Pushing T away

I’m feeling sort of crummy about my session yesterday which pretty much consisted of me pushing my T away, and I’m thinking it would have been better not to have gone at all. We started out by talking about an email I had sent him earlier in the week asking if he wanted to give my spot (I have the same spot every week) to someone else who might be more in need of seeing him since it was the day after Xmas and I know some people have a harder time with the holidays. I said something about how I felt guilty about being there and was afraid he was wasting his time coming in so early the day after Xmas. He said something nice and reassuring to which I replied, “I’m not asking for reassurance,” and he responded by calmly saying, “well, I’m giving it.” There was a lot of silence which is not unusual for us and which I’m usually ok with, but at one point near the end when he asked what I was thinking, I said I wondered if I should just get up and leave the session early. In my head I had actually been thinking of polite ways to do this. I also said that I hoped his next client was more interesting to which he again said something nice and to which I think I rolled my eyes (not my usual style at all). He then said, “you’re really pushing me away, aren’t you?” And he’s right. That’s totally what I was doing, but I hadn’t intended to and now I just feel unsettled about it all.

I did send him an email later in the day reflecting on this and saying that I didn’t need a response. He doesn’t really do email anyway so it’s likely he would not have responded, at least in a way that was satisfying to me. We have a long history of conflict about emails and our agreement has been that he’ll read anything I send, but not necessarily respond. But now I’m genuinely annoyed that he didn’t respond even though I said I didn’t need a response. I mean, I’m left feeling really unsatisfied by how things went and although it was probably my own fault, I wish he could just send a sentence or two to acknowledge that it wasn’t great and that’s ok. I think that would help me get through the next week and not feel so bad about the wasted session yesterday. Anyway, I’m feeling really unsatisfied by the whole interaction and I can’t stop ruminating about it. I’m wondering what I could do to not keep repeating this pattern.

You can always send another email saying you changed your mind and would like a response. L always tells me I can do that.

Don't know if you want my feedback -- I would, if it were me, because if I couldn't see something myself I would like somebody to help clue me in. All the years of therapy didn't help me much gain "insight". I guess whatever-it-is was just too disconnected/dissociated from my usual self. Still having some trouble with some of that stuff, too.

Feel free to get mad and tell me off, if you don't like this. And you can put me on your "ignore" list so you don't see anything else from me. I won't respond anymore, if you don't want me to and tell me, but of course you don't know that about me so the ignore list is certainly a legitimate option.

It sounds to me like you were acting from a "caretaking", including passive aggressive, place in suggesting that you cancel your last appointment, and then the suggestion that you hoped his next client was more interesting. I know a lot about caretaking and people pleasing because I was stuck in that for many, many years. But, your job in therapy is not to take care of others, but to take care of yourself. Is there anything that would have been "caretaking" for you, yourself, by canceling or avoiding that last appointment? This is maybe deep unconscious stuff, and I couldn't get to mine, frankly, except by acting it out somewhat. At least to start off with. It was that cut off. And then my therapists did NOT respond so well to that, and that's another story. So I'm definitely not "judging" you -- I've been there, done that, just trying to pass on a clue if you want one. And it sounds like your T may be a lot better than mine in dealing with, and helping you deal with your stuff. So my suggestion, for what it is (caretakingly) worth, maybe less than nothing, is just to grin and bear it for a bit. The discomfort will pass eventually. No need to feel "bad" about the wasted session -- it was NOT wasted. Lots of interesting stuff there to examine.

I do understand that you would like his reassurance that everything is OK, and that he still likes you and wants to work with you. But, realistically -- given the man and your history with him -- is that something you realistically doubt? And if it turns out that he can't -- well, lots of us here on this forum have made it through that kind of "crisis", too, one way or the other. And I'll bet you could, too. But my guess is it probably won't be necessary.

Yes, thanks. He doesn’t work Fridays and won’t respond on his day off or on weekends so the earliest I’d get a response would be Monday which seems like a long way off. I’m not even sure if I’ll want a response by then. I can pretty much predict exactly what he’d say anyway, so maybe that should be good enough for me. He’d pretty much say, “Lrad, I’m sorry you’re feeling unsettled. I look forward to talking to you on Thursday.”

