In Session Today : Part III

I hope something does...there could always be cancellations (but I guess that would have to fit in with your work schedule...)

Session was yesterday...

I told T I have a secret regarding the thing we've been talking about. I told her I didn't want her to think I'm crazy. T said it would have to be my decision whether I wanted to tell her or not and she wasn't going to pressure me if I was uncomfortable. Then at the end, she asked how I was feeling. I told her I was paranoid about my secrets. She asked if I thought them coming out would hurt me. I said yes. She said maybe that's just what I'm thinking and that sometimes secrets hurt us because they're secrets. And when they're not secrets anymore, that's when things can start getting better. Then she said it takes a lot of energy to hold onto secrets.

weeirrrddd my T asked me about secrets in my session this week! she was like "do you have any secrets?" (rather randomly) and i was like "Uhh yeah, doesn't everyone?" she said that secrets probably feed into my depression, but i was all like "yeahhh don't care, not telling you." haha

Coincidentally my deepest darkest secret was part of my therapy session this week as well. My therapist kept pushing whittling it out of me bit by bit because it involved self-harm and I was very upset at him for doing that. We discussed it again yesterday and he said he kept pushing because it's part of wherever the hierarchy of therapy where you have to work on things that first ra threat to the person's life and then things that are the threat to helping therapy be successful whatever I know he means well.

Anyway he told me yesterday that secrets are like vampires. He said once you pull them out into the sunlight they turn to dust and blow away. Something like that. I still feel horribly embarrassed for him knowing my secret but according to him it's going to help therapy move along and help me start getting better faster than before we'll see.

OK, may as well fess up to this here. So I'd been feeling like my transference for MC was fading, have discussed it with T, and I was planning on discussing that some in this Monday's MC session (I'd sent MC brief e-mail asking a couple questions about it, he suggested discussing Monday). So then I went to the concert last week of a band who has a few songs I associate with MC. I ended up getting really emotional at the show (like tears streaming down my face), then afterward, sent the following e-mail to MC (warning: pathetic sappiness ahead!):

"I was just at a concert ([band name redacted to avoid potentially revealing my location]--not expecting you to know who they are!), and they have a couple songs they played that I associate with you. And I know you can't reciprocate this feeling, but I have to share it anyway, just to get it out.

I love you so much. Maybe I'm not supposed to, but I do. Like I said, I know you can't reciprocate that, and I know things tend to get a bit wonky when I express feelings like that to you, but I'll take that risk.

Please just take my feelings and hold them or whatever the term is. You don't have to explain why you can't reciprocate. Don't thank me for saying that, like you did once before, because that's like if I'm saying I like your shirt.

Just say that's it's OK that I feel these things. That you can contain them, or whatever the psychologically appropriate term is. We don't have to discuss it on Monday, or ever, just say it's OK? And yeah I know you don't want to reassure me and just want me to sit with the anxiety and not need you to say anything--i know that's the ideal, and I'm working toward that, but am not quite there yet, so at least just type me a two-word response of "it's OK." I'm not asking for any more than that.

Thanks,
LT"

The next morning, I added, "Should have clarified that it's platonic, not romantic."

He responded that afternoon with:
"Yes, of course it’s ok. But I feel like this is something that is not trivial and that it would probably be better to discuss it, either with me or with T."

Comforted by the first part, but a bit concerned by the second. Something about the use of "not trivial." (This isn't the first time I've shared love feelings with him, though, checking my e-mail, it's apparently been over a year.) Not sure if he's expecting us to discuss in session Monday (scared!), but I asked if we could possibly schedule a phone call in the next week or two to discuss (rather than him calling at some random, unexpected time like usual if I ask him to call--and I offered to pay).

So...clearly I was a bit premature in saying the transference was going away...

LT, is iit must confusing to have these feelings for MC?. Does your H feel sad about it or something else? I have some feelings like that for my T, until I stop and think about it playing out in real life and how I wouldn't even notice him at a party or gathering. Is it the process of confiding in them, that our love responds to but theirs doesnt bc they are not confiding in us? I am so confused about the role of emotion between a T and a client. I know in my clear mind my boyfriend is a much better fit, just as caring and intelligent, but in my heart I am pulled to this very traitor-like adoration for my T and think about him too much and his voice is impactful in my life beyond what seems normal. The fact of it- clients pining for T's, and T's having 20 or 30 people feeling that way about them. . . it is hard for me to stay with it.

(((Lt))) why do you want the transference to go away? Thats not how i use it. I use transference as my confidence - for big things or small things. I can stand up to other people because i know my t is standing behind me, supporting my decisions.

I never had that with my parents. What you said about your mom giving you the evil eye at the funeral last week when you mentioned your daughter - that reminded me SO MUCH of my mother and me at family gatherings. She would defend herself, saying she wanted to "make sure i wasnt saying something stupid". Dude, how are WE stupid?!

