Wanting to be special

I wanted to be special too. And I accidentally found out that he actually did kind of treat me special near the end. He held my hand more than he did other people (not literally), probably because he knew I needed it more than others did.

Sorry, this is long... I have a lot of feelings about being "special"

Something about me evokes a lot of countertransfence in therapy and often strong feelings from teachers/professors/doctors/whoever.
Being "special" to a few specific people in those roles has given me some really meaningful relationships and support during difficult parts of my life. But far more often than not it was detrimental. It's a lot of pressure. Fear of disappointing then. Fear that I've manipulated them into thinking I'm better than I am. Fear of hurting them. Feeling like my feelings shouldn't matter because I'm somehow different and expected to be better.

I told my current T early on about my last countertransference disaster and how important it was to me to have boundaries I could trust.

When the social worker from the ER called my T and he was terminating because of my SH, I told him that social worker had told me how "special" I was. I was saying it with bitterness. He started to say that she'd told him that too and that he had agreed with her.
I told him not to say that. I didn't want to be special. Special is the word people use when they realize you're not going to get better, no matter how much they wish you could. So then they convince themselves that you're special so the universe doesn't seem so unfair. Sure, you're going to be miserable for the rest of your life, but you're special.

The commonly used treatments work for most people. I want the stuff that works for everyone else to work for me. I'm tired of being an outlier. I don't want to be special, I want to be happy, or at least okay.

Yes, I still want to be special to him. It's a difficult and probably impossible balance of needing to matter to him but needing to not matter too much.
If I'm special to him, I don't want to know. And if I'm not special to him, I don't want to know that either.

I feel this way too. I think heart to heart talks are meant to be caring, and therapy commodifies that in a way that is confusing. The bond is real and the therapist surely connects and cares with some clients but not others as much. I just wonder where I am on the scale. I would like to know so I could either relax or move on.

Just wanted to say that I recognize a lot of this. Especially the fear that I'm manipulating people or tricking them into supporting me. My T is trying to tell me that people WANT to support others but I'm not really buying it.

The thing is I can notice the urge to be manipulative and have to intentionally resist it and there are still times I let myself give in to the urge a bit. So then I don't know how much is me being manipulative subconsciously. Like maybe I convince myself that certain things are true or that I feel a certain way to manipulate others ???

I've found it's a really common fear among borderlines. Not that it's necessarily exclusive to bpd and I'm not saying you have bpd, but I was really relieved when I found the bpd side of tumblr a few years ago and realized that I wasn't the only one who felt that way (among other things I thought were just me).

this book is fantastic! i highly recommend it for anyone who is struggling with early childhood trauma and/or neglect.

when i was in therapy and finally read a copy of it, i was kicking myself for not reading it sooner. i think it would have saved a lot of wasted time in therapy and needless frustration and heartache, not only towards my therapist, but towards myself at the time.

It's not nice to feel that you don't matter, except for an 'interesting' story. I'm sorry that you feel ashamed. I also get feelings of being ashamed or that I shouldn't be longing to be special, which is partly why I started the thread. The answers here are very helpful to me. For what it's worth, I don't think that you have anything to be ashamed of. As Koru Kiri and others have said, it is normal to feel like this if we didn't have the care and nurture we needed while we, and our minds and brains, were developing. Never a child's fault and nothing to be ashamed of. If you haven't read 'The Body Keeps the score' then I highly recommend it.

Thank you for this, nottrustin. I think this is a very helpful way to look at it. I used to work as a teacher and so I kind of know what you are saying - I cared about all of my students, each in a different way, and caring about one didn't diminish my caring for any other.
I know that this is also the case for T. First of all, I know with my logical mind that it is as you have said, and secondly because T himself has said something similar. One time I asked him straight out about whether the caring could be 'real' as it's his job and he has so many clients, and he said something about how he is lucky to have a job that involves caring about other people and also that is a choice he has made because he finds it rewarding to care. So I do understand.
What is in a way surprising to me - although maybe not so surprising in another way - is all of these 'needy' feelings that make me want and I hope to be 'special'. They seem to come from a younger place. I'm trying to just notice and accept the feelings rather than thinking that they are 'wrong' because I find that trying to talk myself out of thinking or feeling 'wrong' things can feed a panic spiral, and also as Koru and others have said, it kind of makes sense to have these feelings come up for people who experienced difficult things and didn't get needs met as a young child...

