I don't tell anything to my T

I dealt/deal with something that sounds similar. I didn't want him to be pleased or content that he was able to help me. I didn't want to give up the control that refusing him gave to me. I didn't want him to be happy for me or see me changing. I didnt want to be able to accept any of my desire for namby pamby weak "clingy" behavior. I wanted to keep him firmly shut out. I wanted to NOT want to see him. I didn't want to find any relief in his presence. I was full of bluster and bravado. On one level I completely meant all of it. But on another level it really was a lie. One he could see through, I am sure.

The first step for me was noticing the gap between those feelings and my rational thoughts. I had been showing up to faux-fight with this man on a regular basis. Even if I didnt WANT to want to talk to him and did not WANT to want to see him.... a very tiny part of me did. A mortifying part wanted connection. Gross. I was not happy about this.

I wasn't hurting T with the distance, but I was hurting that part of myself. And I am all "I HAVE MY OWN EFFING BACK BECAUSE I ONLY TRUST MYSELF AND SCREW THE REST OF YOU". So, what a disturbing discovery that I didn't always have my own back. Plus, how obvious is it that I did find him helpful, no matter how much I complained or tried to explain the small slice of what he was useful for to me. I would scorn and belittle others who wanted anything else from him. I would attack his froo-froo-ness. I needed him to know he was failing me. He needed to know I was too strong to fall into any of his little bs games intende to help me. I didn't need any of that. I was BETTER than that. I was smart enough not to fool myself into thinking my crap was important or of interest to anyone other than myself! I know how to not be annoying like those other self-absorbed fools! I am likeable because I don't need a damn thing. I am aware if the reality. Everyone should admire me for my lack of annoying need and imposition.

So I started by talking about why I didn't want to talk. Why I didn't want him to "win". Why I didnt want him happy for me, why I didnt want him to think he had made any impact on me. He understood it. He would repeat back that he knew I did not want him to have any importance to me. We still talk about this, as I still struggle.

It has gotten easier to admit to the feelings of wanting to share. I don't always like admitting it. His non-reaction helps. He tells me he does not find my desire to be closer to him to be horrifying and attention-mongering, yet he also understands that is how I often experience myself when those desires arise. He speaks to both sides of it. The part that wants the power and the control and the anti-need is still disgusted - and that is still the part that is usually present in session. But the part of me that WANTS to talk to him - the me that I am when I am alone, the me I often have trouble acknowledging -- that part feels relief at being heard during my sessions, even if it didn't really unfold in the manner that part of me would have preferred.

Hi, pbutton!!!

I saw my pdoc yesterday, we talked about my marriages in my twenties and i told him about how i had gotten married one weekend and told my t about it the following week and boy was she mad that i never even mentioned anything about it to her beforehand. I told pdoc, yeah i think the people at pc would be surprised to find out that i wasnt always this "i dont poop without telling my t about it" kind of person.

You know, strangely enough he was actually in some sense less revealing of himself. Now I recall that the first 3-4 months I couldn't sense him at all and he never reassured me in any way. For example if I told him how I see no point telling him anything (yep, the same theme occurred in some variation there too) because I mean nothing to him then he would never say that it's no true. He would rather say that I have such a bleak view of him. My T on the other hand would say that it's not true and that I'm important to him.

I think he was better able to sense my internal states at each moment and engage with those different states. My T does not understand by himself in which state I'm and either wants me to say it, to talk about it or he might ask a question about it and it annoys me terribly because I feel then that he talks about me but not to me.

It could be though that this other T reading my internal states so well was a lucky chance. It might be that if I demand anything like this from my T (especially considering that I don't tell him much about myself) then I'm really expecting him to read my mind, which is clearly unreasonable.

That's what I've been wondering as well. Never tried analysis myself. But last year when I was looking for a new T I met with several analysts, and even just an initial consultation "analysis-style" was much more than I could take.

I too feel that I have to connect with another person. They need to be "tangible" for me. I need the feedback, experience Ts personality etc. The analytical "blank slate approach" (to stay with the clichee) doesn't work for me. I need some input from outside in order to get things going inside of me. I need some encouragement that I'm progressing. I need reassurance whenever I'm feeling guilty because I got angry with her. I need to laugh with her about silly things. And I need her to show empathy when I am in despair. If I was constantly left hanging in midair all by myself I'd probably stop going altogether...

I know, all this is supposed to foster some degree of regression, to help you get in touch with your (younger) feelings.

But I'm regressing quite a bit in my sessions anyway, sometimes also dissociating, whenever things get difficult. So being in a therpy setting that actively fosters regression might be too much for me. Being in a regressive state and being thrown back onto myself without T intervening wouldn't work for me... I think I'd get stuck in some sort of eternal regression.

