Emailed T that I found her bf

I NEVER said my past hasn't been explored! I said we never talked about my parents being MEAN! That word never came up. Of course we explored my past, with this T and others. A lot! My current T is eclectic, but likes IFS, SE, and EMDR. We've explored my past from birth and on. My first two T's were psychodynamic so we focused on my past, of course.

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Loving and not not being mean aren't the only options. But if you've been with psychodynamic T's I'm still floored at the lack of insight here.

Sorry if I'm crossing any boundaries. But none of this is adding up for me.
Do you not see inconsistencies here?

I keep reading all the commments and interpretations and people have loads of brilliant insight but what strikes me is that you desperately want to feel that the relationship with therapist is more than the proffesional contract. It is and it isn't and thats what I find upsetting myself in the therapy setting.
I would be suprised if you were not interested in t. personal life after such a long time since she knows so much about you! Some of us go to therapy to work on our issues and realise how addictive the unconfitional interest and this understanding beyond any real life relationship is. If you did this to your friend they would probably get really angry as it was intrussive. But therapist don't act on impulses and remain understanding. As some suggested you are testing her.
a lot of people had a very good point when they said that maybe her not telling you his name had nothing to do with you but for example maybe he doesnt feel comfortable about it. Also its like you are trying to force a bond thats not there... 'of now I know his name, now I know your secrets as you know mine!' It will always bother me how one-sided the relationship is especially if you enter hoping a bond will be formed.

I know, SD. You're talking about feeling vs acting. Not respecting T's boundaries. I understand that you think googling itself is okay. Thanks for the good wishes.

Thank you for your kind words. About telling T what I found. She would guess right away when we interacted. She knows me that well and would know I'm hiding something! Besides that, if she doesn't know, then it's not something T and I share. I know that's not the goal, but it's the way a part of me thinks. I get that it's not nice but not totally. About my father. I have to think about what you said. Thank you for your insights. I'm not sure how my kids learned about boundaries. I guess my husband and I did some things right!

I wish I knew the answer. T thinks a lot of my problems come from my mom's anxiety and overprotectedness. She may have crossed boundaries with me. I didn't talk about emotional stuff, my feelings, with my parents. It's also about my brother. He crossed boundaries, possibly considered abuse. I just never understood what boundaries are all about, but I do have a friend who wants to know everything and tell me what to do, and we argue all the time. She crosses boundaries, so I understand that. Yet she is very private and doesn't tell me anything. To me, it comes from not wanting to be shut out. When T or anyone doesn't tell me, I feel rejected like they are choosing to exclude me. It doesn't seem to be about boundaries, so maybe that's the problem.

No, I don't really understand your point, Mouse. I'm interested in what you're trying to say but don't know what lack of insight you mean. My parents weren't perfect. Ts have always said I missed something as in infant and the fit between my mom and I wasn't what I needed. My Mom was there for me too much. That, combined with genetic shyness led to lack of Independence, probably. Please try to clarify what lack of insight you're talking about. Thank you.

Have you looked into your Mother's other behaviors to see how it might affect you today?

I can't help but think all the discussion about your behaviors is unproductive. This root cause of boundary issues is usually sense of self.

From what you wrote (here and other posts), it seems that despite being loving, your Mother had huge boundary problems. She acted as though you were an extension of her; you weren't allowed to be yourself.

Given that, you'd grow up with soft boundaries yourself-not knowing where you end and the othe person begins. I'd focus more on the psychological boundaries than I would your behaviors.

(For context, Wiki has a good entry related to this:

These are just guidelines as people often don't fall into discreet categories.

Edit: we cross posted. I think the content of your last post can lead to solving this issue.

You can be manipulative if you want. For my relationships, I would prefer people say what they need straight up, such as "I feel insecure about what I've done and if you could offer some reassurance this doesn't make me a bad person, that would be great."

The other thing I would say to you is that your reply feels hostile to me ("so what's wrong with that?" and "it's not so simple"). Maybe you don't mean it to be so, but what I feel from you is that you get hostile when you don't get what you want from other people. I do acknowledge the possibility I'm wrong and I don't know you and I don't have an investment in your life or whether you change. I wish you the best with all of it.

