Hurt by T's extra firm boundaries

I am so sorry you were hurt in this way.

Yes, for some reason I do feel a weight and responsibility to "fix it". But for this rupture I'm trying to let go of that and just step back and have him take the lead because I'm exhausted. The pressure of it is too much. I feel like I'm working too hard if there is such a thing in therapy.

My T is not a bad guy. T's are just regular people and he just let his stuff get in the way. It's all out in the open now and he seems eager to work through this rupture too.

The main reason I sought therapy was because I was tired of the way I was living. It was out of desperation of wanting a different life.

But I don't feel worthy of the life I want and cling on to the idea that therapy will change me into that person who will finally be worthy. I so desperately want to be someone else.

This is such a painful process.

Sometimes these lyrics from an Adele song are the only ones that help me get in my car and drive to T's office: "To earn my stripes I'd have to pay and bare my soul."

What strikes me is where you say your T said, after you walked out, thst he was hurt because he felt you didn't value the work.
I find that astounding.
I mean, what was going on up to that point that led to you walking out. What transferences. He seemed so caught up in him, that his not able to actually be of benefit to you.
He wasn't able to interpret your actions.
From your words, I'd be concerned about his ability to be of therapeutic use to you.

I’m not a therapy success story, it was only hurtful, so take my experience for what it’s worth.

But I also entered therapy wanting to be a different person with a different life.

After leaving hurtful therapy, I did keep slogging, professionally and artistically, grew by meeting various challenges, and generally realized others have insecurities and a side where they’re “faking it.” Over the years I became less anxious and angry, though still live outside the mainstream.

In my personal experience, therapy wasn’t the answer, but there was still a road. But had therapy been better, I still would have needed to do the same things.

I also was in a therapy situation where i felt the need to fix ruptures. I bought the idea that working thru manufactured problems in a weird, anomalous quasi-relationship would make me less unhappy. It only created a new set of problems.

What are you meant to learn from a relationship where you are encouraged to disregard the feelings/needs of the other, and where the other pretends they have no feelings/needs, until the point where they become too hurt to hide it? It's a formula for dysfunction.

I'm with Missbella... it needn't be seen as a moral obligation. That is marketing, not reality.

I understand it can be hard to get out of these things, but I found it helpful at the time to at least recognize the futility of it.

Therapy put me into a weird experimental state regarding relationships. I felt all these mandates, express yourself, stand up for yourself, state your needs, be more spontaneous, get in touch with my emotions, be more assertive, march boldly into conflicts. My therapists were convinced these would earn me "rapprochement."

In trying to effectuate these instructions, I was trying to conduct relationships by cookbook. I so alarmed my parents, they carried their fury the rest of their lives. My friends from that period still avoid me outside of Christmas card season. **Your mileage may vary. I hope my outcome is worse than most.**

I think I became more assertive and spontaneous over the years, but through my own sense of competence I earned by doing. I still find handling difficult conflicts a risk, particularly if the consequences are high. I still can miscalculate.

I think the actions in my first paragraph best tinkered with over time and with discernment. I understand, at least for me, change arrives gradually, naturally, and not because my therapist told me to.

Sounds like a tough conversation to start, but you did a good job telling him how you were feeling. I'm glad he's open to admitting mistakes and trying a different approach, and glad to hear you're feeling hopeful about the future. I think learning to communicate and work through these kinds of problems is one of the most productive things about therapy for me. Good luck going forward.

He should be eager to work through it, since the rupture happenend on his watch, and since he will get paid to work out this therapy-induced problem, and since in the process he is getting his own feelings acknowldged (i.e. he is getting therapy).

My therapist was not a bad person either. But she was playing the same game... getting paid to create more problems for me, then paid some more while we discussed those problems, while also implying this was an unparalleled growth opportunity or some such horsesh*t. Incredible hubris and total racket.

