How can I stop thinking this way? Help!

Your experience sounds similar to me and my first therapist. I REALLY REALLY suggest this book

Trauma and the Avoidant Client: Attachment-Based Strategies for Healing

Author has some youtube videos. And a newer book I haven't read yet.

It's specifically written about clients who have an avoidant attachment style, and I think you'll find some similarities between yourself and some of the client stories in the book. This book has helped me understand myself more than any other of the like 75 therapy books I have read trying to understand why i'm so...me.

I don't like emotions or talking about things that i think are private or painful. I avoidant constantly in therapy.

For sure have avoidant attachment... my T and I discussed that, he also didn't diagnose but said I likely have avoidant personality disorder and when I joined a FB group for that, I felt understood. This is why therapy isn't for me. I don't like emotions or talking about things that i think are private or painful. I avoidant constantly in therapy.

IIRC, you said earlier in this thread that you are not interested in a romantic relationship with him, even if that was something he might be thinking about. It seems like the sexualized atmosphere of some of your sessions or parts of them might have been your way of exploring these kinds of feelings in a safe atmosphere. Maybe your dream is about that, too, exploring your feelings for him inside the safety of your own head.

I think it's a dream rich with symbolism. For me, I often have "unusual" or weird dreams about something that's like real life at times where I'm going through something difficult or thinking about making some changes or I'm taking some risks in some way and I'm wondering how they are going to play out. Your seems to represent some kind of shift at least inside your own head, or a kind of wondering. To me that sort of dream is way cool, but I could understand if you find it distressing. Just like people say after a death, any kind of loss does not mean the end of your relationship with a person. Maybe your dream is about trying to work out what your relationship was and what it meant. I don't get the sense that you are stagnant, but moving somewhere else from where you've been.

Iirc you have previously said your feelings crossed over into romantic and sexual as well as friendship for him. Might the dream not just be part of that? You're jealous of his new life (hence he's a woman) but there are some sexual feelings waiting to come out hence the trigger part?

I agree that talking about something is v v v unlikely to effect change itself. For me, we talk, then I perhaps understand more or get a different perspective, then I force my self to act in a different way to reflect this new perspective. Or we talk about theory and I began to recognise emotional states and try and respond mindfully instead of just being swept along. So for me there is always action out of the talk. I agree with someone else that said you didn't really do therapy with your t so perhaps your antipathy to it is not reasonable? I mean has a rational basis - not an insult.

My initial reaction is that it would be difficult to do therapy just for one issue as issues are probably interrelated. But then you did that for grief and it worked (for the grief) so maybe it's a good way for you. We are all different.

I do hope you continue to find a way out - Am with Anne on the you are defo moving forward well and not in a closed off fashion. Much better than I would so I'm like wowww.

DP, I’m sorry. What you’re going through sounds really painful.

This is a thought/question that came up for me as I read your thread:
Is it possible being upset with him helps your grieving hurt less?

I hope you find the comfort you need.

What you are experiencing has a lot of similarities to what I went through with my T. However, she actually did lose her license (not related to her relationship with me) and she entered into a friendship with me immediately (no 2 year wait). What is similar, however, is the way I felt when I realized that the relationship we had in therapy did not hold up in the real world. I was also forced to confront the fact that what we had been doing for 5.5 years was not really therapy— we were just chit chatting and connecting. While it felt fun and helpful at the time, without seeing her every week in therapy the stability of having an emotional support disappeared. As an actual friend, she totally sucked. She flaked on me all the time, she was selfish, and she demonstrated that I was pretty low on her priority list. I was her “favorite client” but in her real life, other people came first. That would be totally understandable if she were actually my T— she hadn’t been that either. I had been in therapy for 5.5 years, but I hadn’t actually been getting therapy during that time. So it was like she just came in, filled a void, and then left— and that void was still there. For me, it started to hurt more that she was in my life, but in a superficial way. We would have coffee and she would ramble about dumb, meaninglessness things. It was nothing like the deep, connected stuff we talked about in therapy. It sent me on a mind spiral of “Does she really care about me? Did she ever really care about me? Does she really want me in her life? What is her MO?” It was incredibly confusing and she was totally inconsistent. One minute she would be saying “I love you” and “you’re going to be in my life forever!” and the next minute she would disappear for two months with no contact. The more I focused on my relationship with her, the more pain I was in. What helps me is detaching from that. After a long period of anger I am once again able to remember the good stuff, but if I focus on it too much and either live in the past or think about creating more good times in the future— then I get sucked into the roller coaster again. For me, focusing on other parts of my life is the best way to get through it. She is incapable of providing closure or fully recognizing the kind of damage she did— even if it felt good at the time. I just need to take hold of my own life and move on. I don’t think she’s evil or anything— I just think she has bigger problems than I do and I need to find happiness outside of her.