[LonesomeTonight]

Originally Posted by ElectricManatee

I haven't done legit DBT, but the T who taught me a bunch of DBT things and is trained in DBT is huuuge on validation. Almost excessively so. She would say that all feelings are valid even if not all feelings are justified. It has really changed how I interact with people and especially with my toddler. It's kind of magical.

Thanks for the podcast link zoiecat. I started listening to it, and it's really good so far.

I like this line. Would you say it changes both how you act toward them (how you treat them, what you say to them, etc.) and how you react to them?

My parents were (and still are) bad at validating my feelings. I saw things like good grades in school, teachers liking my work, etc. as ways to get validation in other forms. And, of course, sought it from other people, mainly authority figure types, but also friends and romantic partners. Hm...and I guess music in a sense, too--hearing other people sing about what I'm feeling provides a form of validation, I think.

I try to validate my D as much as possible, but I think her autism makes it hard for her to understand what I mean at times, regarding emotions. Or else I'm just not very good at expressing that!

[ElectricManatee]

Hmm, good question. I would say yes (to both) because it helps me not take their feelings personally. It's easier to accept that the other person feels the way they do and that there must be a reason for it, even if that's not how I feel. It matters much less to me now whether they are "right" to feel that way. Small children are irrational creatures by nature, so this comes up a lot with my kid where she might be upset about something (or nothing) and I can help her name and understand what she feels without doing anything to try to change the feeling (or the situation) or try to rationalize her feeling away or shame her for having it.

Sometimes I have been upset about something outside therapy that I bring up with this T (Amy, my EMDR T), and she's always very understanding and validating and makes lots of space for me to rage/complain/cry. And then once I've done that and feel understood, we might pick apart whether that feeling is justified or whether I was triggered by something else or whatever. And the validation of the feeling makes me feel safe enough and calm enough then to sometimes decide that no, that person didn't actually do anything wrong and the feeling isn't justified. Kind of like how sometimes the easiest way to change something is to first accept it without trying to change it...

[velcro003]

I also don’t think DBT is invalidating. At least, not my experience of it.

LT: I hope you see that all of this talk about Dr. T is a good thing! I can see how you are trying hard to examine your role in it all.

I will disagree a little with Una about the shame thing. I’ve felt plenty of shame in therapy, but it rarely has been a result of something my T said to elicit said shame. If she has, it definitely triggered something I already felt about myself, and not her feelings on that subject. I hope you can see that is different than telling you that something you did is irritating, bc I would feel ashamed at that. Which is directly related to his own feelings on the subject.

I have been worried many times that I’ve annoyed my T, or have had her so frustrated that she want me to leave forever. She has always pointed out that I find myself to be annoying or frustrating. Which has been true.

[velcro003]

Originally Posted by ElectricManatee

Kind of like how sometimes the easiest way to change something is to first accept it without trying to change it...

Ah yes, radical acceptance. I find this SO hard to do.

[stopdog]

feelings are not facts. One might feel shame but the other might not have been shaming. I wouldn't, from reading it, say the therapist's words or actions are universally shaming (I don't see them as shaming at all for that matter). That shame was felt is not the same as the other causing such.

[zoiecat]

Originally Posted by stopdog

feelings are not facts. One might feel shame but the other might not have been shaming. I wouldn't, from reading it, say the therapist's words or actions are universally shaming (I don't see them as shaming at all for that matter). That shame was felt is not the same as the other causing such.

Exactly. I still struggle with understanding this but my T us always saying you have a "thought" that I am shaming you for example. Then he will say lets check the facts and he will help me break it down. This is a DBT skill that I never quite mastered.

[smileygal]

Originally Posted by stopdog

feelings are not facts. One might feel shame but the other might not have been shaming. I wouldn't, from reading it, say the therapist's words or actions are universally shaming (I don't see them as shaming at all for that matter). That shame was felt is not the same as the other causing such.

This is very true but many of his reactions and responses are loaded with judgement. Shame is often a feeling underlying many people' experience as a result of their own negative self-judgement. Loading a therapists judgements on top of our own just doesn't seem helpful to me. Perhaps exploring our own and why it is causing such feelings of shame may be useful...

For me there is just a close link between judgement and shame but I guess you are right one might feel shame and that feeling is on the person but the words of another may not have been shaming

[smileygal]

Originally Posted by LonesomeTonight

I like this line.

