Rainbow.
One thing leaped out at me in your description here. You describe your mother as being there 'too much' but despite her strong presence (over bearing? overly intrusive?) you did not feel connected to her. There was no real sense of connection to her.
I am just thinking about this in relation to how your relationships play out, particularly with your Ts.... you desire a connection, naturally, but do not know how to create it (because that was never modelled to you by your mother). So you strive for it in the way your mother tried to connect with you - by the 'too much' part. You want to be IN her life. You want to push past the boundaries and have 'more'. Because having 'more' is the only way your mother tried to connect with you. It didn't work for her (invasiveness does not equal connection) and it doesn't work for you (pushing past the boundaries of therapy and wanting to be included more in Ts life doesn't create connection either).
I may be way off base here, and I invite your disagreement or dismissal of it. That connection just leaped out at me and I wanted to share it.

I'm not sure if I agree or disagree but thank you. My mother wasn't intrusive. She was a worrier and over protective. It could be that I modeled the "too much" after her. Until therapy, I connected to most people superficially, or through the mail. I did have girl friends, though, so I connected on some level, but not closely. My T is probably the only person I've connected to so closely. More than my H.

The wanting to be in T's life is super strong. Craving it. Wanting her to tell me everything. To be there accepting me without trying to smother me like my mother did. My mother loved me very much. T said not to analyze so much, that maybe I'd have a dream. So I'd better stop.

Are you not a worrier? When T goes away on vacation? When you don't know if she will accept you or not? When you think she is too thin?
What happens when you feel 'shut out' from Ts life? Do you feel driven to find out anyway? To google obsessively? To go past her house to find that 'in-ness' instead?

So you mean my Mom's worrying was intrusive and so is mine? So I'm repeating her pattern? I agree I want that "in-ness" with T very badly!! That's a good word to describe it.

Hi Rainbow, I think Luce is on to something. Also, you wrote a couple posts above that your mother was not intrusive, then said you don't want to be smothering like she was. So there does seem to be something there about how connection got defined in a way that creates anxiety and, ironically, distance instead of connection.

Just curious if you have equine therapy available in your area, because when I did it one of the things I learned from the horses was how they create connection and space at the same time. For example, after the connection is made (which can take weeks), they will follow when you back away--almost like a magnetic draw--but if you make a move toward them, into their space, they will back up. I'm over simplifying it, but that's kind of the gist how part of the therapy works. It's a dance of space and connection, and they are highly intuitive and will respond to your real feelings, not outward expression. They keep people honest. It's nice because it gets you out of your head and into the experience. But it's expensive and not available everywhere.

luce. Thats the problem im having with my aunts after my mothers passing, they seem intrusive to me and theres no connection! Now that i know what connection is (thanks to my t), i have no patience for their intrusiveness. But that was my mothers - whats the word, like money - how she related to people.

Equine therapy sounds interesting but I doubt that they have it near me. I'm afraid of horses, never rode one except a pony at a carnival, so I don't think it's for me anyway. It sounds fascinating though, and I think I will Google it.

Nothing is ever black or white. I know there was something wrong with the connection between my Mom and me, and I feel like she pushed me too much, but as a child I felt very much loved. I don't think I knew anything different so I it was okay. I felt alone as far as expressing emotions to my mother, or anyone else, for that matter, but I still felt I had a good childhood. That was how my family was. I didn't know how to reach out to others, how to connect. Perhaps I didn't even know what an intimate connection felt like until I started therapy. It's never simple I remember how my father sang to me lovingly and tucked me into bed when I was little. My mother and I had lots of good experiences together too. Putting the puzzle pieces together is not easy!

I don't know what word your thinking of. Intrusive is a hard concept for me. When does it go from concern to intrusive? Luce, you point out I'm being intrusive with T. Feeling shut out makes me do it anyway. One thing I'm glad about is that I know my T understands that I'm not malicious when I cross boundaries, when I beg her to tell me her partner's name or ask her other questions. She accepts where I am and may understand it better than I do. I'm not implying that you don't understand. I think you do. I'm just pondering the fact that it's nice to have a T who accepts me.

Rainbow, you are definitely not malicious. I don't think anyone could ever think that of you! I for one don't think anything you do is 'bad' or 'wrong'. The only think you are doing is being human!

Currency, it was her currency! It was on the tip of my tongue, got it!

I am not sure. I am just aware of the similarity between how your mother was with you, and how you are with your T.
You said you 'shut your mother out' (like didn't tell her about when you were hurt) and it feels like there is a connection there with how you react and feel when *you* yourself are shut out from T's life.

Your mother wanted connection with you but didn't know how to forge a genuine one, so she was too 'there' in your life and was overprotective and a worrier. More than what was healthy. Sometimes you had to protect yourself by shutting her out.

You want a connection with your t but don't know how to forge a genuine one, so you want to be involved in her life beyond the boundaries of the T relationship, and you worry and obsess about her. More than what is healthy. Sometimes you get 'more', and it temporarily feels good. But it never sticks, because it isn't authentic connection. So you keep trying to get more.And then it gets to the point where T needs to protect herself by 'shutting you out' (defining the boundaries). When you feel shut out it blocks off the possibility of you getting in - your way of trying to connect - thus your abandonment fears get triggered and you feel even more driven to find your way 'in'.

As I said I could be totally wrong. I am just saying what I have noticed. I do know that from birth to six our parents model for us what it is to 'be human', for better or for worse. Which is pretty much how human development works - we copy what we know, and what we know is how our parents are with us. We unconsciously become them (unless we consciously do something about it, that is!)

when i think of some of the things i said or did to other people as a young adult, i am just mortified. But i can see now, which i could not then, that i was totally treating others the way i had been treated.