Posted by tabitha on June 23, 2004, at 2:38:06
I went back. OK I only skipped one session, but I spent a pleasant week thinking that's it, no more therapy for me, thanks. Oh yeah, the pleasant part was mixed in with having my heart ripped out due to the attachment to the T, but I did experience some pleasantness. Thinking, hey, I don't have to have anyone tell me my thoughts are distorted and my perceptions are wrong anymore. I can just exist. Ahh.. what a relief.
I skipped my individual session but I went back to the group session. I was pretty guarded, but I ended up feeling better about the conflict. The woman who vented all her anger and jealousy at me talked quite a bit about it. The way she said it this time was less blaming to me, and more about her. She had a lot of guilt about hurting my feelings, so that helped, and I ended up reassuring her that she didn't do anything wrong (after all, she's only doing what we're trained to do in group). She also claimed her intent was to talk it through so we could be closer (well I figure this might be therapist coaching, but I'm willing to assume it could possibly be true). I said how it didn't seem that way to me, since we haven't really bonded up til now, so I didn't see it as her trying to get close, and I said it might have helped if she had stated that was her intention before launching in, but I acknowledged I still might have felt attacked even if she had said that.
She still didn't really get at the root of her anger, but at one point, she was saying I sounded paralyzed in my life, and that made her angry, and the T asked if it reminded her of being paralyzed in her own life, and that really p*ssed her off, and later the T also asked if it reminded her of her boyfriend, since she's been talking a lot lately about his career struggles, and that also seemed to hit a nerve. So... not that I wanted to see her suffer-- well maybe I got some satisfaction, but I did feel bad for her pain too, because I know the awful mindf*** of how the T manages to make it all about you when you're convinced it's 'out there' this time-- but it convinced me that maybe her anger is her own self-criticism getting triggered, not something wrong with ME. Although I already have enough self-criticism on this issue, which is why it was so easy to trigger.
So I felt better toward her, and felt good about showing up and going through the process. There's a guy in the group who's 2 or 3 weeks AWOL after a conflict with the other woman in the group, so I got to feel good about myself for doing better than him, although I'm pretty protective of him since this event-- I figure he's taking care of himself by staying away, whereas everyone else just seems disappointed/angry with him.
I'm dreading the individual session this week, I guess I'll go, but I'm still mad at her. I hardly looked at her in the session at all. I'm still going to harp on this point of how this woman admitted she's had a problem with me for a long time, even more of that came out tonight, and I kept telling her I thought this woman didn't like me much, but the T kept telling me I was seeing it wrong, and everything was fine, and the problem was just me not trusting. So isn't there the slightest possibility that, mixed in with my mistrust, I was *correctly* perceiving some unfriendly vibes from her? After all, the T is not omniscient about her clients or anyone. And dang it, I suspect that woman shared some of this stuff with her, but naturally she won't be able to tell me that due to confidentiality.
I have half a mind to go in there and be totally awful, totally entrenched in hating that woman, and tell her I was faking sincerity in the group session, just to mess with her head and be mean.
poster:tabitha
thread:359289
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040614/msgs/359289.html