My parents were (and still are) bad at validating my feelings. I saw things like good grades in school, teachers liking my work, etc. as ways to get validation in other forms. And, of course, sought it from other people, mainly authority figure types, but also friends and romantic partners. Hm...and I guess music in a sense, too--hearing other people sing about what I'm feeling provides a form of validation, I think.

Would you say your T validates or invalidates alot of your feelings? Or perhaps a mix of both?

[ElectricManatee]

Originally Posted by velcro003

Ah yes, radical acceptance. I find this SO hard to do.

Me too! I just want to fix it. Preferably RIGHT THIS MINUTE.

[stopdog]

Originally Posted by smileygal

This is very true but many of his reactions and responses are loaded with judgement. S

I don't agree.

[unaluna]

My dad made it easy on me. If i did something he thought was bad, he would outright say. "Arent you shame?" Which was completely grammatically imcorrect and i think he meant, arent you ashamed to do such a bad thing?

But i also realized he didnt understand it and didnt want to discuss it. He thought shaming me like this was the strongest thing he could do in terms of discipline . So i have had huge issues with shame. Its like a major theme in my life and my therapy.

Sometimes shame is used to keep women and minorities down. But feeling shame can also be weaponized by the individual.

[LonesomeTonight]

Originally Posted by smileygal

Would you say your T validates or invalidates alot of your feelings? Or perhaps a mix of both?

I would say a mix, but considerably more validating than invalidating.

I had an extra session* with him today, as I was struggling with some stuff regarding my D that came out right at the end of yesterday's session (like with 10 minutes left). Today, he was incredibly validating about many things that I was feeling and experiencing. It was just what I needed this week.

He said how I'd been dealing with a lot the past couple months, with D's additional diagnosis (of intellectual disability, on top of already-diagnosed autism and ADHD) and H having hip surgery, which left me in charge of many things. That he wondered if maybe I was concerned that this would be what the rest of my life would be like--as in, D living with us for the rest of our lives, my not really having much time or space to myself, etc.

I started crying as soon as he said that. Then said I felt bad for feeling it. He said I didn't have to feel bad about it, how the majority of parents look forward to eventually having an "empty nest," even if they have mixed emotions about it. And that not knowing what the future holds (in terms of whether D could ever live independently) can be very difficult.

We talked some more about that, processing her new diagnosis, etc. And I said, "I guess it's like grieving in a way." Dr. T: "There's no 'like' about it--it *is* grief." And that felt very validating.

There was other stuff, too, which I might write up later. Oh, and I ended up addressing his answering a call from his wife in the middle of a session--the tornado warning one--and he agreed that it was "awkward." He said he only answered because she called twice in a row (emergency signal), and that he tries not to let his home life "bleed into" his work. (That came up earlier in the session, when I was talking about how I wasn't sure if I was past the rupture, how there had been assorted disruptions to my sessions in the past few weeks. I hadn't intended to bring that specific incident up, but it sort of came out, and I think it's better that I did finally address it, as it had been nagging at the back of my mind--not so much the fact that he answered the call, but that he sat there talking to her in the room with me instead of stepping into the hall or something.)

*Well, it still adds up to the same number as usual per week; we'd just only scheduled 2 because he was out Monday.

[LonesomeTonight]

Originally Posted by ElectricManatee

Hmm, good question. I would say yes (to both) because it helps me not take their feelings personally. It's easier to accept that the other person feels the way they do and that there must be a reason for it, even if that's not how I feel. It matters much less to me now whether they are "right" to feel that way. Small children are irrational creatures by nature, so this comes up a lot with my kid where she might be upset about something (or nothing) and I can help her name and understand what she feels without doing anything to try to change the feeling (or the situation) or try to rationalize her feeling away or shame her for having it.

Sometimes I have been upset about something outside therapy that I bring up with this T (Amy, my EMDR T), and she's always very understanding and validating and makes lots of space for me to rage/complain/cry. And then once I've done that and feel understood, we might pick apart whether that feeling is justified or whether I was triggered by something else or whatever. And the validation of the feeling makes me feel safe enough and calm enough then to sometimes decide that no, that person didn't actually do anything wrong and the feeling isn't justified. Kind of like how sometimes the easiest way to change something is to first accept it without trying to change it...

That's helpful to hear your experiences. And I would definitely agree that small (and often not-so-small) children are irrational by nature (examples).


