Couch 217: The Order of the Phoenix couch

You're right to stick to what YOU feel comfortable with disclosing.

Maybe you could try a different T just for a few sessions?

Unfortunately it is not head vs. heart. It is head vs. head and heart vs. heart. Both options have head and heart equally behind them.

One thing to do would be to make a decision (but not act on it yet) and see how it feels. Another is to flip a coin and see how you feel with what it lands on. Like if you're disappointed that you get heads, then maybe the "tails" decision is the right one. Just ways of tapping into what you might feel subconsciously. I hope Info is actually helpful.

I'm sorry you're feeling bad now. I agree with other posters that he shouldn't be pressuring you for information like that. It almost sounds like a high school friend, who's like, "cm'on, give me all the juicy details!"

Could you tell him what you said here, that you just want to enjoy the relationship for now rather than analyze it to death? And that you'd rather be a bit more private about it.

I did ask him for his rationale. He said that because I struggle with issues of desire and body image and seeing myself as a sexual being (not to mention the fact that I have a hx of SA), that this stuff is important to talk about in therapy. He also said that therapy isn't just about fixing problems when they come up, it's about talking about things all along so that when things do come up, there's context. He says he wants me to be able to use him in service of this relationship with J. Also he said that this desire to sort of "split" and see therapy as a thing that can only be used to talk about the terrible badness is very BPD.

I can see his point. But also I just flat-out don't want to talk with him about this. I'm not even sure why, to be honest, I just don't.

My wife taught me the coin toss thing, and it's really helpful. I also sometimes ask her to decide, and then if I feel like arguing with her after she tells me what to do, it means I really wanted the other option.

When we were agonizing over whether to send the kid back to daycare, we made a list of benefits and risks. In this situation, what were the guaranteed benefits we would receive vs. what were the potential risks we were worried about. Similar to pros and cons but with some amount of probability and weighting thrown in too.

The BPD thing is weird and a little annoying since that is not a label you identify with or are even okay with having applied to you (whether his analysis is true or not). He also doesn't seem to understand that pushing like that is only going to make somebody less comfortable and less likely to share. I have told my T all sorts of very specific sex things, and I likely only feel comfortable doing that because she has never, ever asked. Instead she responds with gentle encouragement when I have made it clear that I wanted to go in that direction.

Therapy is like trying to build a relationship with a feral cat. If the therapist goes in screaming, "TRUST ME! I'M HERE FOR YOU! I WANT TO HELP!" they will have the exact opposite result of what they want.

So the best case scenario is that he's kind of inept, and the worst case scenario is that he's being kind of a creeper.

It's also so understandable to want to keep this to yourself for right now. That new relationship cocoon is niiiice. And cozy. It's okay to savor the feelings and sensations without bringing a lot of words and rationality into it.

My wife is anxious about a work thing, and she has been talking my ear off about it ALL. DAY. LONG. I have listened and given her my suggestions and feedback, but I think she is trapped in an anxiety loop where she just wants to talk about the same things over and over. The situation seems stressful but not terribly dire to me, and it's frustrating but not something she can control. Is there a nice way to tell her to stop talking about it? I want to pull her out of the loop, but I know that I can't manage her feelings. Yet she is also distracting me from my work and does not seem to have the bandwidth to talk with me about anything else. This would be much easier if either of us had other people to see or other places to go, rather than being trapped in the house together all day every day...

Well, Info was helpful at least in calming me down. She was even able to make a logical argument about what I should do. She also offered the opinion that my sister's stance on this decision is "weird." (Which was my reaction too.)

Wouldn't you know it, the closest I ever got to really breaking down in front of a therapist happens via teletherapy.

By the way, she just flew to MI and back with at-risk husband.

Fashion report: Black tank top, racerback I think (there was plenty of leaning forward, just not enough for me to confirm). Some kind of silver half-moon pendant.

Oh, and she's reading "White Fragility." Which may mean I completely misinterpreted her potential politics. Or not.

Chihiro - here is my latest experience in that venue. I reconnected with a bf from my 20's, but only on the phone. Amazingly, nothing had changed. And not in a good way! I was smitten again and getting very little back. Im very good at that. T helped me talk myself out of the dark. My parents and brother had ALWAYS left me too much in the dark, literally and figuratively, because that was the path of least resistance for them.

That is all!

@@ - maybe shes trying to understand white people? Cuz i sure dont. I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X - well, i was gonna say in junior high, so i checked the publication date. Thats about right.

I finally figured out, a while ago, maybe THATS why the nuns didnt want us reading just anything in our readers? I mean, we had huge books of short stories and novel excerpts, and i do remember getting yelled at once about "reading ahead", although not too seriously. They didnt want us getting TOO liberal an education. Those darn forward-thinking novelists!

Weather report - ah, it's raining! So at least it's not heat index 100 and sunny!

And my amazon package came. I dont know if i mentioned it, but they kept saying my building was closed! Its not! The restaurant in front is, but not the apartment! I was afraid i was gonna end up on youtube going all karen on the amazon driver, "gimme me my oreos!!"

“Gimme my Oreos” while going all Karen doesn’t sound like you.

I’m more puzzled by Info a) being out of the office indefinitely because of at-risk husband and also b) flying with the same husband to Michigan.

