[Lrad123]

This has been a not-so-uncommon question from my therapist during my time in therapy. At first, it was often related to unsatisfying responses to emails or even non-responses to emails. Later, he decided not to respond to email at all. All of these situations have been met with the question “how does it feel to get that response or to get a non-response?” Now, after what feels like some prompting from him, I have decided that I’d like to meet with him more than once/week, but as it turns out, it appears there is no way to make this work with our schedules. It felt like a big deal to me because I finally let myself think about meeting a second time per week and I was excited about it and now it’s clear that it will never work. So now, out of habit, I’m thinking about how it feels to not get what I want, and the bottom line is that it sucks. To be clear, I am a self-sufficient adult and am used to not always getting what I want. I get that that’s how life goes. I can accept this in my work world and in my family life, but am having a harder time with this in my therapy relationship. I want something from him - more time, more attention, more care. This is not something I typically allow myself to express or to feel and I feel weird even saying it. But I do feel it and I’ve expressed it and now I feel let down and frustrated. What do I do with that? What’s the point of all this? It seems like therapy for me has been about discovering what I secretly desire, and then having it denied. What’s the good in this?

[feileacan]

This is something my T has tried to teach me very hard (and I'm not a very good student because I'm too arrogant for that). But it seems that something that he has told me in various ways like 100 times (or even if it is not that much, it still has been literally tens of times) has actually sank in.

- If you don't want or don't desire anything then you will pursue anything you want and thus you also cannot enjoy things that you wanted and got.
- It can be difficult to start wanting things from other people because, as you said, then they disappoint you and don't give you what you wanted and what's the point.
- But sometimes they can give you what you want and then you can obtain true enjoy from it (because it was something you really wanted).
- Also, other people are more inclined to make effort to give you something if this is what you really wanted because other people gain pleasure in giving people something that they really want. If you are indifferent then other people are less inclined to make that effort for you. So wanting/getting is a win-win situation.
- The bad side of this is that you don't always get what you want, which generates the feeling of lack.
- The feeling of lack is something to be tolerated but it is necessary in order to want and thus to obtain satisfaction of getting things you want.
- If you never experience lack then it is safe but at the same time it takes away the opportunity to experience satisfaction from getting things you want.

I can assure you that my T has told me those things in many more various wordings and initially I thought that this is all just BS and plain crap. Now I think otherwise but man, it has taken ages.

[JaneTennison1]

This is an interesting one. My T told me she wouldn't give me the reassurance I wanted but instead thought being there should be enough to satisfy me. Now we have this stupid ruptire because I feel super rejected and hurt. I need a find a way of accepting what she can give. I also feel like I was trying to Express a need rather than a want. I need to feel safe in therapy to go on. I know that about myself. Where we differ is in what each 9f us thinks will make me feel safe. I feel like I should have a say on it but apparently not.

I guess I'm stuck accepting that what I want to feel safe I cannot have and deciding how to go forward. Yuck.

[SalingerEsme]

I get what I want less in therapy than any other relationship , and not to give the old Rolling Stones cliche "you get what you need", but I don't think we do always get what we need either. On of my favorite conversations I have had with my T was about the unfillableness in us, and how we try to fill it with other people, or with substances , or sex or work or art or . . . but that it is beauty of us all. That sense of being haunted , pushed by longing and pulled by yearning for something . . . but who knows what exactly? It makes for horrible nights when you dont want to live but two titches to the right it creates a symphony or a poem or a good deed.

One thing in therapy that has comforted me over time is that though I have a very taboo experience within my life that makes me feel so marked and broken , that feeling this way is part of us. I cant really find the right words . It is that holding the feeling up to the light of needing to be reached or wanting to reach someone else and how the failure of that creates an anguish defines what it is to be human. My T and I talked about how real true sociopaths/ psychopaths cannot be hurt in this way.

It is like proof of life to be struggling to swallow pride and stay connected when being told no, I hear you and nope.

Not having had what was needed/wanted (in early life/significant relationships/existential experiences) seems like a universal experience for those who seek therapy. Seems like an unnecessarily heartless message for your therapist to try and drum home.

[SalingerEsme]

Originally Posted by SorryOozit

Not having had what was needed/wanted (in early life/significant relationships/existential experiences) seems like a universal experience for those who seek therapy. Seems like an unnecessarily heartless message for your therapist to try and drum home.

