[Mouse_]

I've survived by believing T adores me, that I am the most special person in her life, that she could spend all her life with me.

Now the pendulum has swung the other way and I see through that delusion. Now I see her sitting there mildly amused at my delusions.

How could I have been so stupid to believe myself that special?

The shame that the delusion fends off is deep and intense.

Now I feel like I am conteminated and see my own self loathing in the eyes of T.

I don't want to go Monday with this inner knowledge.

Part of me feels like standing on a roof top and jumping, because there is nothing left.

If not special and wanted, then what?

Oh how could I have been so stupid.

These feelings are coming UP from deep inside of me, fanned by memorys of adoptive mum's critical statements.

I don't know where to go from here. But as I type that my head says, "go through it".

Is this the valley of the dead one has to go through to reach the light?

Surely I cannot be evil personified? There must be some middle ground?

You're not alone! It's difficult when you stop idealizing your T. It's at that point that you are forced to realize that their life does not center around yours. I am going through the same thing - at it really hurts and is difficult to take at times. I've read that this means you are progressing, but it sure doesn't feel like it, does it?
Take care!

[Mouse_]

Is that what is happening also? I am also not seeing T in the same way I did before?

That makes sense too, the shame of moving away from her too?

I guess if it didn't go right first time in childhood than yes it would be painful now too?

I need to think about this.

[MissCharlotte]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
How could I have been so stupid to believe myself that special?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> But, of course, you are special to us, to you and to T--you would not feel that way if you weren't loved on some level. I'm sure T loves you, and that the child Mouse has enjoyed the comfort of her caring!!

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Now the pendulum has swung the other way and I see through that delusion. Now I see her sitting there mildly amused at my delusions.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
This sounds like the adult Mouse is realizing her growth, although the other is not a delusion, it's real.
</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
How could I have been so stupid to believe myself that special?
The shame that the delusion fends off is deep and intense.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
(((((Mouse))))) When we feel this intense shame, it's disabling, to say the least. This is the reliving of the trauma of your adopted mother's criticism. It's not you at this present time!
</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Part of me feels like standing on a roof top and jumping, because there is nothing left.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> Oh Mouse, I so get this feeling. I have similar fantasies from the feelings of shame.
</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Is this the valley of the dead one has to go through to reach the light?
Surely I cannot be evil personified? There must be some middle ground?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
No, you are not evil. But I do believe you have reached an important insight. I think we have to die psychologically in order to grow. This could be an important time of growth for you.

(((((Mouse)))))

Take gentle care. I know you are in a lot of pain.

Hey. I think that your therapist can like you very much indeed and care about you a bunch and that you can be very special to her even if you aren't *the* most special person in her life. I'm reminded of this song with a line 'because you're special... just like everybody else'. not *everybody* else, of course, but there can be some people in life who are important to us. and i'm sure you are one of those people for your therapist because you have spent a lot of quality time with her really opening up to her.

> If not special and wanted, then what?

oh, but you are.

i'm getting this mental picture. toddler. mother leaves the room for a bit and the toddler feels upset. eventually the toddler manages to get into something. figures out how to do something. dunno what. jumping off of something successfully or managing to make something. mudpie. then mother comes back and toddler runs up to mother with mudpie all happy and proud. and mother...

disaproval.

shame.

does it feel a little like that kinda?

(its okay if i'm way off base)

[Mouse_]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>

I think we have to die psychologically in order to grow. This could be an important time of growth for you.



</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Yes that makes sense. Thank you for your post ((sister))

[Mouse_]

AK, Yes the shame feels as intense as that and wonder if T had done or been different somehow on my return to T to insigate this reaction? I wanted to say to her that she feels different when I went back too T this week, but guessed it must just be me. I don't know, do T's do sutle things to bring about change? reactions?

well... i remember you used to really idealise your therapist a great deal. and of course there isn't anything wrong with that. i idealise my therapist quite a lot at times too. idealisation can be about... merging with a powerful figure. safety. things like that. but then... oftentimes the transference evolves into something a bit different. as one feels safe and merged one starts to need to assert ones independence. more of a mirroring transference, i guess. less about idealising and more about mirroring. having someone take pleasure and pride in our individuality and in our individual achievements. 'the gleam in the mothers eye'.

t went away. and you coped. oh yes you did. you got through that.

maybe... if your mother responded with disaproval to you asserting your independence... maybe... if your mother wasn't able to take pride in your individual achievements... then maybe she responded to your achievements with condenscending or disaproval or something like that. maybe... you are afraid that your therapist will similarly respond to your independence and need for mirroring (rather than idealising) with rejection / shame? so maybe... you are starting to prepare yourself for the inevitable rejection? maybe...

