Couch 161: The Hexagonal Pyramidal Couch

Art, this is so not your fault. You're going through so much right now and handling it well. Just hang in there...I hope there's nothing seriously wrong with your car, maybe just battery or something? I'm glad you have so much support and hope your H is on the mend soon.

This is a good post. I know it wasn't about me, but I think it applies to my situation. I'm thinking MC giving me so many yesses early on--allowing so much outside contact, giving me frequent reassurance, etc.--did hold me back. And now it's like he's overcorrecting with a bunch of no's. Which has messed up the attachment and is making me not trust him. Had he done a better balance early on, I don't think we'd be in this place.

My individual T so far has seemed good at balancing the yeses and no's...I suppose that's part of having clear, consistent boundaries.

Thanks all. Somewhere around 3am I realized there's not enough money in the bank to cover the check I wrote the furnace guy last night for an extra that didn't get put on the credit card. Another ugh.

But, morning has brought me perspective. My husband is alive. Everything else is just stuff.

Off to call AAA...

Oh art, it's not your fault. I don't know why these things happen in bunches like this, but they just do. There has been some good come out of it though, which is support from your mom that you hadn't felt before.

I'll be glad when your h is out of the hospital. I wish you had a friend to be there with you to help advocate and be a support to you. It's so hard to push back against the medical machine, but it seems to take constant effort by loved ones to get answers and stay on top of things. For most, it is a full time job. The conflict about wanting/needing to be at work weighs on everyone I know who's ever had to keep things running during a medical situation. I'm glad your workplace is accommodating you and that your supervisor helped you settle on what to do for the rest of the week.

And yay for heat!

Is foot numbness a current symptom, too? If so, did your doctor test your blood glucose? I imagine if there was a bunch of blood tests, that would have been a part of it. Just wondering, because foot numbness was what led to my brother-in-law learning he had diabetes. And I think weight loss can be a symptom of that, too. Hope you find some answers and it's nothing too serious!

Also, have you given your p-doc permission to check in with the other doctors? If not, she shouldn't be checking on that. And if so...maybe consider revoking the permission?

I know this is small in the grand scheme of things but this week I had two sessions with R after three months of once a week- but i just felt uncomfortable, like I'd already talked about everything I needed to on Tuesday and today was just random fragmented ramblings.

R has always traditionally been a blank slate. At first I really was okay with that, but now as time has gone on I just really want to know him, not the therapist him.For the previous two sessions I've told him that I loved him and how much he means to me, but today I asked if he liked Marmite- ( it's this product we have in the UK made from yeast extract. The slogan is you either love it or hate it). And he didn't reply. I did ask more than once. but it was just met with neutral expressions which irritates me as the whole relationship doesn't seem natural. I saw another psychiatrist in august for one session and it felt easier with him. I made references to an episode of game of thrones and he chipped in that he was watching as well, he told me that he did a placement in India, about his supervisor who was bipolar when I said I was worried about working later on.

I think you're probably right. I'm more the "I need to talk about it" sort, while he isn't.

You're probably right that it's obvious...I did actually talk to H about this briefly last night. I thanked him for being so supportive and understanding about the stuff with MC, not just the phone call the night before, but over the past few years. I said I know it must be weird and confusing for him, which he agreed about. I said I understand if he's bothered by my emotional attachment to MC, that if he wants to talk about it more, we can. He said it wasn't that, he was bothered that this was all having such an effect on me emotionally. In other words, he didn't share that he was bothered by my attachment to MC in and of itself, but of the effect it's having on me. That he didn't like seeing me so upset. I thanked him for that and said if he ever wanted to talk about it more, we could, that he could be honest with me.

Perhaps not coincidentally, about 15 minutes later, a migraine kicked in for me...

