More about connection in my session today

I had a productive session again! T said I don't have to stare at her all the time. That's one thing. Next, I realized that when she smiles at me, I get scared and don't smile back. She noticed I lost the connection then and asked what happened. I used to get embarrassed but today I said it's because I get scared, like it's the attraction, but not sexual. She told me that when Mommies smile at their babies, the baby smiles back. I was afraid to smile at T. I'm not assuming for sure this is how it was with my Mom, but it's possible. It's hard to accept T's smile; it's to much love or something.

T told me a quote from Daniel Siegal, about the "we" in connection, and I liked it, but I forgot. I'm going to email her and ask, if I can't find it online.

I thought my T was going away next week, but she said no. Then she added that she's going away for 2 weeks during Christmas vacation. Immediately I felt bad. This time I told her right away that I am scared she'll die, and I'm also jealous. She's going to a foreign country far away. She told me where but I don't want to post it here.
She's glad, and so am I, that I can be so direct with my feelings. I'm afraid to travel, and told her I don't want to, but I would maybe if I had someone to go with.

I said these sessions feel different and why didn't we do this in the past 7 years? She said we did, but now I have more of my self, or more "rainbowness" ( my real name of course) than in the past.

Something is clicking for me. T and I are a "we", even if I lose her. I don't want to lose anyone I love but with T it's like Mommy/baby relationship. After all these years, who would have thought?

You're doing some good work, rainbow!!

The t smiling at you thing - I have to comment on that cuz my t has this certain big grin that she does at me sometimes, and I can't stand it and I just go "WHAT?!!!" and she'll say "Nothing, I"m just smiling." What I want to say to that is along the lines of "Yeah right, you're just smiling, ms. smarty pants, I want to know what you're THINKING!" but I haven't yet. I really need to and see if in her surprise she tells me before she can stop herself....

Smiling is a thing for T and myself. There are times where that smile of hers brings such a connection and other times I couldn't tell you if she smiled or not the entire session. Sometimes I get this smile on my face, it's fleeting and it is usually when something passes through my head that is totally not related to anything we are talking about. The fact that it passes through my brain often amuses me. T has gotten to the point that she calls it out almost every time it happens.

I agree, you are doing good work there!!

Thanks. I'm sure your T is smiling for a good reason, like feeling good about your progress. I would want to know what she's thinking too. I hope you ask her!

Thank you. Interesting about smiles. I never thought to ask my T why she's smiling at me when she does. I think it's to help our connection sometimes. My reaction of not being able to tolerate her smile is weird. I think it's an "uh oh", I love you so I have to run away. I will explore this next session. This connection stuff is my core issue, I guess you'd call it. Having selective mutism as a child damaged my ability to connect effectively. I don't think I connected with my husband very well. I did my best with my kids. It's far reaching, and it's never too late to change. Hmm. Just kind of rambling here.

I think that spontaneous smiling and smiling back is a form of mirror communication that transmits a sense of safety and that one if welcomed by the other person. It is definitely important non-verbal interaction between infant and mother, but sometimes mothers are also overdoing it and demand the child's attention too much, so that the child starts to protect themselves from overstimulation by looking away or not reciprocating. And this can be transmitted into subsequent relationships, where people feel others that smile or stare seemingly without reason have some (perhaps threatening) underlying motive, so they stay away from the connection or break it quickly. I imagine that being scared of engaging in non-verbal connection can also develop when parents are very unpredictable and erratic with their children. The child will fear it then, not knowing what it means at a given moment. Don't know if this relevant at all here, just find these things interesting.

As far as therapists, I definitely liked the one who visibly engaged with me using (not excessive) facial expression more than the other one who would just stare and listen. With the latter, there was actually an interesting fluctuation in our early months, when in one session I felt he was involved and there was interaction, then the next session he was more blank slate-like, I never knew what caused the different attitudes, but could not easily associate them with what I was doing/talking about. I usually felt the sessions without a sense of connection and interaction quite unproductive and left dissatisfied. With my other T who was generally very engaged and engaging, there was only one session where I felt he was not connecting with me as usual, it bothered me, and emailed him to share my feelings and if I was picking up anything real. He said yes, that his sleep was disrupted the night before and he felt very tired and not able to focus as usually. It had nothing to do with me, in fact he said he kinda "woke up" in the second half of the session because I was talking about interesting stuff. Who knows if it was true or not, but I think that when we feel more or less connected with people (not just therapy), it often reflects the level and quality of attention/interaction with them. Maybe you sense, rainbow, that your T is now more connected to you than before in a large part because you focus externally more and that allows her to also be more expressive?