Just a thought. Have you ever actively tried some other T (non analytical)?

Before giving an update I wanted to come back and respond personally.

I started seeing him because I figured that there is something wrong with me. Something which I couldn't quite put a finger on. Something related to not being able to connect with people, feeling alienated, not understanding what intimacy is about.

And I guess I still see him because although I now understand better what was wrong, those things are not solved yet. I think I put myself through it because he sort of offers something that part of me wants terribly and that scares the hell out of another part of me.

I guess I am not quite there yet. I could announce it in one state of mind and in another state of mind completely ignore him if he would try to help me. I guess I'm trying to figure out how would it feel to be in the place you describe and how to tolerate it.

Thank you very much! I think you summarised the situation very accurately. Of course it echoes my childhood, I grew up with my mother and father, they separated when I was 10 or so. There was no physical abuse, but I was totally emotionally neglected from the very early age. From that early age that I never even remember loving my mother and father, I had no emotional connection to them and although they were not intentionally cruel, I was basically invisible and became only visible when they wanted something from me (to do chores or something) and my mother also used to unload her anxiety on us children - she would frequently shout to us because we had done something wrong or hadn't done something that should have been done and to me it always came unexpectedly. From the early age I tried to separate from them as much as I could. There was no one else in my life either, so I had no idea that there are things like trust, closeness etc.

But the problem is, those child feelings emerge and they emerge together with needy feelings. I'm ok with that but it's very hard to tie them with my past in emotional level, because I experience such needy and loving feeling for the first time in my life. I have no earlier memories to direct them back to because as I said, I don't remember any such feelings in relation to my mother or father or any person from my childhood. So, I intellectually know that these feelings come from my childhood and they belong there but there is no hook to tie them to emotionally.

Yes, he is very patient indeed. I don't know what it is. Certainly it is some sort of defence but I'm not sure what I'm defending against. I'm not defending against the needy and attachment feelings because these are no secret in my therapy, they have been talked about a lot.

I think it's more about really experiencing connection with another person. It seems that in order to go further I have to let him in and as I have literally never let anyone in this is so scary that I do anything to not let it happen. This is not conscious 'scary' but rather unconscious one. I don't feel scared but I find myself being incredibly offensive, blocking everything. I'm afraid that I'm willing to rather ruin my therapy than to let it happen. So in that sense I think I very much depend on him in that he can skilfully manage this situation that the treatment will not get broken and that we somehow get further.

I can't talk about this feeling when I'm feeling it because talking about it would require some amount of co-operativeness which I don't possess at that moment.

I think this situation is a complicated amalgam of my younger self and what and how my T is doing in my sessions. I admit that is is mostly me but as some feelings (especially those good attachment feelings) are new to me (I wrote about it above) then although I know that my T-s role is symbolic here I feel it would be wrong to cancel him out of this equation.

I agree that the pressure doesn't help. But I can't imagine how my adult self could help. Ok, it can help in that sense that I'm writing here right now but when I'm in those other states then I know nothing of my adult state and I don't even care about it. In fact, I'm not sure my adult self has ever gone to therapy after the first introductory sessions. I don't even know how to go there as an adult. Also, it would probably feel as a waste of time and money because my adult self does not need help, I don't have problems I couldn't solve myself.

Thank you, I think it is accurate. Although I don't have any toilet training stories and I basically have no stories at all because my parents hardly remember anything from my childhood because they were so consumed with their own stuff I agree that this is a fight with my mother. I guess I hate her so much and although I can now intellectually already admit it (took me years), emotionally admitting it feels still impossible because it would mean that I needed her but when I think of her I feel contempt and disgust. How could I admit that I needed a person who did not love me and whom I find unpleasant and unsympathetic?

Huh, I will come back later and continue ...

Oh i also wanted to say - i had to "hit bottom" financially, emotionally, all kindsa ways - and tell myself, if i ever get out of this situation, i will be SO OPEN to my t - and it STILL took me those 3-4 years. It just felt very dangerous.

But that danger is just an illusion or something. I had lunch this week with a friend ive known for 30 plus years, and every time - since ive been working with current t - every time with my friend is better and more open. Its just amazing. Im a different person. Maybe she cant tell, but i sure can.

I could be dissociating. I go in there and my mind get's blank, as if I had no thoughts or feelings.

I understand that the most constructive thing to do would be to talk about that experience. I would give the suggestion too. But when in that situation I can't because talking about this experience would already assume a different state of mind. Talking about it feels like betraying myself and giving in to him.

