[sunrise]

I'm still feeling pretty good and T can tell. He said again this week at our session, it is OK to smile! (I guess I try to hold it in.)

I have spent so much time in therapy being reflective, searching for motivations and meanings behind my "stuckness" in life, and searching for ways to solve my problems. Now I have actually solved some of them and more of them will be dropping off my map in the coming months. So T is turning the conversation to the future. What will replace the problems in my life? I have focused so much energy on the problems and my misery. How about focusing energy on the positive stuff I want to take the place of the problems? That all sounds good, but it's somehow hard for me. Doesn't it seem like that would be easier than dealing with awful problems? Like maybe it should even be fun? But instead, I am threatened by it. I am not used to spending time on positive things for myself. It feels almost sinful to allow myself to plan out good stuff for myself. I don't know how to do it. T asks about my hopes and dreams for myself. Not for my daughters or others, but for myself. Like career, relationships, hobbies, spirituality, something. Just something! But I don't know how to do this. He has suggested something along these lines a few times in our year together, but I always deflect him and change the subject. Before, I felt, I can't do that, I need to solve my problems first. But I can't keep using that excuse. And I think T rightly sees a vacuum coming in my life, when a lot of the bad is gone, but there is nothing to fill it. Maybe he's trying to head off depression at the pass.

We have been together a year now, and I mentioned this to T. He can't believe it has been a year, and neither can I. He says, "you're still like a new client to me." How so? He says it is still fresh, and we are both still learning. Then he says, "I love being here with you. I love spending time with you here." And that is so very very positive and warm that I can't handle it and dissociate. I know there were some other great parts to this part of the conversation, but I just went bye bye. It was like the flood of positive emotions when he said that was just too great, and I departed in order to hold it together. That is strange to me, because I have dissociated in session before when something was too painful for me to tolerate, but never when something was too good. I think, in its own way, something too good can be very painful. Does that make sense? Has anyone else had this happen? It is actually really annoying to me because I would like to have this memory.

We also talked about depression, as it has been on my mind a lot. I keep posting about it in different forums here on PC. I've been thinking about how depression would not be such a prevalent human behavior unless it had some intrinsic advantage and value that allowed it to be selected for evolutionarily. I'm coming to see that depression has served a function in my life. It makes me feel better about having been depressed--I was responding to life circumstances as I was supposed to, as thousands and thousands of years of evolution have said I should respond. I talked about behavioral studies on rats with which T was not familiar, but he really enjoyed this conversation and interjected his insights here and there. My depression helped me conserve energy and resources in a hopeless situation, saving them for better days ahead, which, I think, is now. I don't need to be depressed anymore. T says being depressed allowed me to stay in the marriage. I hadn't thought of it that way. There was a lot of value to staying together, especially for our kids. I am finding meaning where I did not expect it.

This was a strange session. T is on vacation next week, so 2 weeks between sessions for me. I am OK with it. I need a lot of time to process and get used to the scary idea that I am supposed turn my energy outward.

[Perna]

Did you see "Runaway Bride" where she didn't know how she liked her eggs and then cooked them all ways to check it out? You have to do that with what you want; check things out one at a time. You trying roller blading next week while your T is away?

[confused4ever]

I can relate you the me thing, to do things for me. My T has been talking about it also, finding something for me, not my family not my kids, not my siblings, but something I want to do, he always asks me what I wanted to do growing up, do you want to go back to school, finish your degree? Do you want to travel, is there anything that you have always wanted to do, and didn't!!! I have a hard time with this also, I have never ever done for me! I told him it scares the hell out of me to take that first step, how do you do something for yourself when you don't know how!!! So I hear what your saying. I know when I am ready to make that step that I will, right now I feel like a kid on her first day of school!!!

[Mouse_]

Sunrise, what a great place to be! I think you just described what recovery is all about! Well done.

[lauren_helene]

Sunrise, maybe the dissociating part for you is that focusing on the future = eventual ending of therapy? Could that be?