Good post, and yes I agree.

[LabRat27]

Not getting something that I secretly want is usually tolerable
The idea of finally allowing myself to be vulnerable and ask for something and then feeling rejected is a million times worse.

[DP_2017]

Sadly, it feels normal to me. Was basically what always happened in life since I was very young, I became used to it.... to the point where if something DOES work out for me, it's very shocking and I mentally convince myself, it can't be legit.

It took me months and months to stop questioning everything with T because he responded to my needs often and I could not understand why, so I'd drive myself crazy questioning it. I was convinced it was a joke.

I'm sorry it didn't work out for you but you might be stronger than you realize and you will be ok to keep going with 1x a week.

[Lrad123]

Originally Posted by feileacan

initially I thought that this is all just BS and plain crap. Now I think otherwise but man, it has taken ages.

Yes, it feels like BS right now. As with most on this forum, I probably did not grow up getting what I wanted emotionally, so becoming more aware of this and replaying it in therapy seems counterproductive. It’s not a lesson I need to learn. Being unaware of these emotional needs was much easier, and feeling like the only person I can get them from is only available for 50 min/week really sucks.

[Lrad123]

Originally Posted by SalingerEsme

It is that holding the feeling up to the light of needing to be reached or wanting to reach someone else and how the failure of that creates an anguish defines what it is to be human.

It is like proof of life to be struggling to swallow pride and stay connected when being told no, I hear you and nope.

This really resonates with me. Your words are always so beautiful. Thank you.

[Lrad123]

Originally Posted by LabRat27

Not getting something that I secretly want is usually tolerable
The idea of finally allowing myself to be vulnerable and ask for something and then feeling rejected is a million times worse.

This is exactly right. I feel like some secret desires have been gently coaxed out of a very private place and then kicked and squashed. This is why I’m a private person.

[feileacan]

Originally Posted by Lrad123

Yes, it feels like BS right now. As with most on this forum, I probably did not grow up getting what I wanted emotionally, so becoming more aware of this and replaying it in therapy seems counterproductive. It’s not a lesson I need to learn. Being unaware of these emotional needs was much easier, and feeling like the only person I can get them from is only available for 50 min/week really sucks.

Yeah, I get it but in the end it is really not about the T or what the T can give you in 50 minutes per week but about you finding your wants and wishes, appropriately expressing them to the people (including but not only T) and getting part of these wants and wishes satisfied. This also creates connection with other people.

For instance, you are starting a post in this forum, which means you are wishing and expecting something from other people. You cannot control other people and so you can't be sure that the respond but you hope it anyway. And people do respond because somehow their post touches them and they are willing to "give you" the response. Not everybody responds every time for various reasons but nevertheless, if you wouldn't start the thread, no one would ever respond because no one would know that there is something you would like to responses about from other people. On the other hand, if you start a thread and no one responds, that would probably make you feel quite bad.

Maybe this example sounds very simple and easy to do compared to what happens in therapy but in principle it is really the same. And of course it is easier to be unaware of your emotional needs but this is a denfencive (although very understandable) position and your T's job is to help you get out of there to start fully living with all your emotions, even if it temporarily hurts.

About the reason right now - it's not that the T wouldn't want to give you the 2xweek or even more. I've understood that he would quite like you to come more often. But similar to your schedule constraints he has his own and if you can't find a solution (which I hope you do) then it's not really because he rejected you and did not purposefully give you what you wanted but truly just couldn't.

T has never withheld anything simply to teach me how to handle not getting what I want.
We've talked about how whenI was very small and needed much more, how I was deprived to soon.
This is where the feeling always stems from. Not in the here and now.

[tomatenoir]

Originally Posted by Lrad123

This is exactly right. I feel like some secret desires have been gently coaxed out of a very private place and then kicked and squashed. This is why I’m a private person.

Please add me to the bandwagon. Before I turned 30, it was a rare time that I got what I needed or wanted. So I learned to not share my needs with anybody, because they were ignored, which only compounded the hurt.

I'm now 35, and a few things have worked out for me over the last five years (not everything, but I feel like the world is giving me a decent deal for once). I now spend a lot of time obsessing over when everything will be taken away or wondering if everything is an elaborate setup for the inevitable punch to the face.

