[sunrise]

I don't know what to do in therapy anymore. I have always chosen the path. Now I feel unable to. Too many things pressing. I am in over my head. What lead to follow? What order to do things in? What is most important? I feel lost. We were going use EMDR to work on healing one of my little girl ego states, because that is causing problems in my current life. But now other stuff has arisen. I want T to give me some direction and guidance. Is it OK to ask for that?

Last time I was trying to tell T this hard thing, which he didn't know, he just thought I was having trouble choosing what to talk about. And he said he wouldn't be a good therapist if he chose what we talked about. I know that's true, but now I'm struggling and need some guidance. If I ask for that, will he just say the thing about not being a good therapist?

I did manage to tell T the hard thing, which was about a new ego state I discovered, quite a dominant one and unlike the others I have that are girls of various ages from my past and that we have worked on healing. The new one is an adult male and very strong. He told me a lot of stuff I didn't know, and I didn't like that--why does he know stuff about me that I don't know? He has his own story, his own thoughts and feelings. It was strange! I felt crowded by him for days and it was hard holding my own. We were together in my head. Even though I learned he is doing everything he can to help me, his constant presence got to be too much and I sent him away.

T was very accepting. He told me it is completely normal to have many ego states. This was reassuring as I thought maybe I was going crazy. I had accepted the girls from my past that split off due to trauma, but having this male seemed freaky to me. T reassured me how normal it is and told me some people even have animal ego states. (I do not have "alters" that switch as in DID, just ego states.) But he did tell me it was important I remain in control. He repeated this several times, "you have to stay in control." I guess T thought since the male was so strong, he might take over or something. I got no sense that he wanted to do this when we were together. We were co-existing, that's all.

But now, thinking back on T's statement, I wonder if having the male take over might actually be a good thing? I feel really lost right now and need some help. The male is so strong--maybe it would be good if he took over for a while. I don't know if that is even possible. How would I get him to do that? Why did T not want the male to take over? What would be wrong with that? I could lean on him and get a break. It would only be temporary.

I feel hesitant to even post this here as you all will think I am strange....

[Kiya]

"I want T to give me some direction and guidance. Is it OK to ask for that?"

Yes - of course! That would be what I would do first. You are still in control by saying to t - on I am choosing that you lead me in a direction for now because i am lost and need help. i will take over again when i am ready.

I think he would not want you to give over control to the male - that would not be good. you are you and need to come to terms with this male within - he is not you. He is a part of you (ego state or what ever) but if he actually takes control then that is no longer an ego state? like you said the DID has parts that take over....? unless you need to go that route for healing. i would say that if you relinquished control you can't be certain that YOU could come back. See?
Kiya

[tulips30]

Sunny, I totally agree with Kiya. You are NOT SAYING STRANGE THINGS. We all have many disorganized and "unusual" things going on in our minds. I think it's really important that you ask your t. why he felt strongly about YOU staying in control. It's important that you bring up your thoughts about letting the male take some of the burden to help you.

I do not want to pry in to your specific therapy. I am fascinated about the ego-states and the roles they play. Did you start to recognize them thru EMDR or just thru talking and slow discovery in this manner? I hope you don't mind my asking?

Finally, I cannot imagine any t. not being impressed with a patient who specifically said "I need guidance". Being aware of the areas where you know you need help finding the road and being able to ask this directly is a big deal. I am impressed with this. I think it shows that you take your therapy and growth seriously. You know the areas where it has become important to move in to. Most of the time, I feel like I am just drifting from week to week with nothing specific in mind except to feel better. Not real helpful to my t.!

tulips

[chaotic13]

I think asking your T to guide or lead your discussions for a while isn't really giving up control. You are not asking him to allow you to be a passive recipient or to be indoctrinated by his philosophy on life. The two of you have been working together for a long time. There are likely issues you've expressed but haven't really addressed yet. Asking him to take the lead a little bit might be a nice change. Instead of being the issue raiser, you might become the responder, reflector, experiencer. They are still your issues, only you are asking to work at them a different perspective. I like the couple dance analogy. You've both worked as partners selecting the music, the band, and the location. In fact you took the lead in most of the planning.

I've been very much in control of what topics are discussed in therapy, which I think for the most part is good. But I'm sure there are things that I've just either deliberately or unconsciously glossed over that may be important. My T is likely just being patient, interjecting little thought provoking comments here or there, waiting for me to eventually make the connections or get comfortable enough and bring the issue to the table.

