barefoot
MyPTSD Pro
I've posted before here about my therapist/therapy but not for a while. I've been seeing her for three years. I think I've made quite a bit of progress therapeutically over that time, though it has felt like a very slow journey (I have a tendency to be avoidant and, up until about six months or so ago, I spent lots of time in sessions dissociating) and I think I still have quite a way to go. I like her. We get on. We have had a few misunderstandings and ruptures, which I have pretty much lost my mind about at the time! We always managed to work through them and come out the other side in a better position.
At the moment, I'm finding the therapeutic relationship very stressful. I can't pin it on a reason to do with her - it's not anything she's done/not done or anything she's said/not said. She hasn't done anything wrong. I don't know why I am feeling so anxious.
Well...having said that...I think my anxiety is maybe partly due to the fact that I have shared some difficult stuff in recent sessions - months ago, I know I would have dissociated within seconds of sharing it (if I was even able to voice it at all) and I think I am finding it difficult to manage my feelings in sessions now that dissociation isn't swooping in to "save me". I don't remember ever feeling difficult feelings as intensely or for as long as I am now because, before, I would have just checked out. So, I think I am feeling more vulnerable and...undefended...? And that that is jangling the fact that I find intimacy hard because I am sharing stuff, feeling horrible and vulnerable, she is leaning in...and it is spooking me.
One of the main things I find excruciating and confusing is the push/pull. On the one hand, I want to feel connected and "close" to her. On the other, I am really repelled (frightened?) by that idea and try to keep her at a distance. It is confusing.
Anyway, I finally decided to explicitly bring up this whole topic last session. I'd brainstormed some things around it and took that with me for us to look at together. I felt mortified - it was hard to share with her. She started talking again about intimacy "being an edge for me".
And then I was talking about the push/pull. And how I seem to either feel intensely attached to her, which I find unbearable. Or, at the other end of the line, I feel either completely disconnected or I feel angry. And I hate feeling those things too. There doesn't seem to be anything in-between. And I want whatever is in-between because these current feelings at either end of the spectrum are driving me nuts. They feel so painful and confusing.
And at that point she said that she felt that the whole sheet was really about attachment, which has never come up in our sessions before. Or maybe it has and she just hasn't ever named it?
She said the things I am feeling (intensely attached/completely disconnected/angry) are not about her but that they have historical roots around attachment. She asked what I thought. There was nothing in my head...just a blank. I've thought about it since the session. I still can't work out why attachment would be problematic for me.
She asked what I needed in order to feel at the middle point in the spectrum (i.e. in between feeling intensely attached and completely disconnected or angry) and the only thing I could think to say was for it not to feel precarious. But then I couldn't really put any words around what felt precarious now or why or around what I think I need for it not to feel precarious. And then she said that she felt the mid-point on the spectrum was secure attachment. And then my mind just went completely blank again.
We see each other fortnightly and she asked if I could go back next week so we can pick it up again. I said yes. But now I'm panicking a bit about that and am thinking I should be going less often to try to lessen the intensity.
I think what I am most struggling with is the feelings of intense attachment. They feel so alien to me. It makes me feel needy and clingy and pathetic and desperate. And I just don't see myself as that person. I am not like that in any other relationship - I am the opposite....the commitment-phobe, the retreater, the contained one, the keeper of people "over there", the one who goes silent or walks away in an argument, the flake who doesn't keep in touch very well, the one who likes their own space and doesn't like to feel crowded or smothered and who shuts down and pushes away when someone wants to be too close or share too much emotion... And I don't like having needy people around me either. I just don't recognise this clingy, needy person in me and I don't understand where she has come from or why. I just want her to go away!
At the other end of the spectrum, I don't like feeling angry either. Feeling angry makes me feel panicky and upset/teary. I don't even know why I feel angry with her. Though now I am thinking, perhaps I feel angry because I don't like the feelings of attachment?!