[Perna]

Don't forget that pendulums are not the "center" of where the "truth" is. I think your unhappiness at your "narcissism" is just the opposite of your belief that you are so very important to your T. The Truth is different but I think you are definately on the right road! I liked where I got at the "end" and my relationship to my T (and to myself!) at that time.

[Mouse_]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Perna said:
I liked where I got at the "end" and my relationship to my T (and to myself!) at that time.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Perna, could you expand on this?

[spiritual_emergency]

<blockquote>
Mouse: I've survived by believing T adores me, that I am the most special person in her life, that she could spend all her life with me.

I'm reminded of a portion of my own experience wherein I really needed to believe that this one person cared deeply for me and loved me. I was in such a painful place at the time and suspect if I hadn't been able to cling to that belief -- that someone, somewhere, loved me at a time when I felt so very unlovable -- I never would have made it.

Fortunately, that individual did care about me sincerely, although probably not with the same intensity as those moments in my experience implied. I can see that now and sit comfortably with it, while also feeling grateful that I had that sense of being loved at that time. Letting go was a process however. I'm reminded of this passage...

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>

... the energy is gradually reclaimed, in the same way as a snail's stalks, or the leaves of some touch-sensitive plants tentatively re-emerge or unfold after they've been touched. Similarly, the soul's energy doesn't need to be yanked back, or forcefully torn away from its attachment. It needs gentleness and slow movement, not sudden jolting or other forms of hasty retrieval.

Through my own experiences of grief, loss and wounding, and though being privileged to share the painful experiences of others, I have learned that the soul lets go when in the kairos of its own time-frame it is ready to. It undergoes a gradual transition from acknowledging the soul-bond, to relinquishing dependency and belongingness, to acknowledging the reality of separation. The soul, like a child, must in such times be weaned off, because its vulnerability and woundedness so often belong to the Puer, the eternal child archetype of trust and openness that has more often than not drawn it into the situation in the first place. The hopeful and idealistic Puer, earthed and sometimes shocked through the harsh facts of human relatedness into the realm of Soul, thereby becomes, if it accepts its lot with growth in understanding and no bitterness, the willing victim of a sometimes painful reality.

Source: Embracing the Fragmented Self



</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

[Perna]

You are just getting to know yourself (and your T). That will increase and you will get to know and love yourself more and more and know your T (and love her more and more :-) better as an individual and it will all come out "even" and balanced. You know how you wish for your "good" birth mother and how it almost matches how much you wish for your T? BOTH of those lessen the more you "have"/become "yourself". I terminated with my T in 2005 and "miss" her but just like I miss others I've "lost" in the past; lots of the "investment" of myself in them has been recouped into myself. I know who I am (for the most part, still working on that :-) and am happy/comfortable there and when "bad" things happen can count on myself and my own counsel and know I will live through them, regain my center/balance, etc. Bad things still hurt but I can stay with them when they are happening and so they don't fester/get infected but truly "heal" and the scars are minimal.

[Mouse_]

SE, and Perna, Thank you both! very useful input. Infact this whole thread has helped me tremendously! Thank you

[wisewoman]

Oh Mouse, the first feeling for someone who was neglected emotionally, physically is shame. And that shame is so deep it takes a while to work through it to get to a point of seeing yourself as worthy and asking to get your needs met. It's big stuff and I would guess your T is pulling for you.

[sunrise]

This is a very rich thread. Lots of wisdom here.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
How could I have been so stupid to believe myself that special?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
I know others have said this, but Mouse, you are special! And I am sure your T believes you are too. It is not a delusion. You can be very very special to your T without your being the only thing that is special to her. Just because she has others (family, friends, clients) in her life in no way changes that you are special to her.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
I don't know where to go from here. But as I type that my head says, "go through it". Is this the valley of the dead one has to go through to reach the light?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
Maybe. Therapy is hard work and sometimes we have to go places that are not easy and that we wish we had kept buried deep within. I have been going through some deep pain recently in therapy. My T commented last time that he had seen my "existential anguish" and it made me feel really recognized and validated that he had "noticed." It doesn't make it easier to go through, but somehow I felt a little better when he said that. Does your T recognize what you are going through?

spiritual emergency, I really liked your post on the Soul.

