Couch 227 - The Safe Couch

Good idea. May I suggest musical accompaniment:



I’m gonna wash my mom right out of my hair



I have never seen that musical but my father used to sing “Some Enchanted Evening” to my mother.

Hugs Artie i tried to write a response but i couldnt make it sound right. I agree with @@ wash your mum right out of your hair.

thanks guys. talked it out a bit with h too and now i'm heading to wash my hair.

Also i think you have a right to say what is bothering you.

I had a bit of an epiphany while suds-ing up my hair. since I'll never be good enough for her, I really don't need to keep trying to be, do I? Once I actually stop hoping that she'll change, hoping that I will finally be good enough for her, I will finally be FREE to be MYSELF. Holy freaking carp.


I feel like dancing.

Now to just put that idea into practice.

you should watch South Pacific. It is a classic - rodgers and hammerstein at their finest. Also r and h refused to take the song you've got to be carefully taught out of the show. which for the time, was something.

I think sometimes mothers have fears for their children that they express badly and in ways that may be interpreted as being X when their actual underlying reason is Y. I also think most people are happier when living their own life for themselves and not trying to get approval in the way they wish from people not likely to give it.

My house is 81, but acc to the County GIS site, it has an effective age of 40. No idea how they decide that, but it is super solidly built. The plumbing is all heavy copper and I only had the kitchen and bath rewired; my electrician felt the rest was intact and safe, even though it's grandfathered code. Building codes in my state have actually gotten worse over the years, so much that now a lot of things like floor joists can be made from a material that has so much resin content that in a fire they superheat and melt, causing whole house collapse. A fireman friend told me they don't want to enter many modern multifamily structures if the fire has accelerated beyond a certain point because they don't feel they can do so safely. I'm happy in an old house!

Not speaking for anyone else, I'm never ever going to be good enough for my parents and older brother tbh. I mean they've a vested interest in me feeling worthless and in keeping me isolated or else turning friends against me.

So then I'd not find people who value me, who'd tell me their mistreatment is wrong and that I deserve better, who'd help me leave.

So many times I was told I've no friends, I'd be on the streets, or I'd repulse any decent person.

Turns out I'm just fine.

Hugs, Artie. This seems like an important realization.

Artie, my relationship with my mother, and with myself, improved so very much when I stopped trying to live up to the goals she had for me and just chose my own path. (I know this isn't necessarily about improving the relationship; I'm just sharing my experience.)

For me, this centered around my weight and, to a lesser, unstated, extent, her concerns about my ability to find a man to take care of me. She thought that my excess weight would hinder my ability to date and find a spouse, which to some extent it did, I suppose.... (The crippling depression was a much bigger barrier, but why split hairs?)

Anyway, once I was about 40 and she learned how much I had in my retirement account and I hadn't needed to come to her for money for anything in more than 8 years... she stopped talking about my weight altogether. I had stopped talking about it with her about five years before that, and she finally took the hint. It finally got through to her, around 2012?, that I could take care of myself... so it didn't matter what weight I was.

All of that to say...I had to change my approach to my mother for literally YEARS before anything changed on her end. It was very difficult, and uncomfortable, and strange. But I was tired of having the same conversations (maybe different topics, but the same conversations) over and over again. And having the same emotional reactions. I worked with a therapist and felt I needed to change things up, so I came up with a strategy that I could live with that worked for me. Eventually, it did change my mom's behavior. Now, I talked to my mom 3-4 times a month then, and she never challenged me on it. She was never like, "Why are you refusing to discuss your weight?" So YMMV. But that was my experience. Maybe you'll find it helpful?

I do hope you realize this is about HER, not about YOU. Take care, Artie!

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Thanks couch peeps! I really appreciate all of the input. I was awake at like 4am for a little bit so I got up and turned to my old friend Woebot (which I've started using again lately) and this morning was great - he showed me a video about fixed mindset/growth mindset which I recall learning about when I took Positive Psychology. My mom has always operated under fixed mindset, and raised us to be that way too, life has to follow this path strictly and so should everybody else's, you cannot deviate, forever and ever amen. Which is why she had so much trouble with and wrote me that hate letter when I was dating a woman in college and when my sister eventually came out. I should have made the connection but didn't, it's like y'all said - I realized awhile back that her writing that letter back then came from her fear, and so is what she said to me last weekend. Watching that video this morning made me realize that what L's been trying to do all along is to gently nudge me toward growth mindset but I've been very stubbornly resisting. Well watching that video I've really started to see how that fixed mindset has held me back in many ways. It has kept me from maturing emotionally and in a lot of other ways. My mission going forward: to consciously cultivate a growth mindset. Starting with instead of saying "I'm not good at x" and putting myself down, change it up and say "I'm not good at x yet." Because adding those 3 little letters adds so much positivity. Okay time to feed the cats and go get signed onto work.


Thanks you guys. Hugs to all who want.

Thanks so much. I will come back to this later today I really appreciate what you shared.

I think I'm finally starting to get there.

Dr. T replied at 7:30 this morning with this: "LT, Thank you for your apology and acknowledgment about the agreement we made about renegotiating. I understand and appreciate the stress you’re feeling over it. I’m not (and wasn’t) angry, although I was a little irritated during our meeting – but I got over it immediately because I can empathize with the stress you’re feeling. All is well. "

So, feeling better about that now. Do I wish he'd left out the irritated part? Kinda, but I know part of what he's doing is trying to show me that someone can be a irritated or annoyed with me, but that it doesn't ultimately threaten the relationship (he's said things like that before).