Thanks for your insightful response. Not sure why you’d think that I’d be upset or put you on an ignore list! I very much appreciated your reply. I agree about the caretaking stuff, but don’t know what to do with it. Like at all. I realized that by offering to give up my spot it might be perceived as caretaking but I also genuinely felt like someone else might make better use of the time. What would I have gotten out of it? Well, it was a 7:00 am appointment on my vacation day, so I suppose I might have enjoyed sleeping in! I had been trying to looking up stuff on caretaking or even codependency on line to try to figure out why I sometimes have these behaviors. Still trying to figure it out. My T would say that we should talk about it together which is probably a good idea, but it’s also in my nature to want to figure it out myself first. And you are right about wanting reassurance from him. I do honestly know how he feels about me because he is by far the most consistent human being I’ve ever met. But for some reason I like the idea of email reassurance. Or maybe I just don’t like the idea of saying something that felt vulnerable to me in an email, and being ignored by not getting a response. Again, thank you for your reply!

I didn't find anything which was really definitive and fit for me, although there are some very interesting and helpful ideas out there. For me it seems to be connected with undesirable/unwanted selfish and/or aggressive energies/action tendencies -- not sure what to call it. And those got shut down and redirected or something toward caring for others. It was an habitual pattern among the women in my family of origin, and I picked it up, too. Some people do well or at least OK with it but it seems it was a pattern that was ill-suited to my basic temperament. Still, I didn't want to be rejected, and didn't even consider that as a option!! as a little girl. So it just got ingrained as part of who I was.

I've found it extremely difficult to pull away from that and try to establish something else as a base for who I am -- but hanging onto that is not good. It is not even possible anymore. So. . .

Rationally, intellectually, I think it's a part of a cultural shift to where women can, and are even wanted to, have a healthy independent ego instead of getting social gratification and acceptance just because of our ability to care for others. Yes, caring for others is important. AND caring for and defining ourselves is important, too. AND I still feel pretty clueless about it all, and how to balance it, but keep trying anyway.

Rather than seeing your offering to give up your appt as a caretaking gesture, I view it more of a self-protective action. Pushing someone away is generally a self-protective action, and I think the clue as to "why" you might have been doing this is in your statement about someone else being more interesting. I wonder if the heart of the confusion is more along the lines of not feeling good enough/worthy enough to "warrant" those Monday timeslots when others - who will be missing out over the holiday period - might have more "need" than you. Perhaps you offered to give up your slots to T because you were sure this is what he must have been thinking or wanting and wanted to get in yourself first, before T could ask you to give them up and thus "reject" you.

And for sure I could just be projecting my crap on to your situation here because I totally get like that with my t! Sometimes I just get totally annoyed with myself for exposing my poor T to my presence and I have to take myself out of there.

Well, to me it looks like you're doing some (subconscious?) push/pull thing with your T.

You offer your timeslot, but you leave the decision up to him. Instead, you could've said, well, it's my vacation day, I don't want a 7 a.m. appointment on my day off, I'll cancel and you can give this slot to someone else.

Instead you said to your T: Do YOU want to give MY spot to someone else who has got it harder than me? Well, what is he supposed to answer to that question? There's probably no right answer there. And as a responsible T he shouldn't accept the responsibility for the decisions you don't want to take.

You were ambivalent about this appointment. But instead of deciding for yourself and taking responsibility for your decision, you are looking to your T to decide. And he decided that he would give you some reassurance. This can feel rather frightening. Especially if you're not used to this. Especially if you're always expecting that the worst is yet to come, that there is a price to pay.

With you email, afterwards: Why are you scared to ask him for some reassurance? What's wrong with asking for it? Instead you're cutting yourself off from any support that he might be offering to you by saying "I don't need a reply". What are you trying to prove either to yourself or to him?