[sunrise]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
almeda24fan said:
Sunrise, maybe the dissociating part for you is that focusing on the future = eventual ending of therapy? Could that be?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">I didn't dissociate when we talked about the future. I dissociated when we were talking about our relationship, when he said, "I love being here with you. I love spending time with you here." I think getting that intense package of positivity and warmth and love from him was just painful, in its own way. It was like A LOT! It engendered in me similar positive feelings. I managed to rather pathetically squeak out, "me too." (How lame is that?) Even after a year, there is till a bit of the boundary dance between therapist and client going on, at least on my part. Somehow it felt a little "forbidden" when I felt that rush of warmth toward him in response to his words. I think there is some subtext to that, along the lines you suggested, almedafan. Like, man, it is so hard to feel so close to someone when I know it is temporary, that in the next year or so, it will end. That's painful. But nevertheless, I don't want him to withhold his feelings from me just because my response may be painful, because it's also positive and healing. It's a tricky thing, a close relationship. You have to be open to it in order for it to be healing, but yet, there is also the potential for pain, so you have to fight yourself to not protectively withdraw.

As far as focusing on the future, it is like confused said. I just don't know how to do that because I have put everyone's needs before mine for so many years. And it is one thing to share problems with my T. I am comfortable viewing a therapist as someone who helps me with my problems. But sharing my dreams and hopes? That is hard! Like maybe he will say they are stupid or laugh. (I know that is just plain stupid, but still, I feel it. I think I have been laughed at and belittled a lot in my past, as a child, for expressing my true desires, so I keep them to myself or don't even allow myself to have them.)

Perna, I like the idea of cooking eggs different ways until I find out the way I like them best. I know this sounds kind of minimal, but I have been trying to focus on me more in at least one way: improving my health. I've been going to the doctor and dentist to take care of longstanding problems. I've been trying to change my diet to get my blood pressure under control (I am having success with this!), and I've been trying to lose weight (15 pounds down since Feb.). These things may not be fulfilling any kind of dream I have or even be fun, but they are things I am doing just for me.

[lauren_helene]

How could I have missed that part!! I love being here with you, wow I love that he said that to you Sunny!!

I agree with you on not wanting them to withhold their feelings painful or not. Of course, I love the good feelings better.

More and more my T sees that I need this from him. Last session, I was talking about how I was trying to make him prove that he cares for me over and over and said I see that pattern in my outside life too with my dad and husband.

He said "I do care about you" and I said "I know that now".

Although there is a part of me that wonders...is everything that happens in the therapy room true or is it part of the therapy? How do we know the difference?

I guess that could be a thread all by itself.

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Although there is a part of me that wonders...is everything that happens in the therapy room true or is it part of the therapy? How do we know the difference?

I guess that could be a thread all by itself.

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

Wow, I have wondered that as well.I asked T, "How much of this is transference and how much if it is a real relationship?" I told T last week that therapy seems like a million circles all overlapping and intertwined with each other-- and that I wish I could just grab one circle out of the mess and hold onto it for myself-- so that I would know that at least one part is completely true and I wouldn't have to question it or examine its multiple meanings.

Forgive me for my bizarre visual analogies, but I tend to think in pictures a lot of the time.

[sunrise]

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almedafan wrote:I agree with you on not wanting them to withhold their feelings painful or not. Of course, I love the good feelings better.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
What was hard to handle was in this instance it was both intensely good, but painful too.

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pinksoil said:I asked T, "How much of this is transference and how much if it is a real relationship?"

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
We have talked about this in therapy too, and T has assured me we do have a real relationship. I believe him. It feels real to me. So strong--how can it not be real? The time is coming when I will be seeing T outside of the therapy room for his other role in my life. I'm feeling kind of apprehensive about this, like how can I see him outside of his room? Will our relationship still exist outside of the room? Well, if it's real, then it must, right? Or maybe we will be strangers outside of the room. I'm even thinking I would like to "practice" with T by going outside the room with him before the first of our outside meetings. Do you think he would think me entirely crazy if I proposed to him, during one of our regular sessions, that we go outside? I think this would be really helpful to me and would help me deal with the upcoming "outside" meetings. Or will he just look at me when I suggest this and say, "you are so weird, sunny."

I liked the circles thing, pink. Just grab hold of one!

[MissCharlotte]

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Although there is a part of me that wonders...is everything that happens in the therapy room true or is it part of the therapy?

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

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
"How much of this is transference and how much if it is a real relationship?"

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

I used to think about this, ladies, but several months ago, T just looked at me one day and said, "This is real." (hmmm I had forgotten that, I'll have to add it to the "favorites" thread.)

