[Longingforhome]

I’m coming up to 3 years with this T, and it seems to be one endless round of rupture/tentative repair.

Last week, he again brought up my holding people at arm’s length and not letting anyone (specifically him) close. I told him I need to understand What ‘close’ is. What does it look like? Feel like? How do I do it? I’m at a total loss. He tried, but couldn’t explain it, finally he just gave up and said something about it being something about sharing things with him and talking about things.

I know I keep a piece of me far, far away, but I am doing the best I can. I was angry and upset that he would dismiss the huge effort I’m making, and the very personal, embarrassing things I have shared. He acknowledged that I ‘brought him’ important things (I told him he made me sound like a cat bringing in a bird). But I still don’t get what the hell he means by ‘closeness’, I don’t get how I can try any harder than I am already, and I feel very hurt and angry that the very big effort I make is not really even acknowledged by him.

I am wondering if we really are not a fit, if he really doesn’t get me at all, am not sure we are a good fit right now/any more.

I started to write him an email. I won’t send it. But it’s helping me clarify my thoughts.

I don’t think either of us is over what happened last year (I’m not over what you did and I’m not sure you are, either). Either way, the focus is all on you at this point, at least, for me, in terms of waiting for you to find your level. Until you do, it’s confusing and disorienting for me

Not sure we even would agree on What Happened, not even sure what your story about it is; any more. There are so many conflicting lines and threads, and still, the uneasiness around what trying so hard but just not being able to get it right (I think, from both ends).

I think both of us have been struggling to find a connection again, since then, with only occasional success. Hence my feeling like I am doing all I can to open up to the extent that I am able, and I know I have shared difficult, shameful things that it has taken so much courage to bring out in the open. And yet, your frustration that I am blocking you out, despite telling me I have all the time

I think I need to accept that unfortunately, for whatever reason, I am probably not going to be able to go any further with you for now. The opaqueness, the sense of shifting and changing, you really not seeming to be able to ‘stand still’ for me, makes it much more uncomfortable than I think it needs to be, and also much more confusing. Whose issues are whose?

And yet, it is not easy to walk away. I know that I need to be the one to do it, because you will not.

I get the feeling that if I leave, you will be relieved. It will be Problem Solved for you. Maybe you’ll have some work to do with yourself, professionally, about how and why you let us get into this, maybe you’ll have feelings and be emotional or angry about it. But those feelings will have nothing to do with me, they’ll be about you and your professional pride having been dented.

And there we go again.

So why is it so hard to walk away?

[Fuzzybear]

Powerful email, I can relate to some of it. I think I would leave him, but I’m not the best “judge”. I’m sorry, it sounds very painful. He does, at least, sound like he’s doing his best. (Compared to what I’ve experienced anyway) But still not the good fit that you deserve.

[satsuma]

Hi Longingforhome, I've had similar issues in terms of finding it very difficult to trust people. I agree that it's not particularly helpful for a therapist to say 'you should stop doing xyz'. Well if it was that simple, we wouldn't need to spend all this time and money going to therapy would we!! I also get the impression from your post that you felt a bit blamed, as though you could start being more close if only you decided to. I would also have the impression that T was blaming me, I think, if he said what you have described here.

I think it's not at all fair or helpful for a T to blame a client for their issues or demand that they just 'get over it'. I wonder whether your T was having a bad day or something, and came across more harshly than he had intended to? If I was in your position I would want to speak about this in the next session, and ask something along the lines of:
- I'm trying really hard to let down the barriers, I've told you these things / done these things (give examples), I'm not sure whether you realise how hard that is for me or how huge it is that I managed it here in therapy?
- I agree with you that I find it really hard to trust, and it would be better if I could find this easier. Do you know how we can work on this? Does the type of therapy we are doing at the moment generally help people with similar problems to me? How does it work?
- Do you feel frustrated by working with me? You sounded frustrated in the last session. Do you have a time limit on how quickly you think I should be 'better'? Or are you in it for the long hall?

I guess if you find it hard to trust your T then it might be hard to ask these kinds of questions! I just want to say that these are the kinds of things I have asked my T, more than once. And I think being able to talk about these things with T was itself a very healing experience that helped me to trust.