Yes, this makes a lot of sense. I do push him away quite a bit, but it has felt like a chicken & egg sort of dilemma to me. I’m not sure which came first, the caretaking or the self-protection. As I think about it, it’s likely the self-protection. I suppose it’s easy to hide behind the caretaking facade. He had told me the week before that he tends to work over the holidays because he knows that people can have a hard time this time of year. That got me thinking about how other people must have a harder time than me. He must work over the holidays for people that are different than me. People with real problems. I felt like I was just taking up space in his schedule and didn’t really belong there.

Ouch, yep. I can see how those feelings might have been triggered up by his comment, and your interpretation of it. I can understand why you are feeling self-protective and needing to push him away... while also having other feelings of needing connection. Both are different sides of the same attachment-trauma coin, I think!
It sounds like this has put you in connection with a whole lot of old "I don't matter/I'm not good enough/I am not valuable enough/I don't belong" feelings.

I wonder if you can revisit what T replied to you when you first mentioned giving up your time slot for someone who might need it more.

I don't believe T was lying or tricking you when he answered you, but telling you the truth of what he believes here, now, today. Regardless of what messages you may have absorbed from others in your past.

Thanks for helping me think this through. When I emailed with what I thought was a genuine offer to give my slot to someone who might need it more, he immediately replied that he wasn’t going to give it to anyone else and I thought to myself, “of course he has to say that,” and wondered how I could get my message across that I was actually sincere and not playing games. But maybe I was subconsciously playing games. To my surprise, I was sort of glad he wasn’t giving my time away and I wasn’t expecting to have that reaction. It felt nice to have someone say they were going to be there for me no matter how unimportant I felt my issues might be. In session, when I brought up the email I had sent about wanting to give my time away, he said, “we have an agreement” which I assume meant the agreement to meet every Thursday at 7:00. But what I felt was concern that he felt bound to an agreement but perhaps might have preferred having an out or an exception since it was Christmas week. So I was trying to give him an out, I guess.

Yes, I think you are right about the push/pull and the ambivalence. I do also think I was trying to give him an out in order to try to avoid rejection. I think I assumed that on some level since it was a short week due to the holiday and also because he had told me some clients have an especially hard time over the holidays, that he would rather see those clients instead of me, and I thought I was trying to help him do that. When he tried to reassure me, I felt that that was an obligatory therapist response, but maybe not an honest one. I realized that as my therapist he probably shouldn’t tell me that he’d prefer to prioritize certain clients over the holidays even if that’s how he really felt. I felt that the reassurance might be insincere. I guess I wanted to see him, but wasn’t so sure he wanted to see me this particular week even though he was saying all the right words.

Regarding asking for reassurance via email, we have a complicated history regarding email. He used to reply, then stopped although he has said he gladly reads my emails. I suspect that he would reply if I ask for a reply, but I feel like I’m not supposed to do that even though I have done it before. He might say that I “have a need” from him, but that is hard for me to accept. I know it sounds silly, but that’s hard for me to accept. Anyway, thank you so much for your thoughts. It has been really helpful.

I wonder if part of the reason I push my T away is that I’m aware that I’m trying to navigate a relationship with him that is professional but sometimes feels like it’s more than that. I feel attached and what he says matters to me, but I don’t want to overstep or expect too much from him, so my response is too push back. I think that response is only natural given the circumstances, right? I mean, he’s not a friend or a family member. He’s just a kind and empathetic person who is only available for two 50-minute slots per week and I can’t go on letting my drama bleed into the rest of the week, so of course the only real solution is to take a step back sometimes.

This is me, too, 100% - pushing away because it’s meant to be professional but sometimes feels like more. I totally understand why you would feel this way. It’s completely valid. Maybe reflective of an “attachment issue” to some degree, but isn’t that part of the reason we’re all in therapy?

Yeah, this must be pretty common and it sometimes seems like a flaw in the whole process. On the one hand I’m supposed to let my hair down and be emotionally open and uninhibited, but on the other hand I’m very aware that this is a professional relationship. It’s hard not to ignore that this is a conflict, at least for me.