I'm not sure how good of a job I'll do explaining this, because much of it is just a feeling, a vibe I get from him at times, a sort of...twinkle in his eye almost? A certain way he'll smile at me. Or, as I mentioned to T, a sort of feeling of chemistry that seems intensified if H is not there. It's sort of like you mentioned above, where a person can sometimes just tell if someone else seems to have attraction or some sort of feelings for them. I'm not saying this in an egotistical way--I certainly am not the type to think all men are drawn to me! Or that I'm irresistible. Just...a vibe I get at times from him.

Interesting that you say I'm kind of flirty...are you just getting that from what I share about sessions or in general? MC does like teasing me--he's admitted that, recently saying one of the reasons he teases me is "because it's fun." And I'll tease him back. Which could just be, OK, like friends or even a father-daughter joking with each other. He doesn't tease H though (though maybe he's just not as fun to mess with as me?). I've told ex-T about a few such interactions, and for at least one of them, she said, "It sounds like you were flirting with each other."

The thing is, there's some (verbal) interactions that transpired with MC in the past that I never really talked about on here (I think they were all after I informed him of the transference?). Because they could have seemed weird. And maybe they'll seem like absolutely nothing to anyone reading--much of it is about the context and the look he gave me while saying them.

Like...I think a couple years ago? I arrived at the office for an appointment with ex-T (or ex-p-doc) around the time MC was getting there. I saw him getting out of his car and waited at door for him. He said, "You know, if you're stalking me, you're going about it all wrong. You need to let me go ahead of you." I said how I wasn't very good at such things, and he laughed. Maybe a month later, I was leaving ex-T's office, and MC happened to be walking out in front of me. I said, "See, I'm getting better at this stalking thing. I'm letting you go ahead." And he replied (while in an empty waiting room), "What you don't realize is that now I'm actually stalking you!"

The second individual session we had, after I'd revealed the transference felt very...intimate. He was sharing some stuff about his father, how he dealt with those feelings in therapy. Which, OK, maybe just trying to relate to my issues. But then he also told this long story about a woman he had feelings for in grad school, and how I think they'd hooked up once? or at least kissed or something. But then she ended up dating someone else. And at some point later, MC and her were sitting together talking about her and her boyfriend, but MC knew that in talking about that, they were also talking about their own relationship. I think he was trying to somehow relate that to me, him, and H, but I have no idea who was supposed to be who in that story. I don't know, it was just kinda weird.

Again, maybe all of this is absolutely nothing, or it's just his personality and he's this way with most clients--or most female clients even. I'm probably doing a horrible job of explaining it.

Good point...which is why I'm also addressing this all with T. I think the relationship with MC was recreating some patterns from my past--not just the teacher thing, but some other stuff. So I need to examine that and what it means and how I can move forward from that.

I'm not getting a preachy vibe--it's OK! I want to make sure I learn from this and grow from it. And don't just go forward repeating the pattern again. I think T's boundaries are helping me keep from doing that (yes, I did e-mail him when I was upset about MC Friday, but that was within his boundaries, and I paid for it). Right now, I think I need those boundaries to save me from myself until I can learn to handle stuff better on my own. If I saw another T with sloppy boundaries, I suspect I'd end up falling into the same pattern.

This T seems like he's intent on giving me the tools to handle such things on my own--because, as he so optimistically said last session, "We're all ultimately in this alone." This thing he said to me a couple e-mails ago keeps coming up in my mind--how he wants to help me feel whole within myself. And I think that's what I need. Maybe MC wanted that too, hence the trying to take away reassurance (even though he kept giving to me anyway), but he was going about it in a way that was apparently not working for me... I feel like T has a greater ability to help me--at least at this stage in my psychological development.

Just took a head-clearing walk around the perimeter of the hotel while waiting for AAA.... good stuff.

LT--I don't think this is germane to the basic issue of moving on. As you say, possibly he's always this way. One-on-one therapy sessions can feel very intimate. And if you'd already been looking him up online and he knew that when he made the stalking joke, it could actually have been a pointed comment disguised as humor.