Emotionally bereft, maybe. But with such emotional underminers around us, emotional vampires, really. I would ask you to look at transference as a transfusion - giving you the love, the lifeblood the other adults in your life are sucking out of you.

So no, its not trivial. The incident with the dog, and others with your daughter, show us your husband doesnt really support you. He sounds like a pretty good, very involved dad, but idk - you need to do like an Outward Bound camping week or something to get your courage up, your inner sense of strength?

" I use transference as my confidence - for big things or small things. I can stand up to other people because i know my t is standing behind me, supporting my decisions."

I am not questioning that you use it for this = but this sort of thing is exactly why I do not understand anything about how most people use therapy. I don't know how it even comes up for you. The last being I would use for standing behind me supporting my decisions (and I don't know why I would want someone to do that to begin with) is a therapist. I do believe, from their literature, that is how a lot of them see themselves.
I doubt I have ever had any sort of positive transference for any therapist.

Thanks, SE. It's definitely confusing. H tries to be understanding--I think he was confused when I first revealed the transference, a couple years ago. But MC has done some explaining about it in sessions, so I think that's helped.

I think for me, part of it is feeling really understood by MC, which I didn't get from my parents' (particularly in terms of mental illness, like anxiety, etc.). I feel like he understands me better than anyone ever has. And I can tell he genuinely cares. It's further complicated here by the fact that, since learning the stuff about his wife (her illness, then eventual death about a year ago), it's like part of me also wants to take care of MC--which of course I can't...that's not my role. I think his looking sad when I talked Monday about my uncle's memorial may have sort of retriggered those caring-for-him feelings, too.

And I definitely get what you mean about feeling like a traitor to your significant other. It's especially difficult when I'm sitting there in session, and MC just seems to *get it* and H doesn't. Or in the past, if I've been upset, and MC is trying to (verbally) comfort me, and H is just sitting there. Of course MC isn't like that all the time in real life, and he's talked about that. He said at one point that in real life, he's an a**hole, and I wouldn't want to hang around him. But still, I hear ways he's described taking care of his kids when they had anxiety, and...(Of course, he's also talked about yelling at them). It's just such a complicated mix of emotions.

Yeahbbut youve said your parents were somewhat normal. Like, they talked to you like you existed. They purposely took you places? They willingly gave you things? This is why i cant understand why people have any sort of positive feeling towards relatives. To paraphrase Will Rogers, strangers are just people who have no built-in animosity towards me.

Thanks for understanding . This is so much where I am in my own way. I talk about secrets with my T I never told my ex husband or boyfriend or anyone at all. Inside the fifty minutes, he cares so much in the right way, his eyes fill up with tears or he "lends" me his anger he says. I'm fascinated by the intimacy of it all. But then he will admit he pushed too hard but time is up. I leave in tears( I rarely cry outside of this one space), and then it is like he forgets about me until next time. He has a wife and kids. I just get very confused if he does care, but it is like reading a chapter in a book and putting the book down when they client leaves. Meanwhile I go home and my boyfriend knows nothing of what I talked about with my T and I feel like I am living a double life, where I trust my T for than BF, whereas BF is probably the better man and is with me when T is no where to be found. I'm epically confused by the relationships.

I guess it's more that I want the dependence to go away, the neediness, the sitting here thinking, "Why hasn't he responded to my e-mail?" Thinking about him all the time.... I want to eventually feel OK with no longer seeing him. I thought I was getting to that point recently, but now not so sure... I mean, maybe this is just part of working through the end of it, being like, "OK it's going away--wait, no, I'm not ready, still really attached!"

Hm, that's one way to look at it...as more of a positive instead of a negative.

You have a good memory! (Oh, God, I sound like my T now...next I'll start responding to one of your posts with an empathic "Mmm"). H is a good dad and tries to be a good husband--I feel like much of it is on me, that I expect too much, that I'm too needy and demanding as a wife, that my expectations are too high...Hm, I wonder where those thoughts come from (see: my mother, above). And I feel like I could be a much better wife to him as well...

How much of that is the transference, though, and how much is your OCD? I think the two feed into each other, and maybe making some change in how the OCD is handled would help—different medication, focusing on it in therapy, because it causes issues in other areas of your life, too, I gather.

Ex-T definitely thought much of it was my OCD. For a long time, I was very defensive about talking about the OCD, not sure why--it feels like it has more stigma than anxiety or depression. Also because my mom would use things like, "You're being rather obsessive about x" as a really negative comment. And I got in trouble for some of my obsessive worries about health/contamination. OK, I guess I know why...But it almost seemed like ex-T was being critical of it, too, or saying the stuff for MC was just an OCD symptom, which to me suggested that it wasn't real feelings. (Then again, I also have negative maternal transference for ex-T, so...)

I've felt more comfortable talking about OCD stuff lately, though, and spent a good part of a session talking to current T about it. He just seems so much less judgmental about stuff--I think it's something in his delivery (and, the fact that I don't have negative maternal transference for him probably helps...). I often felt like ex-T was judging me, which made me more reluctant to talk about certain things.

