Posted by Tamar on July 25, 2006, at 19:11:32
I saw him today. I might not see him again for a month because I’m going on holiday and then he’s going on holiday. But it feels OK.
Yesterday I finished writing a book. He knew I was struggling to get it finished, so today when I told him it was done his face lit up. And then he asked me about it and I told him a few things and he was genuinely interested. (I don’t want to mention what it’s about here because it could potentially identify me…)
My last two sessions have been really good: not too intense but still very valuable. We’ve been communicating really well. There’s only one problem: it comes at the cost of my inner 18 year-old.
Today, right at the very end of the session, he asked how my 18 year-old is doing. And I burst into tears (I’ve never done that before). And he apologised for bringing it up right at the end, and said we could talk for another five or ten minutes. But I knew that ten minutes wouldn’t be enough for her, so I declined his offer.
The thing is… he made a series of mistakes. He forgot about my rape anniversary and then he forgot to come to my appointment, and then it transpired that he’d forgotten to tell me about having a conversation with my GP. And when I discovered that the last thing was yet another instance of forgetting, it didn’t seem worth discussing. What would be the point? He forgets things. It’s one of his weaknesses. He’s human.
But that was the point at which the 18 year-old gave up. She wants so much from him and she feels he won’t give her anything. She’s not even sure what she wants exactly. She just wants *him*. She has told him a few things she wants: she’s told him she wants to go for a walk with him and that she wants comfort from him. But he refuses or dismisses what she wants, and he doesn’t give her any space to talk about what she wants from him. And then he forgets things that are very important to her. So when he brought her in at the end of today’s session, she didn’t want to talk to him, but she was very distressed about it.
I’ve tried so hard to find ways to talk to him about the stuff she wants. I think the only thing I haven’t tried is writing it down and giving it to him to read, although if he can ignore it when I say it, he can ignore it if I write it down. But I’m so afraid. I’m terrified he’s going to reject her or humiliate her. I think the fear of humiliation is the worst part of it all. She’ll tell him she loves him and he’ll be disgusted or annoyed. And to disguise or alleviate his negative feelings he’ll laugh at her or tease her, not to be cruel but to enforce the boundaries and to emphasise the unacceptability of her feelings. And the very idea of it makes her want to die.
She doesn’t expect him to love her. She doesn’t wish for his love. She just wants to be allowed to love him. But I’m not entirely sure how she wants to be able to express it. She doesn’t want a sexual relationship with him, and she doesn’t want the kind of friendship that I want from him. I think she wants him as a father figure or a mentor or something like that, but she denies it. Mind you, she denies everything because she doesn’t want people (even me) to know how she feels about things that matter to her.
Sorry, this got very long. I do love my therapist, but it feels as if there are two of me loving him in two different ways. My 18 year-old is desperate, but she doesn’t want to talk. I don’t know how to help her. She’s so vulnerable.
poster:Tamar
thread:670462
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060721/msgs/670462.html