Rainbow, I've been thinking about what you've said several times about your mother being overprotective and not telling you major things.

Reminded me about how my mother didn't tell me and my brothers about being a hepitatis B carrier and being diagnosed with Parkinson's. I remember how angry and hurt I was when I found out through my sister. I understood that my mother didn't want me to worry about the Parkinson's, and that my mother thought the hepitatis B was not relevant due to her own personal beliefs that her children share her beliefs regarding sexual activity.

I can see how being excluded from major things can cause one to feel triggered and rejected when being excluded from small things. Some time back, I thought T had deceived me about a vacation she was on, and I felt very very hurt: "You don't trust me with such a small thing like saying we're missing sessions because you'll be on vacation? Am I so untrustworthy?"

She on the other hand felt hurt by my anger, and of course felt even more that she didn't want to self disclose!

Another thing I thought about is the guilt you feel. I don't think you're finding out and then telling T "I found out!!" out of malice. It's more like a guilty confession.

I'm wondering (I'm projecting from my own experiences) if your T is so private about her boyfriend for strong personal reasons of her own.

You mentioned you were triggered by my comment about how I'm private with my boyfriend's name.

I'm wondering if your T has reasons like me. Here's some of mine:

1) My boyfriend isn't comfortable with my friends knowing his name for various reasons (one example is him hating his name) so I use a nickname when talking about him even to my therapist.

2) I grew up in a family and with friends who found out private stuff (large and small) and then used it against me to hurt me or they spread it to people I didn't trust. It made me feel very guarded and unsafe.

3) Knowing his name reflects X about him (in his case, his race), which I keep private because I've met with prejudice (in my case, people calling me names for dating interracially) when I disclose his name.

Even though it's "just a name"! He's even more private about how he looks! So not even my T knows how he looks!

Not sure exactly what your situation was, but in general, i think a T taking weeks off but not disclosing why can be manipulative and naturally provoke reactions in people, maybe to a greater degree in those with attachment issues.

There was a thread/discussion some time ago about disclosing partial information for manipulative reasons -to punish, display power, sadistic, control, etc.

Anyway, I'm more careful now about assigning any and all blame surrounding the conflict as my patterns or pathology. Both may play a role; naturally, some will contribute more than the other.

It's such a painful experience to be singled out and left out by peers at that age, and it is the last thing we seek therapy to recreate.

We are looking for the healing experience of acceptance and real belonging. It just seems like your T is at a time in her life in which she is NOT fired up to be there for you consistently, putting her work with you first as her calling.

My T is right now invested in establishing his own private practice, and he has only taken off 3 single days in a year( they still stressed me out). This balances out that he has little kids etc.

There might be a misfit between what you need, and the stage of practice in which your T is engaged? By and large, she should respect the idea of the frame and be at every one of your regular appointments. Yes, a holiday day off or whatever, but not much more than that.

It seems like you were triggered to google , bc she specifically made you feel left out and also was leaving with all the symbolism entailed. Your choice to then inform her of this and your discovery seems to contain some anger( I understand why) in an acting out sense . While you should "use your words" she should attend to your needs realistically inside the frame of therapy.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SalingerEsme View Post
My mother does this to me- finding out personal things and "busting" me that she "knows". She does it to my siblings too. She doesnt do it for a bad reason, but bc she wants more intimacy. It is self defeating though, bc when she does it I fear her, feel invaded, and humor her at best while suppressing real anger. I then create distance, then the cycle goes on. I quickly recognize in myself a desire to replicate that behavior with my T when he was a blank slate. I wanted to google him, and tell him things I found, "bust him". His initial refusing to tell normal things seemed controlling, and finding out seemed like balancing the power. I never did tell him though, bc the epiphany happened first that I was playing the role of my mom. The whole thing was a valuable lesson on the distancing that comes with busting someone with their own personal info. The quick rush of power isnt worth the long term damage.
Thank you! Your post is very powerful and I will think about it. I think I do it for more intimacy too. I equate people not telling me things with them shutting me out, not liking or loving me, purposely leaving me out of their lives. I don't remember this from childhood, or maybe it's the passing notes in school but not ever to me. In college, finding a note my roommates wrote about something they were planning and it said (obviously I found it, in the waste basket), "Don't tell 'rainbow". I have a history of feeling left out but not by my parents.