I still marvel at people who don't see that it's pure chance they have good jobs, homes, children, family, and opportunities. They rarely understand their good fortune is more down to luck than anything they actually did.

I agree with the poster that said most people in therapy (or at least on this board) don't need any more lessons in tolerating lack. They need help in getting what they need. I hope your therapist is exploring how you can get the support you need outside of him, and not just focusing on your feelings of being unable to get what you want from him. Fifty minutes of emotional connection a week isn't enough, and I'd want to look at how to find that in other places, rather than concentrating on accepting that you can't get your schedules to marry up.

[Anne2.0]

Originally Posted by Lrad123

This is exactly right. I feel like some secret desires have been gently coaxed out of a very private place and then kicked and squashed. This is why I’m a private person.

I understand the "I feel" place from that tender place inside me that hurts at anything that smells in the neighborhood of rejection or not getting what I want (which are two different things often in application). Sometimes even the smallest of slights feel oozy, like a scab scraped off.

Of course the point of therapy isn't to be able to say what you want and then get it and it doesn't seem like this is the point. I don't *see* the situation as your T kicking or squashing your desires or pointlessly saying no because he can. What you asked for is a pretty unusual session time that I don't believe many therapists would be willing to accommodate. I am also someone who works for myself, and one of the benefits of doing so is saying no when the timing doesn't work for me or my family.

For me that tender place where things hurt even when my head says, oh, come on now, is from a young place where I think development went wrong. Having an infant alerted me to the way our general culture seems to think that "no" is something that has to be taught, as if learning to take no is a lesson that needs to be specifically taught like square roots. For some people, unfortunately some of them parents, think the ideal way to "teach" a baby this is to put something very desirable and appropriate in front of them and then tell them no. Or the people who think that nursing a baby should be limited in some ridiculous way, such as something I heard often, "If they're old enough to ask for it, they shouldn't have it." Great lesson, if you ask for it you should be denied. Although we didn't subscribe to any particular parenting philosophy, we did quite a few things like co-sleeping and a lot of holding and otherwise child-centered living. I don't believe children are "spoiled by attention". For our kid these things created a happy and content child who has less entitlement than almost anyone else I know.

But the people giving me dumb advice to ignore my baby and child in many different ways weren't monsters. Some of them were even parents, ones with healthy and happy children. So I think that at least American culture promotes this sense that the lesson of not getting what you want is important. Then you add on top of that a grab bag of family dysfunction and abuse that often magnifies the deprivation of not getting what you want, and we get big wounds.

I think the "how does it feel" question is just a beginning prompt for exploration. For me the goal was to take risks that might lead to rejection rather than stay safe inside some predetermined place where I didn't need anything to change. It was helpful to explore the ways that my fear of not getting what I want was holding me back, and to learn that I could put myself out there in some way, get rejected, and it didn't hurt so long or so deep.

So I do think there's a part of therapy where focusing on how it feels to not get what you want is the point, the point is that you can not get it and still move forward, and work your way out of the crushed place to keep trying. It seems really symbolic to me, this "rejection." What comes next-- do you find another T who meshes with your schedule better and allows you to get the frequency you need, or do you stay with this one who can't give you what you asked for, but who may be useful beyond that? Seems like the question is really about change, and *how* you want to change. Can't stay still and pretend it's all okay. Healthy kvetching about how this sucks is part of the process, but where does it go from there? It's one cliff or the other.

For me it really depends what areas we speak of. I can say that, generally, it tends to be easier for me at this point of my life not to get what I want. I think because in my youth I did not have many rejections and I pretty aggressively pursued anything I wanted, often excessively (think of obsessive and addictive patterns). Life of course brought many experiences where things did not go the way I wanted, I experienced some serious challenges and adversaries, I actually destroyed a few things that I wanted or almost... So lots of adult conditioning. But there are still areas where it is easier to face and process rejections and not getting my way - for example in the interpersonal world. That has never been too challenging for me. I still have hard time not getting my way with my work, for example when I have interesting project ideas in mind but can't find the resources for it or when the product is not appreciated as much as I would like. Rejections and not finding exactly what I want in personal life is much easier for me, perhaps because I do not self-identify with those things as much and I don't get attached to those things as much as I do to ideas and projects.

[here today]

Originally Posted by LabRat27

Not getting something that I secretly want is usually tolerable
The idea of finally allowing myself to be vulnerable and ask for something and then feeling rejected is a million times worse.