You say that he said you keep people at arms length, it sounds like he is saying you should 'be different to who you are'. I like to think that therapy could be a relationship where you can have total acceptance for who you are, there are a lot of different ways of being in the world. Does he have some kind of personal definition of what closeness is? I don't think closeness has to necessarily involve sharing information. I have a colleague at work who has shared almost nothing of his personal life with anyone at work, yet I feel very close to him, we have moments of connection, I feel very fond of him and close to him. I think that there are many different ways for people to feel connected and close to others and talking is only one.

I know how hard it is to walk away from a T that you are attached to. I've done it and it was painful. Always better if these things can be resolved with a T, though sometimes they can't.

[SalingerEsme]

This captures the immense struggle of therapy for me; in the specific and particular pain here comes the general hurt of being stuck and trying so, so hard and the trying not working. This is so well written. I can't imagine a T being willing to lose someone like you- insightful and present within this email. You make it so clear you feel there's not enough space for you in the room. What happened a year ago that you can get over as a dyad?

Originally Posted by Longingforhome

I’m coming up to 3 years with this T, and it seems to be one endless round of rupture/tentative repair.

Last week, he again brought up my holding people at arm’s length and not letting anyone (specifically him) close. I told him I need to understand What ‘close’ is. What does it look like? Feel like? How do I do it? I’m at a total loss. He tried, but couldn’t explain it, finally he just gave up and said something about it being something about sharing things with him and talking about things.

I know I keep a piece of me far, far away, but I am doing the best I can. I was angry and upset that he would dismiss the huge effort I’m making, and the very personal, embarrassing things I have shared. He acknowledged that I ‘brought him’ important things (I told him he made me sound like a cat bringing in a bird). But I still don’t get what the hell he means by ‘closeness’, I don’t get how I can try any harder than I am already, and I feel very hurt and angry that the very big effort I make is not really even acknowledged by him.

I am wondering if we really are not a fit, if he really doesn’t get me at all, am not sure we are a good fit right now/any more.

I started to write him an email. I won’t send it. But it’s helping me clarify my thoughts.

I don’t think either of us is over what happened last year (I’m not over what you did and I’m not sure you are, either). Either way, the focus is all on you at this point, at least, for me, in terms of waiting for you to find your level. Until you do, it’s confusing and disorienting for me

Not sure we even would agree on What Happened, not even sure what your story about it is; any more. There are so many conflicting lines and threads, and still, the uneasiness around what trying so hard but just not being able to get it right (I think, from both ends).

I think both of us have been struggling to find a connection again, since then, with only occasional success. Hence my feeling like I am doing all I can to open up to the extent that I am able, and I know I have shared difficult, shameful things that it has taken so much courage to bring out in the open. And yet, your frustration that I am blocking you out, despite telling me I have all the time

I think I need to accept that unfortunately, for whatever reason, I am probably not going to be able to go any further with you for now. The opaqueness, the sense of shifting and changing, you really not seeming to be able to ‘stand still’ for me, makes it much more uncomfortable than I think it needs to be, and also much more confusing. Whose issues are whose?

And yet, it is not easy to walk away. I know that I need to be the one to do it, because you will not.

I get the feeling that if I leave, you will be relieved. It will be Problem Solved for you. Maybe you’ll have some work to do with yourself, professionally, about how and why you let us get into this, maybe you’ll have feelings and be emotional or angry about it. But those feelings will have nothing to do with me, they’ll be about you and your professional pride having been dented.

And there we go again.

So why is it so hard to walk away?

[Anne2.0]

I walked away from a group therapist when I thought it wasn't right for me, after close to a year. I don't think the issue was a rupture/repair cycle but she just irritated me at the time and I felt like I was not doing group therapy right. Maybe she was just pushy and I have otherwise chosen gentle and non controlling therapists before and since. She suggested the problem in the therapy was mine and when I look back, I think it at least partly was, in the sense that I wasn't ready to do what the group therapy required at the time. I don't blame myself or see it as a failure but I also think that judgments of this kind aren't really useful to me. I then joined a survivors' support group and that was probably more helpful to me than individual therapy, and I stayed in it until I left the area.