Yeah, I'm playing with this thought of not going all the time but it doesn't give me the feeling of winning. I mean he is potentially offering me many good things and then I couldn't have any of them. I do regularly tell him though that I might not come back after the summer break and when he tells me that I have to tell it to him at least few weeks earlier so we could process the ending then I say that "no, I don't have to tell you anything in advance". Basically, I understand that I want him to suffer. I want the work with me to be hard for him. I want it to have a real effect on him. I want to see what does he do when I make it super hard for him - does he tolerate it with me or does he eventually give up and abandon me?

I've had two therapists. In a milder form the same thing happened with the other therapist too but he was somehow more skilful to not let it escalate. Or maybe this other T held me more tightly because he knew our time would be limited and if I had been his long-term patient he would have let this whole process unroll more? Who knows.

Thanks for suggestions but I don't think I can do those things, at least not yet. There are sessions when things are different and we are even able to talk about some things but all my state of minds are quite separate. If I am in one state of mind then this is all that is and I feel no connections to other state of minds.

Sometimes I am in a sort of baby state of mind, where I am able to connect emotionally but have no words. Then my T just talks to me and I'm listening, it doesn't matter then what he talks, I just listen the sound of his voice but I have no words to say anything back.

The problem with writing is that I write in one state of mind and when I go into my session then I'm probably in a different state of mind. Thus, there is no way I would tolerate reading the stuff I've written because I can't connect to feeling and thinking that way anymore.

Thanks for your experiences, it all makes sense to me. For the first two years I actually went in every day with a plan to do such things - to come out with a realisation that I'm not able to. Then I abandoned this idea that I should be able to share when it feels impossible. Now I go in without any clue or expectation which state of mind I end up being or what is going to happen.
Actually, I have been thinking that maybe what is happening is a form of free association, a strange form but still.

The problem with sharing is that I have been very inwardly oriented most of my life, I don't have the need to share, I can live without it. So when I go to my session, I don't feel the wish to share. I'm not sure I gain anything from sharing, while my T would get a feeling of being an accomplished T. Sure, it's only the half-truth because obviously I have parts that want to share. But how to access them through these hostile states and what do they want to share?

I don't really need the feel to share anything that happens in my adult life. I am fully functional, successful in my job, I have a good relationship with my H (although it lacks physical and emotional intimacy) but we connect very well on intellectual and spiritual level. I share the things from my real adult life with my H and I don't feel any need to discuss those things with my T. So, what is it that I could want to share with my T in those various child states?

You suggest books, poems, music, art and such things. As a thought it makes sense but these are parts of my adult life and I feel that it's none of his business what I like. And my child parts don't really care about such things.

I don't know, I have somehow very cleverly separated myself up and defined in very strict terms what can be related to therapy and what not. So cleverly that I have really hard time untying this knot

Yep, it does come from my FOO. I was basically invisible there. I actually still feel invisible most of the time. Only when I do something or when I accomplish something I become visible but even then it is not me but the thing I did or achieved. I guess I still can't comprehend and experience that my T is there for me and not for feeling accomplished as a therapist. I don't think I am able to truly experience that he sees me. I think I believe that I could tell him any BS or put on any mask and he wouldn't be able to make any difference because I am inherently invisible.

You know, I think we have actually talked about it. I don't think that anything I've written here is any kind of secret in my therapy. I believe that in one or the other form it all has been talked about at some point. Apparently it's not enough. Just talking about things doesn't shift things in me. And I think I know why. It is because my emotions and thoughts are very separate.

When I talk I basically don't feel, everything goes through intellect. I can leave an impression of being empathetic but I basically emulate it with thinking. You can't get to the true empathy this way (which is something I have no experiences with) but you can get surprisingly far with such an emulation.

So, in my therapy, when I am talking, then it is highly likely that I'm cut off from my feelings. However, when I feel then everything is so messy inside me and I can't talk. Then the feelings come out in actions because this is the only way I can "talk" about them.

Yes, this is correct. Unfortunately I have no idea how to demonstrate to this part that it is safe being close to him. I think it can only happen through experience but the struggle is how to get that experience when this part tries to avoid it at all cost.

Of course I am

I'm glad talking your stuff through here has worked for you. I think for me these things are complementary. PC certainly doesn't replace the T because I write here in a very different state of mind than I go to T and the work needs to be done in those child states that I'm in therapy. Here I can talk about stuff intellectually and this is something I'm already good at. Although it is good to experience that people are willing to think about my stuff and say something about it. I guess this experience is also very important to me because it contradicts my feeling of being invisible.