In my case, I'm a control freak, I usually don't initiate topics that I haven't already thought a lot about and often times I've prepared and practiced my responses. I think flipping the table and having my T initiate the discussion topics, could be very therapeutic. Obviously this would not be something to do in the beginning of treatment, but you and your T have been working together for a longtime. It wouldn't be like he is creating the issues for you. Also, if he raises something that you don't want to talk about or don't think is a problem, your are likely comfortable enough to say, NEXT.

[ECHOES]

sunny my strong, secure, knows-just-what-to-do part of me feels masculine. I feel masculine when I feel like that. I was just *trying* to explain this to T last week.

I think asking T for the guidance you want is a really good idea becuase it's important that he knows you're thinking this so you can explore why and so he can answer your question about providing that for you.

Are the other things that have arisen hard to prioritize? Or are they so enmeshed it's hard to find a starting poinit? That can be so frustrating.

[MissCharlotte]

(((Sunny)))

Of course you can ask for help. Then maybe you can explore what that means to you.
There is nothing we cannot say in therapy.

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I feel hesitant to even post this here as you all will think I am strange....

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

If I thought you were strange I would have to think the same of myself because I have had a sense of a male inside of me as well. Sunny, that statement above has a very strong "I" in the beginning and end. You are in control while gaining awareness of the many facets of you.

Best of luck.

[Perna]

I wouldn't necessarily ask for guidance as much as I would discuss how you feel lost and want to ask for guidance. I'd discuss the male ego state's surprising appearance (yes, good thing, you're struggling and came up with an ego state to deal with that, we're wonderful that way!). Now is when you need to keep trusting "yourself" and that you can find your way and guide yourself. No matter what, it is always your therapy and I think your T will gently always say what he said, to make sure you always work at guiding it. He literally can't or it's not yours. No matter what he suggests, if you follow his directions you're following someone else's ideas for your life or, if you decide his ideas suck and go your own way, you're using that to "bounce off of", like repelling down a cliff and that's probably not a good use of him either.

[sunrise]

Thank you Kiya, tulips, mckell, ECHOES, and MissCharlotte.

I hear a resounding note of agreement in all of your posts, yes, it is OK for me to ask T for guidance! Thank you. I guess I was feeling he might not be able to do that (he wouldn't be a good therapist if he did) and I didn't want to be rejected for asking him for something that I know he shouldn't give--I don't want to ask him to be a "bad" therapist. But you all make a good case. I will ask him for guidance. I just want to plop down on his couch and say, "what do you think we should do now?" And if he gives me the good therapist line, can I smack him?

And thanks to those of you who shared that you have also felt a male presence in you. My prior understanding of ego states had been limited and I thought they were always younger "me's", so this had seemed so very unsettling.

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McKell wrote:
Also, if he raises something that you don't want to talk about or don't think is a problem, your are likely comfortable enough to say, NEXT.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Yes, mckell, that is true. What's problematic is some of the things in the divorce are triggering this little girl ego state of mine and the male is stepping in to protect both her and me, and so is sabotaging some of the divorce process. T, as the coach, has to make this process happen, and as the therapist, he has to help it not be re-traumatizing for me, which doing some healing now would help.

Last session I said to T several times I felt like I wasn't "normal" to have this well-developed male personality inside of me, with his own thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes, goals, job, and inner personal relationships with some of my other ego states. T reassured me it was normal but he also said several times, "you may be feeling this is not normal for you, but this is very normal for me. I work with clients and their ego states all the time." That is a way of telling me he knows what to do in therapy, isn't it? He knows how to handle this. I guess I should just trust him to be the therapist.

[sunrise]

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Perna said:
No matter what, it is always your therapy and I think your T will gently always say what he said, to make sure you always work at guiding it. He literally can't or it's not yours. No matter what he suggests, if you follow his directions you're following someone else's ideas for your life

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">I hear you, Perna, and I have those worries. I've always chosen the therapy path, listened hard to what was deep inside of me and pushed on toward healing. On the other hand, I am not a therapist and I don't know what to do. I don't understand ego state therapy, how to integrate it with EMDR or other healing techniques, etc. Do I have to read a lot of books on all this and then tell T what to do? Do I have to go to the university and take courses? I don't get how I can guide therapy if I don't know this stuff. Plus, maybe there are therapeutic techniques I am unaware of, so how could I even suggest them? I also feel on the one hand we need to solve my current problems and so we need to work on healing the 7 year old. And I know EMDR helps with that. But then this male is here and what????? Do I somehow deal with him? Should we just ignore him and go ahead with the EMDR? I think T may have insights and maybe know better the order to do things in? Plus we have the clock ticking with some real life problems that need to be solved. I don't know. It feels like too big of a decision matrix for me to deal with, especially since I am lacking the expert knowledge of a therapist. Maybe T could give me some options for how to proceed and I could choose what seems best to me? Or would that be cheating?