A few years ago, when I was having trouble talking to my T about something, I went to another therapist to talk about "the relationship." I only met once with her but it was very helpful for me in clarifying what I needed to do to talk to him about the issue. I didn't tell my T I was going to see her but I did tell him afterwards as I was bringing up the thing. He had no problem with it and I have seen him ever since.

Sometimes people call this a "consultation T," and I wonder if seeing someone else just to have a more objective perspective on what's going on in your T relationship might be helpful. Under my insurance plan, someone could have an "assessment" once per year with any therapist and that's how my consultation T was able to provide the session without it costing me anything but my small co-pay. I'm not sure if my plan allows for multiple therapists on a regular basis because I haven't wanted that. But even if I'd had to pay out of pocket, it was just really valuable to talk about my T relationship with another therapist. I think she was really good at zoning in on the issue, I felt heard and understood by her, and she helped me find what it is I wanted to raise with him, then I did and it worked out well.

[feileacan]

I think it might be very easy to confuse blaming and pointing out something. I've struggled with that a lot with my T. He points out something, which could be similar to what your T said and I immediately interpret it as if he was saying that I should be different. Then I ask him to explain what should I be like then and he tells me that I don't have to be in any particular way and I can and should be exactly the way I am but he was just pointing it out to me. And then I'm like so what, what do I do with this information.

And maybe it's not immediately obvious what to do with this info but over time even drops of water make a whole into a stone and to my mind this process is similar. I could happen that over time you start to understand (even if it's only tiny bit in the beginning) what he means and gain an experience of what closeness could be or feel like. No one can guarantee that, it might as well never happen. It cannot be just taught because it is not a cognitive process.

For instance, something very powerful happened to me in my therapy about a month ago. It felt like I suddenly were able to "see" my T for the first time. I was for the first time able to grasp that he is another human being, sitting there with me. It has had wide implications in my life, I'm suddenly able to "see" other people in a way I was never able to see them - previously they were more like objects to me.

I don't know how I got there. I know that my T had several times pointed out to me that I don't see him as a separate person and there was nothing I could do about it. I sensed that he is correct but what does it exactly mean or how would it feel if it would be otherwise I had no idea. And neither of us could predict whether I will ever come out from that position or not. But somehow I did.

[Longingforhome]

Originally Posted by SalingerEsme

This captures the immense struggle of therapy for me; in the specific and particular pain here comes the general hurt of being stuck and trying so, so hard and the trying not working. This is so well written. I can't imagine a T being willing to lose someone like you- insightful and present within this email. You make it so clear you feel there's not enough space for you in the room. What happened a year ago that you can get over as a dyad?

Thanks, Salinger Esme. Many things happened last year that were all part of a messed up dynamic that evolved. Everything boiled down to conflict over closeness and my fear of things getting out of control, him seeming to chop and change the way he was with me constantly and some really unhelpful things he said/jokes he made that just felt cruel and inappropriate.

I felt discomfort with him getting too close, or him behaving in ways that made me feel threatened or left behind - him talking about himself, general humorous chit chat that felt a bit flirty to me, but probably wasn’t. At the time, he just seemed puzzled that I was so spooked by those things and kind of said ‘well, that’s the way I am’. It took a good 6 months for him to actually understand why I didn’t want those things. He 100% knew it intellectually, there’s no way he couldn’t, given my history. But it was like he just refused to accept MY boundaries.

There were many, and shifting, explanations and apologies, but sometimes I wonder if we’re even looking at the same ‘enactment’, as he describes it. I just think he’s got it, and he says or does something that makes it so clear he hasn’t. At least, he hasn’t got it from MY perspective.

It feels like things are awkward and a bit contrived, now. Having refused to change (back - the behaviour wasn’t there when we started working together) when I first brought these things up, after months of back and forth, he finally admitted that he wasn’t usually the way he was with me, with clients (the casualness and jokiness), and that the calm, gentle approach he had with me at the start is his natural style of working. A complete 180 from him being so adamant he wasn’t able to change the jokey/chattiness.

