I have been seeing T for nearly three years. In that time, I can count the amount of instance in which I have cried, one one hand. This includes the time when one or two tears solemly rolled down my cheeks without an actual "cry."

Meanwhile, I cry at pdoc's nearly every time I see him. I wouldn't say we have a 'relationship,' per say-- I mean, we have a working relationship in which I respect and like him (most of the time) as a doctor. I know that he respects both as a patient and as someone who is in the field. This is evident in the way that he allows me to have a large amount of involvement in my treatment. I cried today in his office. I think I cried last time. I can remember crying at other times.

Perhaps this is because I sometimes associate pdoc with someone who is supposed to come up with my 'last resort magic cure.' I also associate pdoc with having 6 previous pdocs and 17 medications-- so whenever I am there, I am expecting something and then all the trying years of failure seem to come up at that point. So I cry.

And I can't get in touch with that at T's office. It is so seldom that I can cry there, for what I hurt for. There are times when I get very emotional in session; overwhelmingly emotional, in fact-- but it tends to come out in different ways.... being ungrounded, wanting to hurt myself, getting angry at him.

pinky.. i can relate to this so well... with the exception that i do have a relationship with pdoc. But he and i work on my meds mostly... i do spend an hour when i see him once a month. i dont worry or pine over him at all. i will miss him when he retires in a few years, but if T retired anytime in the next 50+yrs i think i'd throw myself in front of a train.

i've pondered this too... if i am at pdoc's office and something is wrong i am bawling like a baby... but i could be dying inside and one tear *might* roll down with T.

i'm not sure why that is

for you though... you seem to have a strong drive to win the respect of your T... not saying that is wrong or that you dont care if pdoc respects you - they both obviously do.. but i think you care more about T's opinion of you in some way that stops you from just letting that guard down maybe? i dont know.... but you don't talk about your pdoc in a way that says you fear his rejection... and even though intellectually you know T would never reject you, you talk about him sometimes in a way that suggests a desire to make him proud somehow. Maybe the question isnt about them per se... but what is it about crying that is not ok? You and i both know how gentle your T would be with you if you did cry.. certainly wouldnt reject you or lose respect... so i just dont know how to define it either..

this is just observation based on snippetts of what you have said... no harm intended or anything... certainly no disrepsect meant.... just throwing it out there to see what you think. You know i love you to pieces.

i miss you and the caribou too... on an iceberg... with a polar bear

[lauren_helene]

Pink, I cried at my p-docs rather easily two weeks ago over this nice long forced break I'm on...ugh.

Maybe we can do that because the relationship is different? I'm really thinking about this now that you posted it. How is it I am more comfortable crying with p-doc than T??

Oh great, more to worry about Maybe because the relationship is less charged with our pdocs...not sure

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pinksoil said:
There are times when I get very emotional in session; overwhelmingly emotional, in fact-- but it tends to come out in different ways.... being ungrounded, wanting to hurt myself, getting angry at him.

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Yep. This is me. Panic attacks, dissociation, anger...sure. Crying? Once. I don't have a pdoc....but I can really relate to the lack of crying with T.

Of course, I rarely cry. I've spent YEARS not crying. But since starting T I do cry more - just never in his office.

I'll be interested to read people's responses to this thread, because I really do wonder why this is.

[serafim_etal]

This happens to me too. I could be literally falling apart as I walk in the door to her office (from the lobby)...as soon as I walk through the door...no more tears. It has been suggested to me that maybe I don't cry at T's because it is safe not too.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention-- I don't cry in T's office, but so often, the second I walk out of his door, the tears begin to flow like crazy. Sometimes I cry all the way home or have to pull over for a few minutes to collect myself.

[krazibean]

me too. i can be a wreck before i see T but then i walk in the door and boom. my eyes must dry up or something. i can get emotional and angry and shut down...but cry? nope. ive felt like i was going to. the desire was so intense. the only thing left was tears. but they didn't come. The second i walk out her door, though, i can't control myself. I'd love an answer on this. I want so much to cry infront of her to recieve the comfort but i only can after i leave...and simply "telling" them you cried doesn't seem to have the same effect. hmmmm...

[Kiya]

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pinksoil said:
Oh yes, I forgot to mention-- I don't cry in T's office, but so often, the second I walk out of his door, the tears begin to flow like crazy. Sometimes I cry all the way home or have to pull over for a few minutes to collect myself.

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Yeah - that's me too. have to sit in the parking lot a while before i can see the road. but i've only cried once in the office with t.

[kim_johnson]

Hey,

I wonder if part of the reason why it is hard to cry in front of your therapist is that if you cry in front of your therapist he is likely to ask you what is wrong. And that can be scary...

Whereas if you cry in front of your psychiatrist then he might be likely to recommend an alteration to your medication. And maybe an alteration to your medication... Is what you think is needed? Maybe crying in front of your psychiatrist is what (you think) is needed to secure his care?

I wonder why you don't think that the 'magic cure' will come from therapy? Maybe because your therapist doesn't 'target' the symptoms that you want medication to help you with?