My T does something similar sometimes. Like she pointed out a huge pattern I have when triggered in specific ways which affects our therapy negatively. It's caused a few ruptures, she has shared feeling defensive due to how I lash out.

It triggers a lot of shame in me (from myself, not her) because I know why I do this yet struggle to stop. After all, my perpetrators lashed out at me. Me lashing out means I'm as bad as them. Usually when she calls me out, I leap immediately to freaking out and apologising constantly because I think she'll terminate me or she must be angry etc. And that instinctual freak out also results in me shaming myself even more.

Tomorrow we'll talk about it because I wrote back that I want to break this detrimental pattern despite how I really want to melt into nothing.

LonesomeTonight, what did you say or do which required an apology? Re-raised an issue for which there was already an agreement in place? This seems like a regular aspect of therapy to me. I find it crass that he accepted your apology and thus reinforced the idea that you had done something "wrong". If he is irritated, that is because of his emotional state not yours. His responses are not your responsibility.

You make a really good point here, and I think this is why I'm only somewhat satisfied with his reply? It seems like "No apology needed" might have felt better.

I had sort of brought up continuing a slightly reduced rate, not the same level, but in between the reduced one and my regular rate. I said something like, "I had thought about asking you for this, but then wasn't sure that I should and figured you'd probably say no, so..." And then he said, "We'd agreed not to renegotiate."

So it wasn't like I pushed hard, or at all really. Or was like, "Come on, can't you make an exception for a month or two?" Which, even that should have been acceptable.

He really seems to have issues with being asked for things he doesn't want to give, like the standing up thing, the initial stone (he said during the conflict about that how he'd felt "pressured into giving me one"), etc. When it seems like it's progress of some sort for me to ask for what I want or need, even knowing that he might not give it to me. But it's like he seems personally offended by some of it. Which, yeah, is about him, not me. (But there's the whole. "You affect me, LT!")

Lashing out can be a form of self-protection, too. Like a cornered animal trying to save itself. I don't think it makes you like your perpetrators at all

I hope your talk about it goes well tomorrow..

People are affected by people, that's how our interactions and relationships work. You have an impact on him (positively or negatively, fleetingly or meaningfully), but the feeling is *his*, you don't give it to him or force him to feel it. Another therapist would experience a different feeling in relation to you so these effects are not rooted in you.

Maybe it's not useful for you to apologise for things when what you feel is closer to ?shame or ?guilt rather than remorse. It sets you off down the wrong path and you end up considering irrelevant things (like what he has issues with) rather than your experience of things.

Also, if he is sharing his responses to you, he needs to be doing so carefully and with intent. Mentioning his irritation in passing in an email is not in your best interest. He should be using his counter transference to help *you* understand *your* emotional states. For example, when he feels irritated, what happens for you? What relational patterns are recalled for you? Not "I was irritated, but I got over it". That's the kind of dirge I would expect from a partially emotional literate teenager.

Sorry for the long post, when I read your descriptions of him, he really gets on my nerves!

Hm, that's an interesting point about not apologizing if it might be more from shame or guilt. His reaction during the session (that he'd said he wouldn't negotiate again) led to some mix of those feelings. I felt almost...scolded? Like a parent saying I'd been bad in doing something. Like "You know better than to ask me for that." I suppose that could be something to bring up with him next session (though not framed as a child part, because he doesn't like talking about things that way).

In your example of him using his countertransference, do you mean something like his actually saying in session, "If I did feel irritated with you, what would that mean to you? What reaction would you have to that?" As opposed to his just making that statement (in the email or otherwise)? And then discussing where it might come from.

I feel like that's an area where he falters (I'm sure you agree!), where he'll share his emotion, under the intent of wanting to be "honest" with me. But then he doesn't seem like he'll want to explore my reaction to him or where that may be coming from. It seems like it becomes more about his feelings than mine. And I feel like I sort of need to back off, or it will turn into a bigger conflict, or even a rupture.

I do appreciate your comparison of him to a "partially emotionally literate teenager." Maybe it would help if I thought of him in that sense at times... I really can't imagine what it must be like to be married to him. Well, I suppose I *can* imagine and certainly wouldn't want it!

LT, you initiated the apology for your own reasons. He didn’t ask for it and for all you know didn’t expect it. You don’t control what he does with the apology, whether he accepts it or not or says it’s unnecessary. Maybe he feels that he should honor your email and the self-awareness you showed in it by accepting the apology. Why not just accept it’s done and move on? Adult relationship, remember?

Not quite. I think the first stage is for him to consider whether it is useful to you for him to share his response to you or if he would be sharing it out of self-interest. I don't think it would be shared hypothetically, but it would be shared in a way which doesn't assume right/wrong. For example, during an extended silence, my therapist broke the silence to tell me that her thoughts had wandered and she had found herself thinking about something unrelated to me. She said this had never happened before. She asked if this was mirroring what was happening for me - was I finding it hard to stay present? Do I seek situations where disconnection can happen in order that I can avoid connection? I think the idea of where responses come from is only part of the story, it's also about how our current relationships are impacted, what happens to our internal world, and so on.

I am using my therapist as an example with some hesitation because she has a history of sharing/responding really harshly and unhelpfully. Although, she has become much more careful recently.

Except apologising for something when you aren't really sorry (and instead want the person to respond by saying "no apology is necessary") does not demonstrate self-awareness. Accepting and moving on does LT a real disservice because she loses the opportunity to explore what happens for her in these tricky interactions, regardless of what he does with LT's apology.