[Longingforhome]

[

Originally Posted by feileacan

I think it might be very easy to confuse blaming and pointing out something. I've struggled with that a lot with my T. He points out something, which could be similar to what your T said and I immediately interpret it as if he was saying that I should be different. Then I ask him to explain what should I be like then and he tells me that I don't have to be in any particular way and I can and should be exactly the way I am but he was just pointing it out to me. And then I'm like so what, what do I do with this information.

And maybe it's not immediately obvious what to do with this info but over time even drops of water make a whole into a stone and to my mind this process is similar. I could happen that over time you start to understand (even if it's only tiny bit in the beginning) what he means and gain an experience of what closeness could be or feel like. No one can guarantee that, it might as well never happen. It cannot be just taught because it is not a cognitive process.

For instance, something very powerful happened to me in my therapy about a month ago. It felt like I suddenly were able to "see" my T for the first time. I was for the first time able to grasp that he is another human being, sitting there with me. It has had wide implications in my life, I'm suddenly able to "see" other people in a way I was never able to see them - previously they were more like objects to me.

I don't know how I got there. I know that my T had several times pointed out to me that I don't see him as a separate person and there was nothing I could do about it. I sensed that he is correct but what does it exactly mean or how would it feel if it would be otherwise I had no idea. And neither of us could predict whether I will ever come out from that position or not. But somehow I did.

I really want what you have. That’s why I hang in there, to see if it’s actually possible for me to be truly close to another human being in a sustained, trusting way, and to not be scared off by every tiny shift in their mood or demeanour.

And yes, I def take those sorts of observations as being about defects that I have that I must fix, I suppose in order to not be abandoned by the other. It’s hard for me to see them as just another flag as to the work that needs doing.

[Longingforhome]

Originally Posted by Anne2.0

A few years ago, when I was having trouble talking to my T about something, I went to another therapist to talk about "the relationship." I only met once with her but it was very helpful for me in clarifying what I needed to do to talk to him about the issue. I didn't tell my T I was going to see her but I did tell him afterwards as I was bringing up the thing. He had no problem with it and I have seen him ever since.

Sometimes people call this a "consultation T," and I wonder if seeing someone else just to have a more objective perspective on what's going on in your T relationship might be helpful. Under my insurance plan, someone could have an "assessment" once per year with any therapist and that's how my consultation T was able to provide the session without it costing me anything but my small co-pay. I'm not sure if my plan allows for multiple therapists on a regular basis because I haven't wanted that. But even if I'd had to pay out of pocket, it was just really valuable to talk about my T relationship with another therapist. I think she was really good at zoning in on the issue, I felt heard and understood by her, and she helped me find what it is I wanted to raise with him, then I did and it worked out well.

I have another T I do different kind of work with (more about bodily sensations, noticing anxiety in my body, dealing with flashbacks etc). I couldn’t keep turning up to Rupture T - or any other attachment-based T for that matter- without it. The other T is brilliant at helping me slow down enough to think about what *I* want in these scenarios, as I’m prone to get very caught up in what the other wants. We started to talk about this last week, but I think it’s going to take a few weeks to even start to unravel it. It’s bound up in so many other things. Un/luckily, Rupture T is away for a few weeks, so I have some breathing (read, obsessing) space.

[Longingforhome]

Originally Posted by Wild at heart

You say that he said you keep people at arms length, it sounds like he is saying you should 'be different to who you are'. I like to think that therapy could be a relationship where you can have total acceptance for who you are, there are a lot of different ways of being in the world. Does he have some kind of personal definition of what closeness is?

That’s what I was trying to when he fumbled around trying for an explanation and then gave up. I think, probably, to paraphrase what somebody mentioned here, it’s not something that can be thought, it needs to be felt. Plus, it’s not just his definition of closeness that matters, it’s mine. But I kind of skipped over that bit in the session (default position) and he didn’t pick that up, either. I said some angry words along the lines of ‘what about what *I* want?’ But never really felt like I had the right to have wants of my own. I felt really small and powerless and defeated. I guess it’s something to do with having a very long history of being told what I want/need/feel

[awkwardlyyours]

OP -- there are way too many red flags with your T.

I would switch pronto.

[Longingforhome]

Thanks, awkwardlyyours.. if not too much trouble, can you please say a bit more about why you think that?