I'm glad that you feel 'special' for C and that he said it's not a big effort for him to have that unconditional positive regard towards you. That's a really nice thing for him to share with you. I think it's very nice and healing to feel 'special' when we are in therapy, even though as nottrustin said it doesn't mean that other clients can't be 'special' - in their own special way!!

I'm working on not being ashamed of these feelings that come up. It's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one experiencing these things! Thank you for sharing.

I don't think I've felt that way. If I feel deeply attached to my therapist, it'd be very difficult for me to say goodbye, and I'd want to keep them in my life, although it's obviously not possible. My previous therapist I emailed a few times when some big events happened in my life. But she was forever gone when I really think about it, and that makes me sad.

But I do not feel like I need to be the special one for them. They have their own lives and loved ones. All I need is the space they create for me, for my healing and recovery.

I wonder if there is any human being who does not want to be recognized as an individual and appreciated for their unique features? For me, I have been very much an individualist in my whole life, I think in part because "being different", "unique" and "special" is feedback I have received from most people in my life in many contexts and types of relationships. Going often as far as saying that I am so idiosyncratic and enigmatic, don't fit common patterns and stereotypes, and so hard to understand accurately. I definitely ran into this with both of my Ts as well and there were times I became angry for those claims to be special, because it came with basically stating they could not help me much. It also made me feel at times that they were lazy, not making true efforts to think outside of the box. And still, I definitely don't like when someone tries to force me into molds that do not fit - my first T tried that a lot and it only led to my feeling grossly misunderstood and him feeling incompetent (but he would not admit it openly). I really doubt anyone enjoys or desires being perceived just like one element in a mass of clones or when people, T or not, project overly simplistic features and explanations onto us. One thing I did not enjoy in therapy though is when the T said he apparently gave me "special treatment", e.g. going over session time more often than not or what I felt was too much self disclosure. I did not like it because it made me feel they were not behaving professionally and I wanted to be treated professionally. But recognizing unique features and trying to understand them in their own context is something I very much desire and even expect from someone who has a decent knowledge about psychology and human nature.

Having said all of the above though, individualism and wanting to be unique can definitely be too much, and this is something I am prone to. There is a term "terminally unique" to describe this tendency, when the person actually denies common things and that we are just as similar as different in many ways, including psychological issues. I think the root of this trend can be many things for different people, e.g. for some not being special to caregivers early in life, choosing the wrong people who are unable to acknowledge individual features, or just having a high dose of creativity. It is not a bad thing at all IMO, but too much can easily lead to self-inflicted isolation.

I am older and divorced and don't feel special to anyone, even God. I am trying to accept this as a positive. I relate feeling special to being young and having sexual and/or romantic partners...and it never lasted. I would like to be a better person, more righteous, and dignified. More in God's image. Then I might feel authentically special, which would be a new experience. (I never felt special to either parent. There were a lot of children, and I was never the special one so the idea that it is not important is probably a left-over from my childhood.)

I experience them too. I was ashamed. Maybe a little bit still is but I've embraced it in a the only way out is through way.

I admitted to being ashamed and my doc said, don't beat yrself up about it, you've found a safe way to express yr feelings and you are progressing and in a year or two it'll just have gone.

I hope you can have the experience of feeling special somehow.

When I think of my own 'needy' feelings I also relate them to the feelings and neediness of a young child. But in reality, as Xynesthesia and others have said, wanting to be special is like wanting to be cared for and seen as who we really are, and it's probably just part and parcel of being human.