It was unbearable, for me.

Originally Posted by Lrad123

This is exactly right. I feel like some secret desires have been gently coaxed out of a very private place and then kicked and squashed. This is why I’m a private person.

2.5 years after my last T rejected me, and 2 years after that feeling of rejection got connected up with how I felt at some point, after what feels like what may have been many failed attempts to get what I wanted, as a child, that horrible, unbearable feeling has, despite my feeling that I could not bear it -- has been borne and processed -- Finally, it's getting some better. It's not that I'm a victim, it's not that I'm blaming them, but my family did not, could not love me. Just the way it was.

I have a support group IRL with some women who kinda love me, as I kinda love them. My late husband loved me, I loved him, I love the cats who walked into my life 16 years ago and who are now beginning to depart (that is, die). And I've felt very desolate about that.

However, so far as I can tell, I'm not on a short flight path to the final destination, as they are, even though I often wish I was and so. . .

I lived my life in fantasy. Life without love is unbearable. A fantasy that I was loved and/or could become "fixed" by therapy enough to be loved was better than no love at all. I guess. I wasn't conscious of that value decision but seems now like what it was.

Life is still tough, I won't say it isn't.

Letting go. Bearing the pain. . .then letting it go. I got frozen in the past, maybe, and stuck, because the pain was unbearable. Dissociating or whatever it was helped me survive, I guess. But -- life without love is not a good deal anymore. Bearing the pain of disappointment from the past is a way to get that system up and functioning a little again? Not easy. Would be nice to have a therapist or someone to help. But maybe, for me, that's just part of the fantasy again? At any rate, my T didn't.

[feileacan]

Originally Posted by tomatenoir

I agree with the poster that said most people in therapy (or at least on this board) don't need any more lessons in tolerating lack. .

I wanted to comment on this topic because it's possible that it this (and other similar comments) were somewhat commenting my own first post. This is not a response to this particular post of tomatenoir but a general comment - I only cited the sentence so that I wouldn't have to write it out myself.

It is possible that some people misunderstood what I meant about teaching. Of course it is not teaching in the traditional sense that the "teacher" creates the environment and exercises so that the student could learn, which in therapy would mean that the therapist would purposely create the situation where the patient does not get what he wants and then the T gives him a lesson. Absolutely not!

Rather, assuming that these wishes come from a very young place then it is inevitable that the T just cannot satisfy them all. It is plain impossible. Thus the "teaching environment" occurs naturally and inevitably in the therapy setting. A T who's afraid of that and tries to escape it by attempting to fulfil all the needs is doomed to fail. Another option for the patient is to declare all therapy as pointless and harmful and with some T's this judgement is definitely accurate - but not necessarily with every T.

Thus the "teaching" happens via trying to make sense of things by trying to attach words to them that would meaningfully describe them. The things I am talking about are not artificially created by the T, they occur just naturally (similarly as they probably occurred naturally in the early childhood but in order to cope the person was forced to develop creative defences to get rid of them because there was no one who would respond appropriately).

A good T can give some of it what was missing during the early childhood. Some needs can get met. But not all and thus in order to get some of them satisfied the lack of others must be tolerated. There is no other way. Because if the person gives up on wanting and wishing anything because it is too painful to be or feel rejected then nothing can be met, the person cannot even accept those things that the T (or anyone else) can actually give.

[stopdog]

Have you interviewed any other therapists? I found that a useful and liberating exercise.

[here today]

Originally Posted by feileacan

. . .Because if the person gives up on wanting and wishing anything because it is too painful to be or feel rejected then nothing can be met, the person cannot even accept those things that the T (or anyone else) can actually give.

And what if the person, or an essential part of them, HAS given up? And disappeared. Or compartmentalized in a deep dungeon and the rest of the person, who put them in the dungeon or at least knew about it at some point, metaphorically threw away the key so they would never be tempted to open it again, and thus expose. . .who???. . .to the unbearable feelings and danger again? What then? How many years and different therapists are needed to reach them? What kind of therapy or method or understanding is there in therapy for them?

[DP_2017]

I know I posted this here already but it's always felt normal to me. When I was first in therapy.... I remember outright asking for weird things... he always said yes. No problem. I never asked to email, about 6 weeks in, I just did... and my first sentence was "I'm sorry to bother you by emailing..." and the email went on about me feeling like I was asking for too much and it was nice of him to say yes but he didn't have to do that.