Under the circumstances, it doesn't matter whether or not MC has romantic feelings for you. You're not out in the dating world, so it's not happening (unless he's even more screwed up than I thought). You're married, and you're a client. I think wondering about what he feels is just going to keep you in the cycle you're stuck in. Let him deal with any feelings he might have, and you deal with yours.

Posters on here often speculate about countertransference, but unless the therapist is amenable to hearing it (like RS's), it doesn't seem to help the posters to think about it. It's just another source of frustration.

Thanks, @@. The stalking joke was made way before I Googled him (like a year before), so I think he was just joking around with me.

Oh, I know nothing would ever happen. And if it did...that it would seriously mess me up. Like, way more than any of this has.

Wondering how he feels is just part of my trying to make sense of it all...to take the blame off myself. (Even though, as he said, there's really no need for blame here...) I generally (not just with him) have this desire/need to understand why people do what they do in their relationships with me. I think it's part of my anxiety (and maybe OCD)--not knowing what's going on in other people's heads with regard to me. And I know that generally, I can't know...

You're probably right about this, too. Ex-T did basically admit to some countertransference for me (that she "got too close and may have lost objectivity"). But I don't see MC admitting that to me, even if he did manage to examine himself enough to realize what could have been going on. I don't even mean romantically here--pretty sure there was some paternal countertransference stuff playing out...

Therapy isnt done at an emotional distance - it IS very intimate. But just for that one hour. So there are physical limitations put in place to keep things from getting confusing. Thats why stuff like hugging is such a slippery slope. Or in this case outside contact?

I have this problem too. I tend to assume things aren't going well in relationships (often based on little or no evidence) and have a need to keep checking in with the other person and to keep wondering if I need to change my behavior to please them. In fact, I find that this tendency is actually usually the most frustrating and annoying thing I do in relationships. (Hello, self-fulfilling prophecy!)

I think Dr. T is smart to focus on you feeling more secure within yourself. Making progress in that area has made me feel better and more calm in relationships, which has changed how I feel about/in literally every relationship in my life (spouse, therapist, friends, acquaintances, boss, everyone). You can't know for absolute certain how MC feels about you, and that's true even if he were a friend or a coworker or your husband. I think focusing on yourself (rather than MC or the relationship) will help you get to a place where you can see yourself, your relationships, and other people much more clearly. For me, it is becoming an inner confidence about the validity of my own perspective and my own truth. I have a better understanding of how I relate to other people and how other people relate to me. That has made relationships seem much less chaotic and fraught.

Cake, I think it's really weird that your T responded so awkwardly to your asking if he likes marmite. He couldn't even manage to do the typical thing of asking why you were interested etc (which would have been annoying enough in itself)?

This is a smiley especially for him:

LT, the flirty thing was just something that's come through your reporting of sessions with both mc and your current therapist, not as anything serious, just a certain kind of banter that has that feel to me. Some people relate to others like that without there being anything under it, so it's just more an observation. I have colleagues who do that sort of thing to lighten up a heavy or stressful situation as a way to cope. Others, where there is more meaning under it, like real flirting, I get creeped out and don't engage. It's hard to know why most people say or do the things they do, myself included. Aside from that, this is the internet and I am so far removed from the reality of your life that it's hard to know what's really going on. These are just my very distant impressions.

Thanks for sharing this. As I mentioned in another response, I did talk to H about some of this last night. And he's bothered/upset by the effect all this has had on me. He didn't come out and say he was angry at MC, but it seemed that he was mostly concerned about my well-being. But that's a good point, that maybe he thinks it wouldn't help me if he railed against MC. Especially because he knows how attached to him I am. I think he's just trying to listen and validate what I say which has been helpful. He did say the other night how, in our last session, he kept thinking "Couldn't MC just show some humanity?" So I think he is at least annoyed with him for contributing to my upset state.