I'm not sure if you are talking to me about T vacations. My T is taking one week off now. She doesn't take a lot of time off, so I'm confused by your reply. She had one off session in 7 plus years.

Maybe I misunderstood that some of the anxiety about her leaving now, and then potentially retiring later to her boyfriend's state, led you to the act of googling and then confessing? Sorry if I read that wrong. I can see if hating to be left out I real life collided with feeling left out in therapy, and created this situation. Like others said, it puts your T in a tough spot. I ma interested in what she contributed to the situation.

I remember a time when I was in therapy doing the attachment work I was telling my therapist that I did not want to feel like I did. I was in a childlike state and I guess in my telling her I wanted her to get me back to the adult I was supposed to be. She told me, "You can adult anytime you want to. They are your feelings and you control them." That was a novel idea to me. I controlled my feelings. She was right and in learning to master that concept life is quite a bit easier to negotiate. I do have agency.

I hear so often in response that we can't help how we feel which then leads to or sanctions behaviors and feelings that are not working for us but we continue the status quo. It negatively affects our relationships; family, friends and the therapeutic one. Many times clients turn the distress on the therapist and their alleged lack of boundaries. That may be true in some cases, but in many of the ones I have read, it seems to be the opposite. We DO have control over what we do with those feelings. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I like many others believed I was not equipped to affect my own behavior given my history, diagnosis, whatever. This is not true in my humble opinion. It just takes a lot of hard work to get in the driver's seat.

This is interesting to me because I'm the opposite. I could not care less about my therapist's personal life. He says it's because I'm protecting myself from him because one day therapy will come to an end. He even kind of forced me to ask him personal questions. He's been trying to get me to establish a more personal relationship with him so we can model what a healthy relationship is like. Your therapy relationship is basically a practice relationship for your real life. But at the same time there were questions that he refused to answer because he said he needs to set boundaries and the reason that therapists don't reveal too much to their patients is because they don't want their patients to take on/ feel the burden of caring/ worrying for the therapist.

I agree with other people saying that therapy should be about you. Perhaps you're focusing more on your therapist's life to avoid talking about your own? My therapist says I do that a lot with crushes I have. I rarely talk about myself and my goals in therapy because it's uncomfortable.

I wasn't trying to be hostile but I can see how you could take it that way. Thanks for your wishes.

Thanks for your comments. I don't remember writing that my mother left me out of things. I didn't ask her things about growing up. I left her out more than the other way around.
I don't know why I think I'm entitled to know things about T. Maybe she did have personal reasons for me not to know. Or maybe she was doing it to protect me.

I have It is such a deep feeling of wanting to know, wanting to be part of T's life. That's got to be related to wanting to be attached and not separate from her, like infant and baby. Maybe that's why these logical explanations about boundaries and Ts personal life don't make sense to me. It's the baby part who wants to be in Ts life all of the time, so it's inconceivable to HER why she can't know about Ts bf. It seems normal. But of course T and I aren't infant and mother, so it's none of my business! Many of you won't understand what I'm saying, but it makes sense to me at this moment. It's transference. Hearing people shut me out of their lives, like it felt T did, triggers those feelings of needing to be one with my mother. I think my adult part has to accept the boundaries because the baby or child part needs there not to be any!
I have no idea if what I wrote is "it" but those words came from a young part of me.

I can't write any more now. Too tired.