What would be useful for me (and I've had a similar conversation or two with my T) is understanding if (and it was an if for me) and how this translated into conversations with other people. There have been times when I've shut down others by leaving (or other acknowledge/conscious action) and then other times when I've shut people down not by a lack of physical presence, but by checking out and not really listening to them.

My T has always been open to doing things differently when I have raised issues connecting therapy to my negative responses. For me it was really helpful to be able to articulate these things and to have him respond and do it differently. I think it's unreasonable to think that there's some kind of "right" way for therapists to be or for therapy to happen and I don't agree with the general idea that if therapist does or says something specific (such as experience counter transference) then they are incompetent. Not withstanding that some therapists are incompetent and some make more mistakes than others, I just don't think that therapy is about the therapist. I have not found focusing on what my T does or does not do and how I feel is very productive, except in the service of me generally understanding myself and how I relate to others. During the times when I've gone on and on to him about him and how he can do things differently, it seems I've needed a distraction so I don't have to focus on myself and the tough issues that brought me to therapy. Changing my therapist doesn't really help with that. Again, not saying that's what you're doing or that it's wrong to ask therapists to do things differently-- these are brave conversations to have with anyone. For me, it's that changing other people is not my goal even when they make it easy to do so.

I would be unwilling to deal with any therapist who got all hurt and pissy because I did not "respect the work"
I pay the therapist - that is all I owe to them. It is not the responsibility of a client to make a therapist feel good about their career choices.

I do have a tendency to withdraw from people in a certain way. I don't feel close to people in general. I never initiate contact, trying to get better at that. I'm always the one who's listening attentively and empathically, always there when they need me, go above and beyond and then quietly resent that I don't get the same back. But I don't share of myself, if that makes sense. So I shut them out in that sense. I don't attach to people. They can come and go and it doesn't affect me. My T is the first person I've ever attached to in my life. I'm 35.

There are definitely some very tough issues that I need to discuss with him that I have been putting off. Mostly it's because I need to feel safe in order to do so, and his distance definitely does not help with that. But things are looking up and I might be having those tough discussions very soon. My last session with him left me very hopeful.

"I'm pumped! Let's let the healing begin." - Good Will Hunting

I am glad you are feeling hopeful.

To me this is the mark of good therapy--you feel troubled in your therapy relationship, you are able to discuss your feelings, they are accepted and discussed, and the two of you forge onward together. Doing this with a therapist is how I started doing this more in real life.

I do think it's important that you are thinking of your own behavior, how trying to be a "good" client can be a distancing maneuver. It sounds like you were really real with him and it worked out well.

I think, personally, if a therapy relationship is in stasis for two long, even a comfortable stasis, that is not a good sign. There should be ruptures, disturbances like this. It means the relationship is moving and that both people are changing. To me that is the mark of therapy that is working. Or, at least, that is how I feel therapy worked best for me.

I get what you're saying, but it sounded to me like the therapist was simply expressing disappointment that the client had not found enough of value in the work to try to resolve things without quitting. That implies a sense of regret to me, not a request for reassurance. People can express emotions without having an expectation that someone else will remedy them.

I did not get it that way - and for me, even if I had read it like that - it would not matter - I don't need to hear anything from a therapist. But this one, to me, did more than express disappointment that he had failed the client, he also acted in a punishing manner to the client.

A good therapist will take responsibility for their part of a rupture. I’m not convinced that this therapist from OP’s post has done that. Just a lot of silence

I agree with you.

I am learning this now too.

Yes, you are right, it was more than an expression of disappointment. He did behave in a sometimes harsh and punishing manner. I think we were caught up in a reenactment that he was unfortunately blind to. And I think his own attachment issues played a part in it as well. And although I am very hopeful and wish that this works out with him, I am also very cautious. It's my nature. I am giving it 3 months. And after that, despite this intense attachment that I feel, if I don't feel that things have changed to my satisfaction, I will terminate with him. And I will grieve.