Posted by raisinb on April 2, 2009, at 19:18:42
THANK GOD. I was so, so worried and stressed.
Things are still rough with my therapist, but today was a little better than last time. I told her how it made me feel when she left without contact, then came back and didn't seem to be fully "there." I told her she was making it hard for me to continue. She tried to turn it back on me for a minute, "and what about *your* ambivalence?" but I said, "that's not going to work. I need a real, sincere response from you, etc."
She kept saying she wanted to be there and didn't want me to leave, etc. I still had a hard time believing her, and I am sure I will for awhile.
She asked me, "but can you accept *me*?" and "I don't know how else to *be*." I'm not sure she got what I was saying, as this seemed to me to be beside the point. I am still turning this remark over in my head.
At some point I just started to cry. I'm not sure why--I never cry in front of her--but I'd just gotten my tenure decision today, and I was so overwhelmed and hurt from her leave, that I broke down a little and just said, "I've had a rough couple of months." Then she started to cry a little too, and said, "now you're making me cry!" Things turned around a little when we had that moment. I don't know why she doesn't get all the time that when she shows real emotion, real presence, it makes all the difference.
It is just so, so hard. I asked her, "what is the solution to all this?" (i.e., me feeling rejected, unimportant, unloved, her making me feel this way so often, etc.) and she said, "we keep fighting." I said, "for what?" She said, "for the relationship. For us. For you." And that she knew I had the stamina for it, because she'd seen it in me. Here I really started to cry, realizing how much I want to get to a point where I don't have to fight so much. Where I can just rest, find a person, a place, to rest with and be okay with, be loved and accepted.
We ended on an okay note. I am a little more hopeful that things will get better and that I won't have to leave again.
This therapy stuff is so hard. It is so, so hard.
poster:raisinb
thread:888302
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090328/msgs/888302.html