Differences between my and my T:s life creates a barrier to therapy

I feel knowing and realizing obvious differences between me and a T creates a barrier to therapy. It´s like I can never fully trust a T, whoever that person is, to understand me or understand how my life is.

I think most T:s can imagine how it´s like to be me and they can understand my problems on a more theoretical level but there will never be that kind of togetherness or recognition with a T.

To me this creates a barrier to therapy, I now speak in broad terms as I´m not currently in a therapy. I feel there will always be some kind of inevitable lack of understanding and to me that creates a barrier to therapy. I can´t be fully vulnerable in front of a T when I know she is far from in the same situation as I am.

Even if many T:s have gone through rough times in general I don´t feel fully comfortable with sharing things about loneliness when I know the T has a husband. Or sharing problems around friendships when I know the T has several friends and so on. I know I can´t be met on the same level as the T has a job, relationship, friends and so on.

I can get a basic understanding but not more, the T remains a stranger to me because of this.

I think what you're describing is one of the more heartbreaking and fascinating things about being human, not just the T relationship... no matter how much we yearn for complete mutual understanding, and no matter how close we become or wish to become to a person, we in fact can know only very little.

That we can choose to trust and attach to people despite this is, to me, completely mindblowing.

It may be that therapy isn't what's going to help you, not everyone does need or find value in therapy and that's ok. If you think a T won't really get you and that you can't connect or engage in the process, it's ok not to. There's nothing that says you need to be in therapy.

Most well-adjusted people are capable of empathy - this allows them to enter into the experience of others (obviously with some limitations). Part of my pathology is an excess of empathy where I pick up the feelings of others and sometimes can't function until I'v managed to ease any discomfort I imagine that THEY are in.

Part of how empathy works has something to do with mirror neurons. Studies have shown that when two people are in conversation they will unconsciously mimic mannerisms of each other. This assists in making them feel what the other is feeling.

Because I was raised by someone with NPD I think I missed out on the primal experience of empathy which means I have alienation as a fundamental default mechanism. (hopefully I manage to one day change this). I tend to assume others are JUDGING me as opposed to connecting or relating to me. It sounds like this may be part of your concern?

This is one reason why I'm against even seemingly mild self-disclosure in therapy...

Having said that - it seems likely to me that you're making a lot of assumptions about your T's current life and past experiences. I know I do it with mine - his life is perfect!

Also, I think human experiences are often more universal than you think - for example, everyone has felt lonely at some point. Everyone knows loneliness. No, they may not have felt it deeply and chronically and over a long period - but they understand what it is.

I think you're making a lot of assumptions about your therapist.

People in marriages, for example, can still experience deep loneliness.

To some extent, we are all trapped in our own bodies and minds and can never truly "know" another person.

My therapist is very different than me. He's a man. He's much older. Still, I think he "gets" me on some deep level. I wonder if the issue is the general facts of your therapist's life or whether you just are not clicking.

I also wonder, though, if your feeling of a barrier is one you are constructing yourself--if you have something invested in not being known or feel afraid to be known. It's just something to think about.

It sounds as if loneliness is something that you are dealing with and would like some help with, if that were possible? Is that correct? Is there anything else that you can think of that might help?

I was with my last T for 6 years, got attached in some ways but was never really close to her, never very vulnerable. I went into that therapy with a basic lack of understanding about relationships -- how they functioned, what they were, even. That was a divide we never bridged. The "relationship" that we had in the therapy ended in a rupture without repair. If she couldn't reach me and my ways of reaching out didn't reach her either, then. . .it just didn't work, even after 6 years. It wasn't a total waste -- I worked through some trauma stuff. But did she understand me? No, I don't think so. Can one have a "relationship" anyway? Well, we did have the business relationship, but it seems to me not a whole lot more.

I don't think it's possible for any person to understand another perfectly without knowing each other a long time. We're all coming from different places.

That said, IMO, ultimately the point of therapy is not for another person to understand you. It's nice to be understood and it can help, but really the point of therapy is for you to understand you. So maybe if you return to therapy ever, you could try thinking about the therapist as someone who might not understand but can help you understand. Sort of like how a physical therapist can help an injured person walk again, regardless of whether they've ever been injured themself.

Thanks for input. That was a very interesting viewpoint and I could really relate to what you wrote about feeling judged by others more than feeling that they connect to me or like me. I don´t feel automatically accepted or expect to be accepted. It´s more like I expect to see differences and when I do, I most always feel inferior.

I feel my shortcomings are that big that I don´t want to reveal everything about them just in the open but instead I keep things to myself and I reason and discuss more with a T than I freely just express what I think and feel.

Thanks for sharing. Yes, probably I do. When I see those "facts" about the T, perhaps a wedding ring, her mentioning a friend and so on, I immediately compare that to my own life and I feel inferior. I imagine her having a nice life, fun weekends, being close to her husband and so on even if the T never says something so specific about her life.

It´s not about clicking in this case as I don´t see a T at the moment, it´s more like a summary or thoughts about the therapy experiences I´ve had and I see this as an issue which is hard to get by.

I´ll really take the last thought you wrote with me. Perhaps I experience a benefit from not being known. The benefit I can come up with at the moment must be reducing the risk to get hurt, to get ridiculed for who I am, to show just some parts of me. Perhaps that has to do with my childhood and being mocked even if I wouldn´t call it bullying.

Thanks. Yes, that´s very true I deal with loneliness. I would want help with that and I´ve also already tried to solve loneliness issues in my latest therapy but we never reached that far.

Did your T ever mention that she felt you weren´t that close to her or that you didn´t get that attached to her?