Mostly talked to current T about the OCD in terms of contamination fears and stuff, but did touch on some of the obsessive thoughts. Should probably dive into that a bit more... And MC recently said he thought OCD might be behind my difficulty in completing tasks and staying organized because of the perfectionism aspect.

In terms of OCD meds, I'm under the impression (from what ex-T said and what I've read) that the one that works well for it is...hm, I can't think of name right now, but it's one of the older tricyclic antidepressants that is supposed to have tons of side effects. I'm currently on Zoloft (and have tried most other SSRIs, SNRIs, Wellbutrin, and a couple random other things, like Abilify and Lamictal). Some have helped a bit with anxiety and/or depression, but not so much the OCD. I do see my p-doc Thursday, so I'll bring that up with her.

(((LT))) Early on in my work with this t, he gave me a coffee mug before he went on vacation one time. I was like, when do i have to give this back to you? I had no sense of it being mine to keep.

Its not conditional. The way you keep asking, "will you still see me, even if i get attached?" kinda shows me that you dont get it either, or didnt get it. Your mothers love and approval at the funeral was conditional on you not saying "the wrong thing". Or so she would like you to believe. I finally had to accept that i could NEVER say the right thing to my mother or the immediate family. If it were truly conditional, we would at least have a chance. But its like Las Vegas - the house always wins.

So heck, just accept that you have it. How would it change your life right now? How it changes MY life is - i have to get off my butt and exercise or clean house or at least drink some water! I have to do something positive for myself. I cant complain that "nobody loves me, everybody hates me, im gonna eat some worms"

I emailed my T a while ago saying I love him and I want him to love me back lol

This has been my experience but the neediness and dependence only lessened when I agreed to restrict texts and emails with my T... And constantly asking him for the reassurance. I got to the point where I think I was creating crises and issues just to reach out to him and say I need him to tell me it's ok. You often say you're not quite there yet. In my case it just reinforced the neediness and dependence. If T and I had kept on texting like we were I would have never felt the little more independence I do from him.

Tapatalk not letting me quote. Those are for LT

Thanks, jDNA!

Yeah, I know I probably need to do that... but as you know, it's hard to break the habit. I can do better with it for a bit and not really contact him, then...fall back into it. And right now I'm sitting here wondering if he's going to respond to my e-mail(s) to say if he'd be open to a scheduled call in the next week or two or wants to discuss in session--and if it's session, if he could let me bring it up instead of putting me on the spot. And I know that if I don't hear anything tonight, I'll end up texting him something like, "Nervous about next session" tomorrow...

I think that's a good thing with new T that he charges for longer e-mails/texts/calls--it's keeping me from getting into bad habits. Yet he's still there if I REALLY need him, both if I am willing to pay for e-mail/text/call or to meet in person. He's generally able to schedule an earlier or extra session or half-session because his schedule is more flexible than MC's (smaller client caseload, since he also does some writing and stuff)--which, if it's the same cost, I'd certainly rather meet in person (plus then I can get 60% reimbursement from my insurance--not so much for a paid e-mail). So as much as I was somewhat annoyed by T's boundaries at first...now I get it. (I can still send him something really brief with no charge and say I don't really want a response, but I'm trying to avoid getting into that habit, too...)

Though...it occurs to me that the negative there is, if the only person I can really contact (for free) is MC...then maybe I'm actually relying on him *more*. Where before I was dividing it more between him and ex-T (at least sometimes).

He's also doing that intermittent reinforcement thing. You have to keep trying, but eventually (not consistently!) he will give you the response you're looking for. It's the same psychological principle that keeps people parked in front of slot machines. Intermittent reinforcement makes it much tougher to kick the habit.

Yes, exactly, great point--I was just thinking about something like this, though in terms of his reinforcing insecure attachment. I didn't know the psychological thing about intermittent reinforcement--interesting...and MC should know that! He probably doesn't consciously realize he's doing it though...(I know, I make too many excuses for him...)

I think he's trying to avoid reassuring me too much, so like you said, he's just doing it intermittently. Where I have to be like, E-mail 1: "I'm kind of worried/upset." E-mail 2: "OK, still worried/upset." Text: "Freaking out now!" Then he'll reply. Though other times he responds right away.... And sometimes he says exactly what I want/need to hear...and other times, it's "Let's talk in session" or some response that totally misses the mark/upsets me. And then...I mean, last week, I got an unexpected phone call in response to an e-mail (or 2)--sort of the equivalent of a jackpot, almost...

Lt, Youve got your ocd oranges and your attachment apples in the same basket, but -- okay, this metaphor started out okay, but im not sure where its going! Attachment is good; being ocd about it, not so good. Altho its a characteristic of "silent borderlines" to immediately attach to a t (totally what i do).

And maybe also reinforces freakouts?