I think the whole package is real. The therapy is real. The relationship is real. Our feelings are real. There is no separation. It's the real deal, just different from anything we've experienced before.

[lauren_helene]

Good, it feels real to us so it should be real

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sunrise said:
Do you think he would think me entirely crazy if I proposed to him, during one of our regular sessions, that we go outside?

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

Of course when I read this, for some reason all I read was, "Do you think he would think me entirely crazy if I proposed to him?" and then I realized there was still an entire part of the question that I was missing, lol.

I was going to say, "Sunny, I know you guys are taking a new direction, but I think this might be a little too much to start with."

[MissCharlotte]

((Sunny))

I have had the fantasy of asking T if we could go for a walk.

On some level could you be apprehensive of the deeper work that now appears to be looming? Would a change in location take you out of the hot seat? I only ask because I think that is part of my motivation when I want to be elsewhere with T. For me, it's the fear of the unkown on the horizon--right where it belongs and where I want it to stay!

These transition times are both joyful and terrifying. Big hugs.

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((Sunny)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[Perna]

I doubt they will leave their little rooms for a walk; I couldn't even get a story out of my T. We kept discussing that over the course of 9 years as I was very sad and resentful she wouldn't tell me a story and towards the end of the 9 years she said in one such discussion, "Oh, that kind of story!"

I think they figure out a lot but they may not have it in the correct order or something :-) "It's a puzzlement!"

[sunrise]

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pinksoil said:
"Do you think he would think me entirely crazy if I proposed to him?"

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> OMFG, what a total Freudian slip?!! That is hilarious!

sister, I have fantasized too about going for a walk with T. I sometimes arrive early for my session and go for a walk by myself. His office is on the shore of a lake, and it's pleasant. Lots of people out jogging, boaters rowing or sailing on the water... It would be really nice to walk that stretch with T. I drove a rental car to therapy once and was quite enamored of it. I had a fantasy that I told T about it and together we went to look at it in the parking lot, and we went for a drive (I let him drive).

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
On some level could you be apprehensive of the deeper work that now appears to be looming? Would a change in location take you out of the hot seat?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
Hmmmm, that's interesting, sister. I'm not sure. I actually have been viewing the direction T wants to take in therapy as more surface than deep (my hopes and dreams for the future rather than delving into my psyche and past to figure out the origins of me). But maybe it is not more surface after all. Hmmmm. But I think really the reason I want to see him outside the office is because I have this apprehension about our upcoming meetings outside the office. So I want to practice it first in session, even if it's just a baby step. I think I am afraid our relationship will evaporate outside the office and when I see him at our meetings, we will be strangers, and it will cause dissonance and freak me a bit, and distract me from the really important business of our meetings, at which a number of other people will be present. I am anxious about these meetings because of their content, and the added anxiety of having T there when I have never been with him outside of his office just adds to the stress.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
I doubt they will leave their little rooms for a walk

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Ha, ha, that seems almost a challenge to me, Perna. Now I am really curious to see if my T will. He is unconventional, so I bet he would go outside with me. I'm just not sure I can risk the embarrassment of asking him to do something so weird for me. A few weeks ago, I had therapy on the weekend, with my husband. T doesn't usually work on weekends. Anyway, the building was locked, so T had to come downstairs and out the building to let us in. I remember thinking as I followed him up the stairs, how cool it was I saw him outside the building and that we were walking up stairs together. (Pathetic, I know.) One time, in session, many months ago, he made a phone call about a meeting he had to go to right after my session. He was arranging a ride to it with a friend. "Be here at such and such a time, I can't be late," etc. And he told this friend where the meeting was, and it was on my way after session, and I believe he knew this. I always wondered if he was somehow hinting to me that he would like me to offer him a ride. This was early in therapy, and I just was not prepared to give T a ride anywhere. We would have to sit side by side in my car for a while! The passenger side of my car was a disaster! He would get crumbs on his pants. What would we say?! Would it be awkward?! It was too much, too soon, lol. Now, I wouldn't hesitate to offer him a ride if this happened again, but back then, no way. (Strange how things have changed. I feel like I know him now.)

ETA: Perna, what kind of story did you want your T to tell you, and why wouldn't she?