The way Amy helps you process things sounds good. I think validation first would really help me. I guess that's similar to how it can be with helping little kids, too, like, "Oh, you scraped your knee, I understand, it's really scary, and it hurts." But then helping them see, once they've calmed down, that it's not so bad.

[SlumberKitty]

A little while ago when I was overreacting about something (and yes I was overreacting) my T helped me out by letting me know that it was okay what I was feeling (abandonment/rejection/etc) and we worked with those feelings to give them space. Then when I had some perspective on the situation, T did tell me that I was overreacting (which kind of hurt) but then we worked through why I was overreacting and she said it came from a place that was understandable. It was painful to work through this stuff but it was also good. I was probably being irrational when I was overreacting, but I couldn't seem to help myself. Those were my feelings. They were real. They were valid. They just weren't fact.

[velcro003]

Originally Posted by ElectricManatee

Me too! I just want to fix it. Preferably RIGHT THIS MINUTE.

Me too!

And Kit-My T always puts the “overreaction” as feelings that seem out of proportion to the event. It feels less shameful that way-for me at least.

[velcro003]

I’m glad you had a good session today, LT!

[LonesomeTonight]

Originally Posted by velcro003

Me too!

And Kit-My T always puts the “overreaction” as feelings that seem out of proportion to the event. It feels less shameful that way-for me at least.

Oh, I like that reframing.

[LonesomeTonight]

Originally Posted by velcro003

I’m glad you had a good session today, LT!

Thanks, Velcro! I just feel this sense of relief.

But there was really a lot in that session, even just in quick mentions, like my late uncle, H's late friend, Facebook memories that were pre-Covid or pre-D's autism diagnosis (as in "On this day 3 or 10 years ago, you posted x), etc. We fit quite a bit into 50 minutes. (Whereas yesterday, it seemed like the session just sort of went by, and suddenly we just had 10 minutes left.)

[velcro003]

On a tangent: i hate those fb memories.

[elisewin]

I hope you will get past this circle of caring so much about things he says. It sounds to me he has no ill will towards you and that he is trying his best to help you as much as you want. It is another issue if he is able to, because his way of therapy is obviously not completely what you are seeking (connecting and relational talk), but I'm sure you find him useful in therapy anyway as you see him so often and have done so for such a long time. Sounds to me you have a good therapeutic relationship and you don't need to worry about it or everything he says that you don't 100% love. Also if you want to keep talking and exploring the relationship between you and the therapist, maybe you would benefit from a therapist that works that way? From what I have gathered, your therapist is keen to help you in your life and might get easily irritated when you concentrate on him instead and I doubt he is going to change his ways that much.

[ArtieTheSequal]

I just found this How to Turn Off Facebook Memories | PCMag I'm going to go try it now. Both h and I got a little tearful yesterday when one of my fb memories was an old picture of Rascal. We'll see if it helps at all; the article says you can't completely turn them off but you can at least change the settings.

[LonesomeTonight]

Unsure whether to wade back in here....but I think I could use some perspective. So things had been going pretty well with Dr. T. I knew he was going to be on vacation the week of 7/11 and am set up to see his backup. Yesterday, at the start of session, he said, "Oh, I'm going to be just doing virtual sessions all next week before my vacation." I said OK, though I'm not sure it fully registered at the time. We talked about some other stuff with my D for about 20 minutes. Then, I started crying.

He asked what was going on, and I said it was hitting me more about his doing virtual next week. He said it had been a last-minute decision that day. How he "lives in a democracy," and there are two other people (his wife and teen-aged son), so they voted for him to work virtually before the vacation to be safe.

I talked about how that was difficult for me, especially finding out at the last minute. I said I understood why he was doing virtual, but it still upset me. Cried some more. He said, "In-person is really important to you, isn't it?" I said yes and tried to explain why, like about the dedicated space, seeing full body language in person, the "energy," etc., but don't feel I did a good job of it, as he seemed sort of puzzled. He said I wasn't the only client who felt that way, how a few won't even see him at all unless it's in person.

I kept crying, then apologizing. He kept saying it was OK. I said I was worried that something would happen while he was away and that we wouldn't resume in person for a long time. He asked if I meant that there would be a change in case numbers, and I said yes, to make him decide to stay virtual, or that he'd get Covid and have to be off for some time. He said that with what he was doing on vacation (he confirmed he was driving), it would be no more risky than his seeing clients in person.

