How does that work??

So T says she felt a need on Friday to make me what she wanted me to be, and make me see her point. She says that was how my adoptive mother was and that I bring this into T with me. I mean she;s right, thats how it was growing up, but how does one bring this with them into the room? I mean I didn't have a big sign on me saying please ignore my feelings and pump your way into my head. So how does it work? Plus I'm thinking T has been waiting to get into the "real" stuff in T now and by telling me that even though I've turned up every session for the past 3yrs she still wondered if I may just disappear. I'm thinking was she saying that she's been afraid to confront me with this "real" stuff, but now feels that I can take it?? I'm a bit scared of going through something like last fridays session again, I feel I maybe on guard now. But seriously, how does that work? what do we bring into the session? I read somewhere that you can always be sure that someone has been abused when you feel like abusing them yourself?

We bring our resistances in too. You resisted your adopted mother all those years and it became automatic. So, if someone has something "legitimate" to tell you, you won't necessarily hear it because you have programmed yourself to "resist" anything that remotely sounds like your adopted mother.

The easiest way I can show it is by talking about my school grades :-) Until I was nearly FORTY, I got C's. That was me, mostly C's, a couple B's a couple D's, etc. My first semester of college, I got ALL C's and my stepmother commented on how it was hard to tell if I was good or bad at anything :-) My junior year of college I managed to flunk a course but never did I get an A for a course in all my career, except the occasional period markings when in high school I got an A once in typing :-) and badminton, in gym LOL.

So, I'm sitting in a college accounting class in 1989, age 39, taking the final exam. Suddenly I have a problem and I can't quite remember a piece of the process and I'm filled with regret that I didn't study a bit more, that I skipped that class, etc. THE light bulb goes on, regret=my fault; the whole studying thing is for me! I finally got it, that what I said, did, how I acted, etc. was all up to me and FOR me, my stepmother and what she wanted didn't matter. She didn't care whether I got the problem right in accounting, the teacher didn't care either and my husband only cared if I cared! It was the first time I'd cared "for" Me. From then on, I have literally got straight A's or close to it and been very happy about my schoolwork, etc.

I didn't know I was like that, only knew in an intellectual way that I was resisting my stepmother, that I was an "underachiever" and not studying because she was invested in what grades I got, how "good" I was, etc. Since she so cared and I didn't have any other way to be "not her" I didn't care. I kept my distance from her by unconsciously not caring about what she seemed to care about. It was the only way I could resist the pull of her, be consumed by the big, evil, blob :-)

So, I think, here you are not "understanding" T's points, struggling to understand what other people say/are like because your adopted mother was so desperate to "eat" you alive that way. It's part of the fear T will "confront" you with nasty stuff; I was slightly shocked that you used that word in relation to your T :-) like she was really this duplicitous person just waiting to spring "this" on you.

I think you will have another wonderful A-ha moment at some point (not necessarily while at T) like my accounting course one that literaly changed the rest of my life. Remember your comfortable time with your husband's "friends" at the concert you had several months ago and not worrying about the woman the way you use to but just enjoying replying to her questions and not having to make her or you any particular way, etc. It's all related to that -- it's part of "the" process. So whatever happens next, it will be nice like that and you'll leap ahead into really cool understanding of some sort.

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Mouse_ said:
but how does one bring this with them into the room? I mean I didn't have a big sign on me saying please ignore my feelings and pump your way into my head. So how does it work?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">My T told me it is unconscious communication from you and countertransference on the T's part. Sometimes he "listens" very carefully to me and to himself, especially in our silences, for what being there with me is arousing in him. This is the countertransference. No, you don't have a sign, but your T is a good "listener" that she has "heard" what you are unconsciously saying.