[sunrise]

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Kiya wrote:
He is a part of you (ego state or what ever) but if he actually takes control then that is no longer an ego state? like you said the DID has parts that take over....? i would say that if you relinquished control you can't be certain that YOU could come back.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">You're right, Kiya. I guess I don't want to cross that line and am not sure I even could. I was not worried I would never come back as he has my best interests at heart (not letting me come back sounds kind of hostile).

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tulips wrote:
I am fascinated about the ego-states and the roles they play. Did you start to recognize them thru EMDR or just thru talking and slow discovery in this manner?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Actually, neither. Nothing about the ego states has been slow! They can pop up, fully developed, or suddenly I have an awareness of them. They have not been slowly discovered through talking. We haven't done a lot of ego state therapy. Over a year ago when I first came to T, a little girl of about 4 started appearing in my dreams and then coming to therapy with me. T said she was an ego state. Then I recovered, out of the blue, some repressed memories about bad stuff she experienced. I felt so much more whole to have discovered her--I loved her so much--and she felt relieved to finally be recognized after all these years. "Where have you been?" she asked me. T told me it is common for trauma to cause ego states to split off in childhood. These ego states retain the feelings and memories of those events and are not integrated. They're stuck. We used EMDR to help me process the trauma and get unstuck, and T also taught me how to rescue that girl myself. Through this, the girl became less traumatized and less prominent in me. She became more healed and so "wasn't around anymore." I don't even know what that means when I type it. I don't go looking for her. I just know I feel better about that time in my life. I am kind of scared if I go looking for her, I will not find her, and that would make me feel bad, like through healing her, she had become obliterated.

About that time I realized I had some other ego states too, probably from traumas at other ages. But we didn't work with them in therapy, we moved on to other stuff. The other ego states were the one about 7 years old, who is the one we have been planning to work with now, as events in my real life are triggering her and preventing me from living my life and doing stuff I have to do. I also have a teen/young adult. Maybe there are other "me's" too--I don't know. I guess I accepted all that and was fine with these parts and they usually weren't triggered. But seemingly out of the blue this well-developed, adult male ego state came. He is my protector as well as that of the younger ego states. That's his job and he's having a hard time with it right now. Even though I told T a lot about the male ego state, I didn't share with him that I think the male wants to ally with him to help me. Maybe that's why he came out now. He told me all sorts of stuff I didn't know. That made me feel not in control, like who's running the show here? Like I was a passenger. I got overwhelmed with his presence after a few days (I felt squished) and sent him away. T says we need some couples therapy, and we worked a little on that (even though it was just me there in the office).

[tulips30]

" I don't even know what that means when I type it. I don't go looking for her. I just know I feel better about that time in my life. I am kind of scared if I go looking for her, I will not find her, and that would make me feel bad, like through healing her, she had become obliterated. "

When I read this, I started crying...hard. It struck me very deeply somewhere inside. I don't know why. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. It has touched me.
tulips

[Kiya]

"Maybe T could give me some options for how to proceed and I could choose what seems best to me? Or would that be cheating? "

That is what i am constantly asking mine - "do i get multiple choice?!"

[chaotic13]

Isn't funny how we are all concerned about cheating the therapy process. I think Perna's comments are valid and reading her perspective as usual makes me re-assess my own. My perspective on the issue of guidance was strongly influenced by things that were said in my individual therapy and my desire to give up control a little bit. For me, asking and then actually allowing my T to direct my therapy somewhat might not be a bad thing and might allow me to relax a little bit. I don't think any approach we choose is cheating as long as we remain active participants in the process. Asking your T for guidance is simply asking for what you think want at this time. Who know it may be a necessary step in learning to trust yourself. Who knows maybe trusting yourself means, allowing yourself to trust that someone else may be in a better position to lead. If your T is willing to lead for a while great. If he thinks that providing guidance is not the way to go and instead helps you evaluate why it is you feel like to need him to lead at this point, that's great too.