Couch 232: Not Sully!

Gestalt therapy has some interesting approaches to dreams. One is that you are represented in and by every person and significant object/element of the dream. For example, if you dream about being chased by giant spiders, you might be represented by the spiders, by the road you are running on as well as by the person being chased.

To understand something of yourself, you can speak in the first person to describe what you experience in the dream. For example, the road (you as the road) might say, "I feel long and I am hard and I can feel the person's footsteps hitting down on me". From this you might understand that you (in your waking life) are feeling put upon by people, have become hard hearted to cope and the demands from others seem relentless.

If you are the spider, you might say, "I can almost reach the person and I feel bigger than them, my legs are powerful". Understanding yourself as the spider might say something about your capabilities as well as your frustrations about not being able to fully connect with others.

As I understand it, it is not necessarily what these elements represent when they act as distinct metaphors, but rather what you say about them as you describe yourself as them.

And here ends our woowoo lesson of the day.

I often dream the road in front of my familys house has reconstruction happening imminently - there are big trucks approaching and the pavement is already half destroyed. I keep looking out the window in the morning, or its happening as i return home.

Interesting woo, moo!

I have a very low threshold for what I deem to be woowoo and I don't find this woowoo. FWIW.

(I likely wouldn't use that approach myself, since I prefer the simplest possible interpretation for dreams and I think they can easily be overread, but in getting people thinking it sounds excellent.)

Hippy .

Wow I feel seriously on edge today. I've been sitting here (at work) doing some breathing exercises. Trying to will in some peace and breathe out the anxiety. I have therapy today with the individual T from IOP--J and I think I am looking forward to that. She's tough on me but I do like her. It's so hard to be told that I cannot SH or I might get kicked out of IOP. At the same time J is telling me to go to the hospital if I feel like SH-ing (I would have to live there because I have too many urges) but I am afraid of being put IP so I cannot go. So I am stuck with breathing exercises. Yesterday I texted a hotline and that kind of helped. And I texted some friends and that kind of helped. IOP last night was interesting. It was more on drug/alcohol recovery but I tried to take what I could from it. Tonight I don't know who is leading IOP. It is supposed to be S but she was only there for half of Monday's session so I don't know if she will be there tonight. I hope she is. She's tough but she is good with me.

I feel that I'm overreacting in being bothered by this, but Dr. T and I discussed the text where I was concerned he could have been in a car accident near his office. He said he wasn't annoyed, that the text "wasn't that disruptive," but his body language (via Zoom, but arms folded mostly) seemed odd. And he later said he wished I'd emailed instead of texted. Which made me feel bad.

He ultimately said it was more showing him how intense my anxiety can be, which is what we discussed for much of the session. But I feel like I did the wrong thing in making sure he was OK. That I overstepped. That I cared too much. He did say, "Take care, LT" at the end, which he hasn't said in a while. So I think he could tell how distressed I was. And maybe trying to reassure me in that? But I still feel bad...

Oh LT, I feel for you. I know what it is like to be wracked with that much anxiety. I once called former T's office because she hadn't emailed me all week (which was very unlike her) and I was scared she was sick or died. And I talked to the receptionist who said, "She's fine. She's just busy." And made me feel like dirt for calling. When I talked about it with T who didn't even know I had called, she was empathetic and was a little upset that the receptionist hadn't told her I called. So in the end I felt it was okay to worry about T. But your T didn't do that for you. He has these strange (to me) boundaries about texting and emailing and when you should do one or the other. Very confusing. I'm sorry that you are going through this especially right at the weekend because if you are anything like me, you'll probably ruminate on it all weekend. I'm glad he ended the session with something kind. And I am glad he could see how distressing your anxiety can be. I hope that is eye opening for him. I don't think you did anything "bad" or "wrong." You were human in that moment, checking on another human because you were concerned for their safety. In any other context besides therapy that would be considered kind. Be kind to yourself LT. You deserve to be kind to yourself. Kit

My T has been telling me lately that an important part of therapy (for me and presumably other anxious attachment style types) can be accidentally bumping up against other people's boundaries and then navigating that and tolerating that it feels bad to make a "mistake" without knowing and to still stay in the relationship. I hate doing it, and I can also see her point.

Thanks, Kit, this really helped. I will do my best to be kind to myself.

It also helps to know you think his boundaries are confusing. Pre-pandemic, they used to be pretty clear, but they've become more and more relaxed in the last 18 months, so I'm giving less thought to things like, "should I email or text?" Plus, in a moment of anxiety, that's not at the forefront of my mind (it's not like I called him).

And I could email him now, and he'd reply either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. But everything I've started typing, I keep thinking, "What if this just makes things worse? Am I just annoying him (more) by emailing?" So I'm going to try to sit with it as long as I can. If nothing else, then I could say, "so I sat with this for 6 (or 8 or 24 or whatever) hours, and..."

Thanks, EM. As you likely know, I'm anxious attachment, too. And it is something that's been helpful in the relationship with Dr. T. Where he tells me that he can be, say, annoyed with me, but it doesn't threaten the relationship.

I think what I'm struggling with right now is I had a close friendship where I thought we could do similarly, but that person recently ended things unilaterally, saying to never contact her again. And so it's sort of throwing off what I feel in terms of relationship security with people (not H so much, but friends, Dr. T).

Dr. T knows this, as we've discussed it quite a bit in the past few weeks (he's been quite empathetic about it), and he brought it up today in relation to my checking in with him. So I think he gets that I'm not in the best place right now with relationship security (which includes fear of the other person dying, along with them rejecting me). Still, I worry...