I mean to say this very gently (as gently as humanly possible). I've heard a number of psychiatrists say 'if only I had a penny for every borderline who thought she was bi-polar'. I think that what they mean by that is that it isn't at all uncommon for someone who has trouble with unstable moods to think that medication is the answer to the unstable moods. Whereas, there are patterns in environmental stressors / prior interpretations / thoughts that tend to trigger the episodes of instability.

One technique that has been used to great effect to help with emotional instability is behavioral chain analyses. For every episode of self-injury / intense mood swing one needs to identify the triggers (both internal and external) that contributed to the mood swing. Some of those are physiological (hormonal for example, or induced by alchohol), some of those are environmental (starting a new job, for example, or having arguments with people), some of those are internal (self talk, for example, or the way one interprets things).

After a time one becomes able to identify triggers as triggers before one engages in self-injury or gets caught in the grip of a mood swing. Quite often just knowing that one is in that place can be enough to alter that place such that one doesn't self-injure or get caught in the grip of a mood swing. For example, I can be feeling really very badly indeed and when I look at the calender and see that I'm premenstrual (and thus know that the feeling will pass in a couple days) then often that is enough to make me feel better. I know that bubblebaths and exercise is what is needed to get me through that point and just knowing that (and doing those things) is enough to prevent my getting into a very bad place indeed where I just want to curl up and die.

I hated doing behavioral chain analyses, don't get me wrong. I don't know a single person who likes doing them. Most people need to be coaxed and cajoled and manipulated and coerced into doing them. It is only after a time (extremely reluctantly) that I was able to say that yeah, they really helped me learn to manage my moods. Before that time I was 100% convinced that it was impossible for me to manage my moods. They were something that I was inflicted with from without. They were biologically caused and didn't have a psychological explanation at all. They were things that I needed medication for and they were outside my control just as much as diabetes was outside the control of a person with diabetes.

Only... That turned out not to be the case. This was the way forward for me with respect to the 'magic cure' and with respect to my stopping self injuring etc.

I'm not saying that it must be the way forward for you as well... But it might be something worth thinking about... I've just noticed that often when you say you are in the grip of an intense emotion (that is outside your control) there are external triggers that would make your intense emotion understandable. Maybe appreciating the impact of some of those external triggers (and seeing what sorts of things you can do to manipulate them) would give you a greater sense (and reality) of control. Perhaps...

[sunrise]

That's interesting what so many report about having difficulty crying with their therapist. I'm going to buck the trend and report that I cry quite easily with my therapist. I cried a little the very first time we had a session. He's very empathetic and very accepting. Sometimes I go to see him and I don't even know I'm sad and the tears just come. He gives me space to feel the sadness there with him in his office and when I cry I feel him holding me, from where he sits across from me. It seems safe to cry. After so many years of holding it all in, it is a relief to be able to feel sad.

I have only seen my PNP once, but I didn't come close to crying with her. It is more like a business meeting--here are my symptoms, now let's talk meds. I see her again this week.

[MissCharlotte]

PInk,

It took me almost a year before I cried in front of T. Sometimes now I still hold back but I try to let it loose if I need to. Once it got out of control! Tears and snots flying out of every pore. You know, I think it has to do with the balance between adult me and child me--and developing greater levels of intimacy.

The closer I feel to T, the less I care about the spectacle of crying.

Maybe when you are with T you feel very safe and you don't need to cry? Maybe you cry when you leave because you miss that feeling of safety.

As far as Pdoc goes, I have never cried in front of mine. It's a different relationship. But maybe you can cry in front of pdoc because the relationshp is such that you expect him to "fix the boo boo." Whereas with T, you know that you must work through the pain....

Hope today is brighter.

Peaceout

[krazibean]

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MissCharlotte said:

Maybe when you are with T you feel very safe and you don't need to cry? Maybe you cry when you leave because you miss that feeling of safety.


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Bingo.

Maybe I just wanna boink my T more, so I don't cry cause I don't wanna mess up my eye makeup and appear unattractive . Hahahahahahaha.
(Probably not that much of a funny lie as I make it up to be, lol).

[hangingon]

It took me quite some time to shed tears with my T. Everytime I start I just shut down, I don't know why. She tells me to just let it go to feel my life, that a catharsis of crying will be really good for me.

I don't know, I can stop crying at the drop of a pin. I wish I could let it all go, but I think if I did I wouldn't be able to stop. I can't even cry alone at home. I use to when I was younger, now I feel as though everything is stuck.

[kessa19]

For many years I could never cry anywhere, even by myself. I wanted to and needed to but couldn't and it felt horrible.
My biggest fear was that if I felt bad feelings I would make my parents/T feel that way too and then we would both be out of control and I would be unsafe and all alone. (also worried I would go crazy, become angry etc. if I would feel too much)
I have now cried twice with my therapist. She didn't comfort me or react at all. She knows my fear and I hope that is why she didn't. As much as I long for her to hold me and comfort me I think I would have freaked if she would have attempted to touch me. I hope I get over that because I want more than anything to not be afraid of to get close to people.