For some T:s that seems to be very important, that a client can bond with them and open up.

Thanks. I agree therapy is for me to understand myself better and to find acceptance and solutions but as long as I feel and know about those differences between a T and I, I can´t really open up. I feel inferior and I don´t want to be too ashamed by just telling her about my shortcomings when I know she doesn´t share them.

I feel kind of silly stating I´ve never been in a relationship when a T is married for example. It then feels kind of fake if a T will try to understand this to be able to help me when she has gone far beyond dating, meeting someone and so on.

If your T were in an extremely vulnerable place and had not done the work to achieve reasonable emotional health, she might be able to commiserate with you "yup, I know, I'm stuck in the same rut" but would be unable to help you. Feelings are pretty universal. Your T has certainly experienced pain and loss and loneliness. She can empathize with you and (probably) is in a strong enough place that she can hold your feelings, your trauma and your difficulties and give you stability and perspective.

As painful as it is to you that (as far as you know) she's in a better space than you are, she would be completely useless to you otherwise. "I'm afraid that you cannot possibly understand me" is, in my experience, the opening for a very worthwhile session. Try it.

It sounds like what you are describing is alienation. It's a horrible, horrible feeling or state; much more profound than loneliness.

Unfortunately, feelings of alienation can be multiplicative, where alienation causes one to isolate and distance oneself further from people and activities, which further alienates...life...and the whole thing gets compounded.

Is there a chance you could go back to the earlier therapist who you said you had feelings for? It sounds like you were developing an attachment to her.

I totally understand that feeling, and I don't think it's something you can reason your way out of. I really do think you need someone attuned with whom you can connect. You seemed more connected to your previous therapist, which is why I thought of her.

I hear that you are suffering from loneliness, but do you realize that it is you looking for a "perfect" connection that leaves you feeling lonely?

OMG SP. This. I wish someone had said this to me twenty years ago.

I feel a million times better with all my imperfect connections, with the surprising number of really nice people who can be there for me in limited ways. I have begun to stop seeking and make peace with the inevitability of some loneliness as I am learning to be my own friend. Loneliness really isn't the worst thing if you like your own company. I am able to invest more in my relationships with others because my expectations of those connections is so much more reasonable. I meet people hoping for a good conversation, not a soul mate.

I don't know if some people figure this out young, but making headway on this issue has been the best thing about hitting forty.

This is the crux of the matter right here: the fact that you feel inferior. And, if I can make an assumption, I think it probably applies outside of therapy as well.

THIS is what you need to talk about in therapy. This will lead you where you want the conversation to go.

No, although my last T did ask for me to be vulnerable with her once. I replied, "I can't be vulnerable with you, I don't trust you!" I was somewhat surprised by my response -- I think it came from the largely unconscious/ cut-off part of me. And consistent with what my T had said was my anxious-ambivalent attachment style. That intuition/mistrust proved trust-worthy, since the therapy ended in a rupture-without-repair. Or maybe a self-fulfilling prophecy? But since that T couldn't help me with it, from my perspective the mistrust was well-founded.

Thanks. I agree in what you say about a T being in a vulnerable state herself and I realize it´s impossible to meet with a T in a similar mental health state as I´m in. Even if I see the impossibility in that I find it hard when a T is in a completely different state and situation in life. I´ll try to address this issue when I meet with a new T or with some other counselor.

As I´ve spent many years feeling lonely and as I´m now 30+ and with no experience from relationships with a partner I find it very hard to believe a T could understand me enough, my situation is very rare.

Thanks, that was interesting. Yes, alienation fits into how I feel and see others and how I look upon life. Sometimes I feel a connection but often I just don´t feel I belong. I feel different from a T for example and to avoid the feeling of a friend ignoring me or waiting for a friend to contact me, I rather end the relationship or just let it fizzle out.

Similar can happen with a relationship with a T, if she does something that makes me feel inferior, even if that wasn´t her intention I begin to count her out, to loose the connection with her. It can be something like her passing by in a fancy car or I realize she has been abroad, then the barrier get high immediately and I just feel inferior. I start to share less and I start to trust her less.

Thanks. What an interesting viewpoint. I haven´t thought of it that way even if I´ve realized for long that I reach for quite high standards when it comes to friendship. I have a hard time just "hanging around" and the hard thing of accepting differences, flaws and a less strong connection is that such a situation makes me feel even more lonely.

I can´t just hang out with random people, I don´t get anything from it and at the same time finding people when I´m more close to feels often impossible.

Thanks. Yes, it really does apply outside a therapy as well. I feel inferior and not belonging in society. I feel a T belongs, she has a job, a car, often she is married and so on. That´s very far from how I live.

Yeah. Hanging out is an acquired skill for some people. I used to absolutely marvel at the way others could do it with so much ease. OMG. For me it's been like learning a new language. I can make myself understood if I take the risk of looking foolish and though I will never be like a native speaker, I can actually become surprisingly proficient. YMMV but one or two glasses of wine and some kind of common ground (workplace, hobby, mutually liked food/book/movie) can be extremely helpful in both situations.

Hanging out doesn't take away from my need to have deeper friendships. I have fewer of those than I'd like to and my closest friends don't live nearby and are busy and not as available as I wish they were. But it does mitigate my sense of isolation and has challenged my idea that I'm not likeable or relatable.

To have a friend, you must be a friend. No reason you cant be choosy. But choose someone! I practice here on pc and it helps me in real life. It helps my confidence, and it helps my choices, and it helps my patience.

This is really good insight! You took ScarletPimpernel's input and applied it to your life in a way that made sense to you. You're on to something here.