It was so difficult for me to accept that he was well aware that he didn't have to, but he was choosing to. It helped me greatly with trusting him.

Then, along the way, he started to say no.... and it really confused me... I started to feel like I'd upset him or did something wrong. So I'd be back to apologizing for everything. This all lead into our big rupture with the boundary changes.

Anyway, he was still choosing to say yes to some things and when he said no, I'd question it... weird now the yes was suddenly the normal answer to me.... and he explained why every time. Some times the answers sucked but sometimes they made sense. Somehow, I felt our relationship was stronger because of this, I was insanely comfortable with him. I trusted him more than anyone in my life.

When we ended, we were at a good place, in the sense that I wasn't questioning anything. I was just asking and if he said no, I'd joke about it... and move on. I even demanded things form him in a joking way like "Will you seriously sit down, you are driving me nuts" LOL... (he liked to pace around a bit in the start sometimes) Anyway, long story but I think it was helpful for me to have what I wasn't used to... in this case, the yes..... and try to learn and accept that people can do things because they chose to, not because they have to.

When I got very used to that and the no started to feel weird with him..... it was good to have that, because I was reminded, like I knew before, life isn't always getting what you want. It's about making the best you can with what you have. No one is perfect, no one can give you everything, they also have needs. I really was glad he did this with me... it helped me have one of the strongest and most trusting relationships in my life, even though it was short lived.

Ending things was painful but I don't hate him, I still deeply love him and care about him and I think it's hugely because of how the relationship was for me. This yes/no thing was a big part of it. So somewhere along the way, even if it doesn't feel like it, there is lessons and value in this. Hang in there

[feileacan]

Originally Posted by here today

And what if the person, or an essential part of them, HAS given up? And disappeared. Or compartmentalized in a deep dungeon and the rest of the person, who put them in the dungeon or at least knew about it at some point, metaphorically threw away the key so they would never be tempted to open it again, and thus expose. . .who???. . .to the unbearable feelings and danger again? What then? How many years and different therapists are needed to reach them? What kind of therapy or method or understanding is there in therapy for them?

I don't have the answer to that and I don't see how anyone could have a definite answer to that. These things cannot be manualised or systematized.

If there is some part in that person that hasn't given up then there is hope that this person keeps searching and hopefully finds the ways and means that are suitable for him or her to start to become visible again and start to exist again.

If the person has given up fully then it is possible that there is nothing anyone can do, other than perhaps keep hoping that maybe somewhere there is still some tiny part that hasn't fully given up yet and one day becomes courageous enough to start searching the ways out.

However, there are no guarantees, neither in therapy nor in life. It's possible that someone goes dutifully to therapy for years (or decades) and it's all in vein and still it is no ones fault - at least they tried.

Originally Posted by here today

And what if the person, or an essential part of them, HAS given up? And disappeared. Or compartmentalized in a deep dungeon and the rest of the person, who put them in the dungeon or at least knew about it at some point, metaphorically threw away the key so they would never be tempted to open it again, and thus expose. . .who???. . .to the unbearable feelings and danger again? What then? How many years and different therapists are needed to reach them? What kind of therapy or method or understanding is there in therapy for them?

I think these are such important points especially for people who experience dissociation and themselves in “parts”... and there seems to be a lot on this forum. It is especially challenging when it comes to therapy - how can all those different desires and needs be even seen? And how can a client, who habitually compartmentalized, get comfortable with even being exposed to all that suddenly? Let alone the therapist?

[MoxieDoxie]

My T stopped answering emails and if he does answer them they were abrupt for written by "Captain Obvious". Because of that I stopped thinking of him as someone in my corner for support or I could rely on. I also lost desire to share things from my week or even to talk with him. I stopped all emails and I also cut down the amount of time I see him as I lost desire to get any help from him.

Did therapy work? No....I feel more lost and hate life as much as I did prior. I hate humans as much as I have before and still think I was not suppose to be born human that I was created for something other than this filthy life.

[Lrad123]

Originally Posted by stopdog

Have you interviewed any other therapists? I found that a useful and liberating exercise.

Yes, seeing a new therapist tomorrow. Still seeing my usual one as well later in the week and he is aware that I’m seeing another therapist. It does feel strangely liberating.