I think the "(sometimes)" is the main issue here--how inconsistent he's been. He seemed to understand that a bit more in the phone call--but I don't see him really changing, either. You're right, I think this is just how he is...along with all the self-disclosures, often running late, joking around (he said recently how that annoys some clients, but they keep seeing him anyway...), etc.

Thanks. That makes a lot of sense. I was wondering recently if this could have been me shifting into more of a "teenager" mode with him--trying to pull away, feeling ready to pull away, then being like, "Wait, I'm not ready to be an adult yet--I still need you!" Which led to things like telling him I didn't feel so attached one week and sending an e-mail saying I loved him the next...

One thing that T said in his response to my e-mail is: "Hopefully, and I would like to support you in doing this, you will be able to parcel out the good and the bad and eventually end up holding the full experience of your work and feelings for him...which will include love, disappointment, gratitude, loss, and many other feelings as well." I think along with that will be appreciating what I've learned from him, to thinking of the totality of the relationship, not just how it ended. Like, the ending doesn't erase all that came before... I'm thinking maybe that could also help me consider other past relationships differently, too...because I do have a tendency to categorize them based on the ending, to some extent, instead of the totality.

did i already say this, sorry if a repeat. it was just the battery thankfully. the guy AAA sent out jumped my car now i'm back home playing with the cats a little then heading back to hospital to see what the dr says.

also h called and said that his fever did spike again last night, but it broke on its own and he woke up drenched and they had to change his bed. i don't know what the dr is going to say about that. but i'll find out shortly.

Interesting...I do find I tend to relate/interact a bit differently with men than with women. Maybe there's a bit of subconscious flirtiness in there, even if I have no romantic intentions toward them (thinking of a couple male friends, former coworkers here). I suspect current T may have picked up on this as well--he seems very good at reading body language--but don't know. Might be something to ask him about at some point...certainly not today!

Hugs--glad it was just the battery! Hope your H is OK and that you get an update from the doctor. Fever is part of the body's way of fighting illness, so it could actually be a good sign he's fighting it off.

Listening back to the session. He did ask why I asked and what did it mean to me. I joked that he might not like his birthday present. I wanted to know because I wanted to get him a quirky gift but not something that he would just regift if he didn't like it. I asked him 4 times in the session because I'm weird like that. Was I trying to disarm him? I just wanted a yes/no answer. I'm probably just being very sensitive as my mood has crashed, but it makes me what to shut him out not let him in.

How are you though?

LT — I’m feeling a bit cynical about psychodynamic therapy in particular. So, take this for what it’s worth.

You may not be wrong about what you picked up from MC. But, I’m not sure you’ll know or if even he’ll know as to how much of it was therapy crap meant to intensify things and elicit emotions.

Like I can tell when current T is trying really hard to raise the temperature and emotional intensity and sort of get me to spill more stuff / be more emotionally open etc.

The thing is at the end of it, she, like MC I’m guessing and other therapists, can switch off in a minute and move on to the next client / their families etc while we’re left holding all the crap that came up.

That’s not to say they’re faking it — not at all. But their ability to compartmentalize is truly sobering, if that makes sense.

Glad it was just the battery and it's sorted now. I hope the dr is able to explain things to you properly.

Hmm, sounds like perhaps he was a bit disarmed to be honest. It's definitely hard to get someone a gift if you don't know anything about them though! Sorry your mood has crashed, I hope it lifts soon

I'm alright. Things are going well with my new(ish) T and I feel really hopeful. He recommended a book to me last week which is blowing my mind at how accurately it speaks to my experience, and I'm looking forward to seeing him in a couple of hours and telling him about that.

I felt pretty miserable and alone over the new year period and missed PC but it's been good for me to have some time away I think. I feel... calmer!

I think you've summed everything up quite well here LT.

Yeah maybe instead of comparing ts to dentists, it should be gynos.

I'm going to cut him some slack xD

I'm going to sound very soppy, but I did really miss you and I'm glad your back. I hope your session goes well.