LT, I'd totally have reached out to my T as soon as possible if I was worried he'd been in an accident, so I totally get that. I only have the option to text mine, so I'd probably have texted him as well, next possible option would be texting on Monday though that's an absolute exception to be allowed, or texting him Wednesday.

However, just weighing in from another perspective (my T has made a great effort to get me consider all different perspectives while I talk to people, so kind of getting into the habit of that...): maybe you just threw him off a bit in the moment, you were very worried he had just died or something, while he was doing something else and was alive and kicking, kind of interrupting him. Which of course is not your fault, he allows you to text, I'm not sure where these sort of half emergencies fall in such policies.

But as far as I can judge your T from online, as well as from how I know my own T, nothing like this will end "good" relationships. It's good for a T to sometimes show that he's annoyed, it shows that maybe that was a bit much for him, but if you don't constantly hit those boundaries, then it's all fine, even if one party is a bit annoyed, people get over it as long as viewpoints align usually.

LT, just sit with it. Sounds like he was just being observant that you do have this tendency to be reactive instead of just sitting with things. It is one thing for a family member/spouse, etc. to text under that circumstance, but probably a bit odd for a client to do unless there was much more specific information to go on. Doesn't sound like he's mad - just observant.

My husband drove me crazy about this kind of thing. He was rather anxious and, honestly, rather obsessive that I text him each and every time I traveled downtown to rehearsals. Heaven forbid I ever forgot! LOL. But he was my spouse, so I dealt with it even though it was rather irrational on his part. My dad used to check up on us if we were driving distances just in case we ran into problems. But that again was family members. It is a bit strange to check up on someone who is not a family member or personally very close unless you have some really specific information and the concern is more realistic than catastrophizing. (For instance, when my school went into lockdown, I received some texts from people who knew it was my building, but they were rightfully and realistically concerned because they knew with pretty much certainty I was there.)

I think it is just one of those anxiety things that you already know you need to figure out how to deal with. Chalk it up to something to work on, but don't beat yourself up about it.

Let it go! Let it go! LOL. Take deep breaths and enjoy your weekend.

Bring your second and your choice of weapons at dawn.

So I accidentally made glutinous brownies Sunday night, found that out the hard way, and took them to my small class Monday. One of those students just brought me a tray of gluten free brownies.

I had an appointment with my individual T from IOP--J. Actually I feel kind of dissociated now even though we weren't talking about traumatic stuff. We were talking about difficult stuff but not traumatic. I guess I emailed her a lot between sessions so I have two appointments next week. She didn't say I couldn't email. She just said she doesn't respond to every one of them (as I was sending her the homework I didn't really expect her to respond but since she is the one who was like write poetry! then I sent it to her, not all of them.) and she doesn't respond on weekends. Not a problem. But she said she does think I need more support. Sheesh. She keeps talking about me needing to stay in IOP. So I am trying to follow all the rules and everything. It's kind of stressful. We talked about the need to be more autonomous and independent and how if I can do these things for myself then I will feel better about myself. I feel pretty "out of it" now. And I still have IOP tonight.

Artley, well put. My mother used to "worry" about us all the time, saying she couldnt help it. Frankly it was just a method of control - her sister was even worse at it. My mother was kinda sporadic at it, thwarting me whenever i tried to move out of her comfort zone. My aunt made a lifestyle out of it, with her nose always up my cousins skirt.

LT, one time my t did not return from vacation in a timely manner, and i of course pictured him as roadkill.

Well, it looks like H just lost his job...

Oh no, Scarlet! HUGS!!!!!

I'm so sorry, Scarlet...

Since I read this I’ve had “Let It Snow!” stuck in my head.

Oh no Scarlet!! I'm so sorry.

Not "Let it go!" from Frozen? How old are you really?

Saw L today, after 3 weeks (I decided I didn't want a longer break so had texted her on Monday to schedule for today). It was great, I shared with her about the workshop last weekend, and also about this book I'm reading right now called The Power of TED (stands for The Empowerment Dynamic). When I'd called her like 2.5 weeks ago or whenever that was she suggested that I think some more about the Drama Triangle. She suggests that ALL the time and in the past I've never done so but this time I did. And did some research/reading about it, and that's how I came upon the book. This book is all about the antidote to the Drama Triangle. I think it's GREAT and I'm very excited about it. I've been reading it slowly, taking notes, digesting... so haven't actually finished it yet. We spent most of my session talking about that. Then I read a couple of dreams, the last of which did not need to be worked it was just rather hilarious and we both had a good laugh about it. I really enjoy laughing with her. 3 weeks between felt pretty good this time, so I scheduled again for 10/15. We'll see how it goes!

I like to think of myself as an adult.

Haven’t seen “Frozen.”

Don’t want to see “Frozen.”

The closest I have ever gotten to “Frozen” was No. 2’s “Frozen” box of cold-to-the-touch tissues.

Also, I stopped at the gym on the way home from L's, and the pool was open again! The last time I went a few days ago it was closed for maintenance. Apparently they're having trouble again with the chemicals or something. I'd left my gym bag in the car so I got to swim laps for like 45 minutes (had to share a lane but that was okay). It was lovely. And, I verified that the ENT did indeed fix my ear problem. Swam without ear plugs without an issue, and used the swim ear drops after.

I've never seen Frozen either, and am clueless when people make references to it.