Why is it so hard?

Awesome T just wants me to ask for a want or a need in session and I am totally frozen. He has given me a bunch of things to ask for that I already know the answer so it isn’t a fear of rejection or being told no. Do I want to sit in the chairs or on the floor? How close or far away do I want him to be to feel comfortable? I can ask for hugs or for him to hold my hand. What on our list of things we want to do would I like to try this session. He just wants me to ask for something, anything... why is it so damn hard?

Also, anyone have suggestions for breaking through this? I can email him requests but can’t do it face to face and I can’t read my emails out loud. I totally freeze and shut down. T is trying so had to make sure it is safe and there are safe options so I don’t have to worry about the answer.

I struggle with this at times. Recently I wanted to ask to color because I was struggling to articulate something and a part of me wanted to use that medium to try to get whatever was in my head out and maybe the visual would help me understand it better. I couldn't ask for it. I could stare at the tote with the crayons in it and the blank paper that sat below it, but I couldn't ask for it; which got us talking about why I might not be able to ask for something.

Like so many things for me, this is a complicated behavior. In this example, it seemed easy to see that it came down to not wanting to deal with disappointment. Perhaps most of them come down to that, not wanting to deal with disappointment of some sort. Disappointment that my hoped for goal would not be achieved (the drawing wouldn't have produced anything helpful so it would have been a waste/foolish?).

Rejection is another type of disappointment.

Disappointed that the action will not feel the way I expect it to feel like (again, outcome not matching hope or fantasy).

Disappointed (angry/hurt) that it had to be asked for rather than provided. I have to ask for tissue every time I want some. Every time.

Face to face, can you let him read it? Could you write the request in front of him on a piece of paper, hand it to him, and have him read it? Could you write it on a white board where you can still see the request while he reads it? I guess the idea here is to regress the communication to the stage that you feel safe and then have him respond to it, slowly bringing the words to you? Like, can you point to the wanted item and have him ask you if you want x or y... would you be able to nod; answer yes/no; say yes, I want x or even have him say... repeat after me, can I have x. Maybe talk in we's.. can we read, color, sit on the floor. The we being you and him or even just the parts of you. Not sure if you do any parts work, that's another way to do it too. To say a part of me wants to ask you if we can do x or would like it if we did y. The advantage of this last one, is that you are talking about the wanted item without asking for it. It has its drawbacks, if you try this method be prepared that you might not get the x or y thing because you have not directly asked for it. So, in doing the meta talking about it, it might be good to have an understanding from your T as to what you expect him to do with the information.

Thanks Elio

My mind goes totally blank. Usually when I get scared or anxious T will ask me to rate it on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being no anxiety and 10 being unbearable anxiety. I freeze starting at about 7 but T can easily get me out of a freeze at 7. So, I am thinking that asking bumps me all the way up to 9/10 in anxiety. He will not read something pre-written but would let me use paper or the white board but I get too frozen. Normally if I wanted someone to hold my hand but couldn’t ask I would reach out. T would also see this as asking at this point and respond. I also already know he will hold my hand so no worry of rejection.
Last week I brought him a project that represented my sadness and when he asked if I wanted to leave it at his office or take it home I could say that I wanted to leave it. But, when he gave me two choices of where to put it I shut down again.
I will run these ideas past T next session. I think he is pretty open to anything at this point. He even offered to print off my emails and have them near where I sit so that I could read it to him. I had my tablet with me that week so I just pulled up my sent mail. I couldn’t get my eyes to focus on the words much less say them. He let me try for a little while but then could see I was getting too upset with myself so he moved on to something else. At this point I think if I just came in and ignored the chair and sat on the floor he would honor it as asking. He even responded to a request that I left on his voicemail because it was a tiny step closer than email but I don’t even seem to be able to do that 99% of the time.

I get to this blankness place as well and I can't make a decision, sometimes I know what I want and can't say it and other times I don't even know what I want, it's so blank. If I sit in that blankness for long, I can end up not even remembering what my options are or what not and my thinking becomes extremely simple.

As you talk about this, I think about infants and learning to communicate. I wonder if on some level we are not accessing some pre-verbal space when we get to these places so the lack of asking for what we want is simply because we are stuck in that space, where we don't know how to talk/don't have words to talk and our thinking has gotten simple. This was where the idea of having him say it and you repeat after him came in - letting him give you words to say. I might reapproach his position on not reading something pre-written to see if you handed him a card with just the ask statement on it with the intent on him coaching you through verbalizing what is on the card.

I also can lose the ability to read (the words get too blurry) and I get ringing in my ears, all stages of disassociation for me.

I really don't know, I do know that you are not alone with this struggle.

Thanks Elio, that was a big help. T has identified neglect in infancy so the proverbial makes sense... and a lot of this got worse after he tried to talk about the infants needs.

This might go back to your childhood. When you asked your parents for something, how did they react?

I took care of most of my own needs even as a very, very young child. T was trying to talk to me about a month ago about normal infant needs and it was too uncomfortable to think about so we had to stop.

I had to do this too (take are of my own needs from very young). I still don't ask anyone for anything.
For me, taking care of myself is a way to be safe. Needing anything from someone outside of myself is decidedly unsafe. In that context, asking an external other for something makes me exceedingly vulnerable. Vulnerability is definitely not safe. For me, asking an external other opens me up to unnecessary vulnerability. Why do it when it can all be avoided?!

Two things have helped me, and I was a person who would snarl at my T when he asked what I needed or how he could help me. The first thing, which is what I see in the language of your post, was to stop believing I was incapable of doing it or incapable of change. Everytime you say you "can't" do something your brain is paying attention and it's going to make sure your reality conforms to what you believe. The second thing I did was to ask T this question: "I would like to be able to ask for help from you. There is a specific thing that I want to ask (it was for him to call my cell phone when I was in surgery, so I could hear his voice when I woke up in a voicemail). Can you help me figure out how to do this?"

This is where the assessment skills of a T come into play. I have done some version of this many times over the years, first identifying what I wanted (which is usually some kind of change for me, as opposed to something from him) and then articulating out loud, kind of like promising myself, that I want it to be different. "Help me figure out how to do this" is my pretty standard line for raising issues that often go across numerous sessions. T then asks a series of questions with follow ups tailored to the situation, such as asking me to identify situations recently or more distantly where the problem has revealed itself.