Thanks. I agree with you. My mother was THERE, always, until she got sick and died. She did it out of love, and probably her anxiety to protect me, and unfortunately, I learned to be the same way with my kids. They are more independent than I was, so the cycle got changed for the better. Thanks for the Wiki article. Yes, sense of Self. My T has wanted to build that up for me consistently since I began therapy with her. Some small part of me does want to be an extension of her, just like with my mother. I rebelled against that when I went away to college, though. I was somewhat independent, though living in a dorm wasn't total independence by any means. I think I should tell T I wanted to know about her bf because if I feel like an extension of T, then her bf/partner is included in that with her. It's not about adult boundaries, but an adult part has to act like an adult at the same time I am exploring the reasons for my feelings and actions. I'm repeating this because it hits home; it's an achy, needy part of me who is now part of T and her partner's life, the way I want it to be. In the past, I told T I wanted to be part of her family. I haven't felt that way for awhile, but apparently there's more to work on about it.

No, actually you have the order backwards. T was supposed to go away for 2 weeks, but told me she postponed her trip because of something in her family, so she was only taking this week off. Nothing about retirement or her leaving crossed my mind. I googled because she said she wasn't going to tell me what was wrong in her family, and I felt triggered by that statement. So, I then googled her name, and instead of finding anything about her family, found her partner's name. I googled his name and saw that he lived in another state. Only then did it strike me that when T retires, it would be logical for her to move to be with him, assuming they still have a relationship then.

Yes, you're right. I think it was my state of mind, and my physical state, that made me act impulsively. I just didn't care about anything anymore! I've been feeling depressed about my life and about some physical pain I've had for over a month that hasn't even been diagnosed yet. At another time maybe I would have resisted. I know I thought fleetingly of emailing T and saying I wanted to google her to find out about her family (NOT about her bf; I got over that!) but I didn't do that.

I wish I were like you and didn't care about my T's personal life! Therapy IS about me. I've talked about my own life for many years, and with this T as well as others. We hardly ever talk about my T's life unless it's something she specifically mentions for a reason or if I sense something going on and I ask her, like when I guessed that she was separated from her ex husband, or when she was distracted a couple of weeks ago. Then I post about those instances.

Rainbow, are you familiar with the concept of narcissistic transference? Your description of wanting to be an extension of your T, and experience with your mother, reminded me of it. You can google it

The other (related) theoretical stuff some of this thread reminded me of is Heinz Kohut's work in the area of self psychology - he wrote about those narcissistic needs and transferences, not in the more popular sense of narcissism but as normal developmental needs and paths. There have been discussions on it here on the forum as well.

No, I'm not familiar with narcissistic needs and transferences. Thank you! I'll look it up.

I love Kohut.

For the most part I was couch-ridden when I started therapy once again, over 6 years ago. My therapist at the time opened me up to the idea that maybe, I manifest my emotional pain physically. In my head that was share nonsense. I would scream out in pain and then have to put myself together to take care of my teen. He suffered because many times I was emotionally missing in action. As I worked on my issues the pain lessoned, but when stress would start turning into distress the alarm bells would go off; my body would be racked with pain, until I could make a mind body connection. Today, I have much more control over how bad the pain gets, but I am quicker to address the emotional content of my life.

Good luck to you R8. I hope soon you can find both emotional and physical relief to enjoy the life you have envisioned.

Thank you! My T and even my doctor said stress is probably aggravating, though I'm not sure about causing, my physical muscle pains. I'm trying to do something about the stress.

I'm getting a little angry with T because if she had just told me his name back when I was badgering her so much, I would have looked him up and that would have been the end of it. I know. She didn't want to tell me. I'm still a little angry, maybe about something else!

May be, as you suggested, you are also upset about other things? I apologize in advance as it is definitely not my intention to trigger you or upset you; however I genuinely do not understand the following: what makes you think that your T (or anyone else in your life) is obliged to tell you about their personal lives? If your T already told you that she did not want to provide you info about her bf or personal life, why didn’t you try to accept her response and let it go? Do you may be consider that it is not your business?
On a somewhat related note: I have never googled my T. Frankly, it never occurred to me. I am not interested in who she is outside of our sessions. It is none of my business.

If therapy were about satisfying impulses and desires, how would you ever get to the point of being in control of them?

None of your actions, responses or emotions are her fault. Nothing that exists within you is because of anything she has or hasn't done. 100% of your feelings, actions and behaviors are about you.

And thats the beauty of therapy. Unfortunately.

Me: t: