Showing your vulnerability

I came home early from work today because I have an infection and I am feeling lousy. Over the past week I have had really intense intrusive thoughts with suicidal ideation. I called T feeling very very vulnerable and told him that I was home but that I didn't know if I would make it to session. He called back and I told him that I was going to try and make it down to his office. Once I heard his voice I just knew I needed to get myself up and out--that connecting was infinitely better than not, even if it meant going to T's feeling crappy.

I have had a very hard time showing T my vulnerability in session. Well, today the walls came down. I showed T how much I was hurting and we talked about me being stuck inside my head. He said that he could see that there was a very vulnerable part of me inside. He said that the adult me had to take care of her.

Somehow I held onto myself and I didn't dissociate at all.

I think a piece of me that hasn't been known in-session for these past two years showed up tonight.

that's wonderful miss c!

:-) There's got to be a way to make the aloof, withholding,fearful parts less prominant and these other parts more prominant during therapy

(((((MissC))))))),
That just made my night! I'm soo glad that you are making so much progress. I also told my T a few weeks ago that I needed to "get out of my head." I'm still with you outside of that window, remember? I think the window is a bit open now, though Love ya' Sis

Awesome!!!

Do you think being sick and run down kind of took the fight out of you and it was easier to just say *&^% it and surrender to the process and allow yourself to be taken care of?

Hope you are feeling better today.

Without a doubt. Defenses were down and I was too sick to put them up. I stayed home today, but starting to feel a bit better and already I am thinking of the session in terms of how humiliating it was. Meaning--because I said things I normally wouldn't.

I am fighting this. I just want to be without judgment. I am too exhausted to keep up the other crap anymore. I think this is also part of uncovering the authentic self--no? It's freaking scary, though, isn't it?

((Soli))

It's progress? Wow, I hadn't thought of it that way. Thanks much for encouragement!

Oh oh - no spiraling!!!!

As hard as it is to be vulnerable, I KNOW that my biggest growth in therapy AND in my relationship in T has come at the times when I am the most vulnerable. There is a tender place that needs healed and if we never expose that place, it can't heal

Think back to your session and T's reactions - and think back to how you felt during and right after the session. THAT is real - not the spiral that is trying to start in your head. Hang on to what's real.

Miss Charlotte,

That sounds like Real Progress on your part! I understand oh, so well about feeling vulnerable. It is what makes it so hard for me to show the part of me that hurts and is so insecure inside. The times I have shown this part of me to my t, I've always felt embarrassed later and wanted to "take it back" because the vulnerability and connection scare me afterward. I try to put back on my "I'm fine and don't need anybody" face. Of course, it never works, but I try. I think it's great that you have shown your t that vulnerable side of yourself, and I hope you continue to expose that part of you to the healing work of therapy. It is scarier than all get-out. But otherwise, that part of us stays locked away and can't heal.

Instead of worrying about the fact that you showed vulnerability, try focusing on how many of all those "bad things" you kept telling yourself would happen if you ever showed or spoke about with someone....DIDN'T happen.

Hope you feel better soon.

Well, here's the weird part--it's not like I have a conscious side of me that has always said it would be bad to do (reveal vulnerability). I just didn't do it, because I had done such a good job of compartmentalizing that I almost didn't know it existed inside of me. I have been taking care of myself since I was about six, so I have come to accept that you just keep plodding along and take whatever comes at you. I think the vulnerability surprised me and then the fact that I showed it surprised me even more. The more I realize it the more I think this was a turning point for me. Whoa.

I so get this statement. In therapy when my T says.."Why do you think that would happen?" "Do you really think that X is likely? And usually I'll say, no. But guarding and protecting myself is...just what I do! And I can't NOT do it.