[Mouse_]

I emailed T twice yesterday...I normally only email twice in a whole yr...the first one was apologising for anger I had displayed and the 2nd one was apologising for "using" her..she replied saying its ok to email her to get the help I need and that she doesn't feel I've used her unappropriately and really doesnt "get" that I have acted as special...I guess so many fantasys going in my head that I felt could be "seen" by her..then I realise that all my fears and shame go on in my head...I am the prisoner...the villian and the judge all wrapped up together and back down in the real world there's T sitting there and unaware of all this going on in my mind...I really do need to sit and listen to my head during the session and verbalise it...I think thats where the work needs to be done...

[withit]

I agree with verbalizing our thoughts/feelings in session, as doing so helps to process them within a therapeutic relationship.

Like my t could be sayin something and I'll say, 'I am having a reaction to what you are saying.' I don't really know what the reaction is but I do feel kind of a barrier going up, or I feel a hint of anger, etc.

It helps when one can express these thoughts and feelings right then and there. A big prob for me and I guess others is that our heads are a bit clouded while in session and it takes us some time to say, 'hey, I was feeling angry in session, what was that all about? I'll talk about it next time...' I'm still working on haveing the immediate awareness. sigh.

[Perna]

My T taught me to "check my heart". Much better than listening to the head games I was playing with myself. The heart doesn't lie/play games or go in circles or invent stuff.

I had a wonderful dream, the crux of it was I was trying to pick up two full bags of groceries off the hood of a truck which was slightly too high. I picked up one bag in one arm then went to pick up the other bag in the other arm and the first one tipped and everything felt as if it were going to go over/spill. But then my body and balance took over automatically (without my head telling it what to do :-) and that whole "feeling" of natural balance and how I hadn't been able to get in my own way using my idiot head. . . was what I took with me out of the dream.

By all means I would tell your T what is going on in your head, but only when it is threatening to get in the way of your relationship and heart work. You know well now how you feel about your T and the work you are doing; when some "other" feeling surfaces, stop. Stop and look at that. I put in your other post that I found it hard to believe you were quitting therapy and I wasn't trying to be "smart" or mean or anything; I think you have enough hold of the process now Mouse that you can't go "back" anymore, only forward. Definately talk about what gets in your way going forward but use all the memories and insights, etc. that you have, which have shifted the balance, the "critical mass" so you're "over the hill." Ultimately you will have to be the one to "tame" your head games. What they are exactly isn't what's important as your battle to weed them out and show them to be false protection. You've used them so long it will be hard to banish them but you have the real relationship with your T to put opposite them.

I started when I was complaining to my T about the "group" of men in my head telling me ugly things. She replied simply, "Tell them I don't believe they exist." I imagined that and it is a funny scenario to this day as she is a tiny woman and I could just picture their "anger" and imagine any fight that would ensue. My laughter at the image made them "go away" and I haven't heard from them since :-) Definately "use" your T! You're a fulcrum and she's the other end of the beam countering the weight of your past. Ah, here's some people with good illustrations:

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/...es/fulcrum.jpg

http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/cou.../balance_2.gif

[Mouse_]

I don't think I'd throw therapy away either. Though at the time it seems like the only way out of the confusion.

I think going back to T after the 5 week break has caused delayed reaction. Its only NOW that I am realising T wasn't there during the break, and the guilt I feel at some level for actually enjoying the time away, when I've only ever focused on the feelings around missing her.

I feel like I have taken a step away, but need to go back and look for her, but resenting ever so slightly being put back in the pushchair again (methaphorically speaking)

I want to run free, but also have T there, but maybe not looming so largely.

During the break, I was able to deal with things at my own pace, now I feel its gone to fast already. Need to get back into the rhyme of therapy again.

I think it's so interesting the way many of us have had such an intense post-vacation reaction to therapy. I, too, had been sort of resting on calm waters for the 2nd week of my Ts absence up until last session. The waters were so calm, in fact, that it was disturbing to me. I am used to living in extremes so not feeling anything can be quite uncomfortable.

I know for me there was also a really scary realization (that I have not yet shared with T) that I was able to make it through the two weeks he was gone. I survived on my own. What does that mean? That I don't need him? That I still do, but held at a distance?