As I wrote, I've played with this thought many times but haven't come to the conclusion that it would be the right thing to do. First of all because I have no illusions that in general therapy with anyone could be easy with me, secondly there are not that my options that satisfy my criteria for a therapist and I can't be sure that the options there are would be any better than my current T because realistically he is a very good T.

I also realise from a state of having ever trusted anyone to reach a state where you really feel the trust to someone can realistically take a lot of time. I have no previous experiences (from childhood) to build on, this is all new stuff that has to emerge somehow.

So, yeah, I believe that the topic of changing T-s will come up again and again, until I do it because I become convinced that this is what I should do or the experience of trust will emerge somehow.

I want to come back and read through your response more closely as there has been many things that touched an accord with me. I wanted to jump in with these things... I started out sharing those things from an adult perspective because I didn't/don't have anyone in my life that I truly feel safe sharing what I like. Even with my wife I fear a level of ridicule for liking something or feel I will be challenged with a need to justify or explain my liking it. So, being able to share that something touches me, just because it does, is a big thing for my adult self. So, big difference between you and I. However, here is where it might get more similar - as I have progressed through my journey, I have started to allow my child states to come out and have a voice. With that, I have started going to children's section of the library and looking through everything from board book to chapter books. I pick up whatever strikes an fancy without analyzing it, without questioning it, ect. I also will go in with an agenda - my child self wants to hear from T something that it wished it got from mommy (and yes, there is maternal transference in my case). Hearing my T's voice is very important to me and sometimes, that is what I need more than anything I could talk about.

So, I challenge you to look inside and see if your child selves really don't have likes that they care about - maybe it's movies, games, toys... they exist, so they must have a voice, they must have things they are drawn to, things they hope for and want.

That is exactly how I felt about my former T! I don't have a solution, but if it helps, I can tell you that your story echoes mine, albeit in an extreme fashion. I would talk to my T, but I wasted a lot of time avoiding my real issues and especially annoying her (which I took great pleasure in doing!) rather than working on anything meaningful. I also felt very strongly that I didn't want to give her any satisfaction from working with me because that would, indeed, mean that she somehow "won." I have no insight as to why, and it didn't end well, but my feelings were similar to the ones you describe. I hope you find a resolution or at least a little peace in knowing that you're not alone. Best wishes.

Wow, I can relate very much with the experiences you are describing. Becoming a different person as soon as walking into the theraists office, wanting to share my issues with him but when I'm there I'm just stuck in a state of no thought and escalating anger, becoming this angry child with him and are discussions being around that, me resisting. It just all sounds so familiar...
I don't feel well now, but I want to come back later to this thread and add some more thoughts about this.

I wanted to say thanks again to everyone who responded. I have had 5 sessions since I wrote this post and if left some responses unanswered then not because I would not have appreciated them but rather that things have changed (as they always do, right).

I wanted to give some update of what has been happening. Basically the situation culminated last Wednesday when the situation was the same the whole session, I was very hostile and only argued with T. However, somehow the session ending seemed very abrupt and I felt unable to leave because I felt like I was moving with some speed due to inertia and the session ending required me to stop and I couldn't. I put on my coat and sat down again and said something about that I have made the T up and so I have made up everything he says and so I don't really have to listen to him. He tried to convince me couple of minutes to leave but I wouldn't listen. Finally he said that if I don't leave now then he will lift me out (he had the next patient coming in few minutes). At this moment I got in touch with my feelings and I started to cry. I begged him to lift me out because it seemed to me that if he does that then I can choose not to come the next day. Otherwise I felt that I'm trapped to come. So he opened the door, lifted me up and directed out of the door. I did not try to fight him. I actually calmed down.

At first I thought that I will not go to my Thursday sessions because I couldn't imagine feeling safe. It seemed to me that if I go anything can happen and it felt safer not to go. Somehow however, by the evening I realised that me not leaving and his lifting me out has changed the dynamic and I felt that probably I can keep myself safe, or if things don't feel safe I figured I might be able to leave.

So I went in Thursday expecting T wanting to talk about what happened the previous day. But I don't know, something truly had changed - both in me and in him. For the first time over months we were able to talk. I told him that this is what I am today but I have no idea who I am when I come back next week. T said that he knows that and that he does not prefer one part to another, he said that he is happy and willing to work with any part that shows up.

So this week things have been calmer. The sessions have started in the old fashion, with me being first silent and then argumentative when he tries to engage with me but I feel he is doing something different now or I am more receptive to something or I don't know. For instance today I was able to get in touch and express some of the pain that probably comes from a very early age and during this process I felt firmly held by him.

Anyway, I hope we now get some good work done before his long summer holiday that starts in less than 2 months.

That's awesome.