And speaking of flying, my chair has just announced she’s flying to *Europe* on Friday with a stop in freaking Florida along the way. I didn’t even think Europe was letting us in.

But I’m only fourth in the line of succession so I don’t think I need to worry.

Dr. T said something today that I keep thinking about regarding my D. Need to trigger warning it:

Wouldn’t it be more helpful for him to explore with you why your daughter might react to you that way than that he say it’s like emotional abuse? Because the latter sets up a totally different dynamic than the former.

And your daughter has a therapist who might have insight, too; maybe it could be a joint effort.

It could be as simple as she’s picked up on your anxiety about the pandemic and it scares her, like you’re not the same mommy she knows any longer, so she turns to your husband instead and rejects you.

Which is not to blame you in any way or to say it shouldn’t affect you—just his focus seems weird to me, even if he is blunt. I can’t imagine it’s helpful for a client (or anyone) to think of their nine year old as like they’re emotionally abusive.

ETA: I mean if she was like 19 or 29, an adult, I’d be fine with his wording and I’d think it should be something a therapist would say, but she’s 9. Makes me wonder about his kid and their relationship.

Thanks for the comments. We've talked about a few ways we can try to help her over the past few months. And also met with her T a week ago (was mostly H and I meeting with her, though D said hi a few times).


I think in this case it was T trying to validate some of my feelings, as I'm struggling with not really being able to help her much. She's favoring H so much, and I know it's hard on him because she's not giving him much space. But then even when I offer to do some things with her, like take her out back to play in (inflatable) pool or sandbox, she'll say no and want to wait for him. Or H could be yelling at her, and she still prefers him over me generally (she did actually go to me for comfort when he was yelling a couple weeks ago). She will tolerate me out on the back deck with her for brief periods, longer if H is there.

I do worry that she's picking up on my depression and anxiety. I mean, she's seen me crying a couple times, in the past couple months which I feel really guilty about. For a long stretch pre-pandemic, she strongly favored me and would be upset by H merely walking down the stairs past her room. And now she's done a complete 180. It's not that I want her to favor me--I just want her to be able to be OK with either of us caring for her.

Some of it is that I feel sort of useless right now, in regard to her. And rejected. I want to help her, and I empathize with her struggles being home, but I don't know how. I think Dr. T was just trying to validate that.

Just read your ETA--I also wonder about his relationship with his son (who, again, may be on the spectrum as well). The times he seems emotional during session are nearly always times when I'm talking about struggles with D. So I wonder if some of it resonates, like he's been there. (I know better than to ask him.)

ETA: It could also be that his son is a neurotypical 12- or 13-year-old (I know he's around that age because T told me his age when I asked when I started seeing him) starting to go through puberty and rebelling a bit...

I could see where having your kid scream at you would feel really upsetting, especially if you are already stressed out. I do agree with @@ that the framing there may not be quite right in terms of setting the tone with your relationship with your child. (If you start to even think of your kid in negative terms, it can have really negative consequences all around in terms of how you interpret their behavior!) So maybe the term emotional abuse is something to mull over in terms of the effect it's having on you but not on what is actually happening in the moment. I think emotional abuse would require the abuser to have either more power or equal power to the abused, which isn't really the case with a child-to-parent relationship.

I like verbal validation as a tool. "Wow, you really want dad instead of me. You seem [insert emotion] that I'm here right now." And then staying totally calm (at least outwardly!) and not changing anything or going to get her dad. Then she can express her feelings but not have that scary feeling that she's in control. Maybe this only works with little kids, though, I don't know.

That seems like a good approach, and D is behind in social skills, so little-kid stuff might work on her. I do tell her that it makes me sad to hear things like "I don't like you," but I'm not sure she really cares? Or else doesn't understand what I mean? I've tried to explain to her in the sense of, what if someone said that to her, how would she feel? And she's said it would make her sad. But she doesn't seem able to make the leap to "well, then I shouldn't say it to other people, because it might make them sad." I imagine that's in large part due to her being on the spectrum, so I try not to hold it against her at all.


I feel like maybe Dr. T is just trying to have me not discount my feelings. Because I tend to empathize with others, and it would be easy for me to be like, "My hurt feelings about what she said aren't valid because she doesn't understand how what she's saying hurts me." So I think he's just trying to validate what effect all that could have on me, particularly over time (vs. a random comment). Not to see my D as an enemy or anything. Because I agree that an abuser needs to have some level of power.


I intend to talk about it more next session.

Im having a deja vu about talking about verbal validation.

LT, if you tell your D it makes you sad when she says x - well, you just cant do that. Its creepy! It sounds like something my old aunties would say!

lit $200 worth of fireworks for fourth of july. Memory problems I cant remember much about them. My memory sucks. I bought 200pk of zots candy. Hopefully I win the lotto. I bought a lucky for life easy pick and lotto 47 easy pick. I would buy a new house, and share my winnings with my family, maybe go on a few vacations.

I think it makes perfect sense that you would be feeling a sense of verbal validation deja vu right now.

Whoa, I haven't thought about Zotz in forever! My mouth is watering just thinking about them. Are they still tasty in a weird way?

I'm so emotionally exhausted that I want to go hide in bed and watch Netflix or read till bedtime.

That isn't something I'm good at, though. I feel like if I'm not on the move I'm not alive.

Thank you! I feel so verbally validated!