I was still emotional about it and said that he probably expected me to react this way, and he said he wasn't surprised. He said he wondered if it felt like, going to virtual, he was pulling back, and then, going on vacation, he was pulling back more? I said that was exactly what it felt like.

We meet tomorrow (Sunday--he works those usually anyway) because his schedule is weird next week (off Wednesday)--when I left he said, "We'll talk Sunday." And he'd said earlier in session that it was probably good that we were meeting then instead of the usual Monday.

It's still distressing to me, but I'm not fully sure how to explain it to him. Part of it is how it was last minute. But I know a big part of my fear is that his wife/son will be like, "Well, it was nice not having to worry about you catching Covid that week, so how about you just do virtual until it goes away?" (Which it sounds like it never truly will.) If it's truly a democracy, then they would rule every time. And I really feel like a big part of this is that, as he's done other times, he's sort of shifting the blame to his wife (adding in his son this time), rather than taking ownership of his decisions. So then it feels, in a way, that it's harder to be angry at him, as he'd be like, "Well, it wasn't me, it was my wife." Even though ultimately, it's up to him, right?

I know I'm likely "overreacting," to use a phrase from earlier in the thread (where he confirmed that I was, though about something else). I just feel like this triggers my abandonment fears.

Any thoughts? ("You're overreacting" will not be helpful! I already feel ashamed about it as it is, which is why I kept apologizing.)

I don't think you are over reacting. Strong reactions are important information and we should take time to consider what's going on when we have strong emotions. He should be helping you to pay attention to those emotions, and not just him saying he "understands" them.

You describe repeated instances of misattunement within the therapy with him. Times when he misses your needs are inevitable (albeit painful). Is there any work going on to help you explore what happens for you when he misses your need and how you can (emotionally)survive that?

So much of what you write is about what is happening for him (his home circumstances, his boundaries, his needs, what he is prepared to give you, etc) that I wonder if he is helping you to focus on you and your intra personal experiences.

[LonesomeTonight]

Originally Posted by comrademoomoo

I don't think you are over reacting. Strong reactions are important information and we should take time to consider what's going on when we have strong emotions. He should be helping you to pay attention to those emotions, and not just him saying he "understands" them.

You describe repeated instances of misattunement within the therapy with him. Times when he misses your needs are inevitable (albeit painful). Is there any work going on to help you explore what happens for you when he misses your need and how you can (emotionally)survive that?

So much of what you write is about what is happening for him (his home circumstances, his boundaries, his needs, what he is prepared to give you, etc) that I wonder if he is helping you to focus on you and your intra personal experiences.

Thanks, Comrade. It does often seem to be about him. We've talked about other coping strategies--whether it's talking to friends, posting here, distractions like TV or music, etc. But then there are times (including very recently) where the coping strategies haven't been enough. (Also in part due to stressors in my outside life, so I have less of a "buffer," as he put it the other day.) And I'm not sure we've really fully addressed how to manage that? I mean, I can email him, but then he won't reply until the next morning, so it's not as helpful if it's like 9 p.m. Though sometimes just the act of sending an email helps. (He also recently talked about an email "balance" thing, sort of like a bank balance, which made me feel more reluctant to email.)

On another note, I'm also bothered by the fact the he recently said he didn't think I'd experienced clinical depression while I've been seeing him, that it's all been from my anxiety. Which is actually something that I had thought about bringing up with him yesterday, before he said the thing about virtual sessions. As there have been times when I've ticked nearly every box on a depression checklist in the past couple years. So it feels invalidating for him to say he doesn't think I've experienced it. Yes, I know he's supposedly a diagnostic expert, but still....

Anyway, I think this is something I need to address with him tomorrow, both the "how to cope" piece and the depression thing.

I hope you're managing OK--I'm so sorry about what happened with your T--it's very wrong what she did.

[zoiecat]

Have you given any more thought to DBT classes LT? I really think they would help with a lot of these issues. As for your T and the "democracy", it is ultimately his decision. Even if he wife and son want him to do something, it is his choice to make the final decision on what he is going to do. Obviously he is not going to want to cause friction with the family but again that is his choice to make. Are you scared that his family means more to him than his clients? Personally, I think everyone's family should take precedence over their job, especially since he is still able to do his job virtually. This is strange time and Covid does have the possibility to impact everyone's health so I can see how that may persuade his decision.