So, ultimately, I feel like I want to feel consistently disconnected. I don't want to feel anything towards/about my therapist. Just neutral. But it feels like disconnection with her now mainly happens when I feel angry with her. I feel angry, which is stressful, then I shut down and disconnect. But it feels more of an effort somehow now to be disconnected. More like I am fighting connection rather than just shutting down.
It feels like a total head f*ck because I just don't recognise this me and I don't understand why I'm doing it. It just feels horrible and I don't want it.
I don't really know why I'm posting. It just feels painful and frustrating and upsetting and confusing.
Any ideas about how I move forwards with this?
Should I cancel next week's session and try to create some space and distance? Or is what's happening at the moment somehow progress/a good thing?!
I feel so "ugh!" about the whole thing. I feel very stressed about it.
At the moment, I'm finding the therapeutic relationship very stressful. I can't pin it on a reason to do with her - it's not anything she's done/not done or anything she's said/not said. She hasn't done anything wrong. I don't know why I am feeling so anxious.
Well...having said that...I think my anxiety is maybe partly due to the fact that I have shared some difficult stuff in recent sessions - months ago, I know I would have dissociated within seconds of sharing it (if I was even able to voice it at all) and I think I am finding it difficult to manage my feelings in sessions now that dissociation isn't swooping in to "save me". I don't remember ever feeling difficult feelings as intensely or for as long as I am now because, before, I would have just checked out. So, I think I am feeling more vulnerable and...undefended...? And that that is jangling the fact that I find intimacy hard because I am sharing stuff, feeling horrible and vulnerable, she is leaning in...and it is spooking me.
One of the main things I find excruciating and confusing is the push/pull. On the one hand, I want to feel connected and "close" to her. On the other, I am really repelled (frightened?) by that idea and try to keep her at a distance. It is confusing.
Anyway, I finally decided to explicitly bring up this whole topic last session. I'd brainstormed some things around it and took that with me for us to look at together. I felt mortified - it was hard to share with her. She started talking again about intimacy "being an edge for me".
And then I was talking about the push/pull. And how I seem to either feel intensely attached to her, which I find unbearable. Or, at the other end of the line, I feel either completely disconnected or I feel angry. And I hate feeling those things too. There doesn't seem to be anything in-between. And I want whatever is in-between because these current feelings at either end of the spectrum are driving me nuts. They feel so painful and confusing.
And at that point she said that she felt that the whole sheet was really about attachment, which has never come up in our sessions before. Or maybe it has and she just hasn't ever named it?
She said the things I am feeling (intensely attached/completely disconnected/angry) are not about her but that they have historical roots around attachment. She asked what I thought. There was nothing in my head...just a blank. I've thought about it since the session. I still can't work out why attachment would be problematic for me.
She asked what I needed in order to feel at the middle point in the spectrum (i.e. in between feeling intensely attached and completely disconnected or angry) and the only thing I could think to say was for it not to feel precarious. But then I couldn't really put any words around what felt precarious now or why or around what I think I need for it not to feel precarious. And then she said that she felt the mid-point on the spectrum was secure attachment. And then my mind just went completely blank again.
We see each other fortnightly and she asked if I could go back next week so we can pick it up again. I said yes. But now I'm panicking a bit about that and am thinking I should be going less often to try to lessen the intensity.
I think what I am most struggling with is the feelings of intense attachment. They feel so alien to me. It makes me feel needy and clingy and pathetic and desperate. And I just don't see myself as that person. I am not like that in any other relationship - I am the opposite....the commitment-phobe, the retreater, the contained one, the keeper of people "over there", the one who goes silent or walks away in an argument, the flake who doesn't keep in touch very well, the one who likes their own space and doesn't like to feel crowded or smothered and who shuts down and pushes away when someone wants to be too close or share too much emotion... And I don't like having needy people around me either. I just don't recognise this clingy, needy person in me and I don't understand where she has come from or why. I just want her to go away!
At the other end of the spectrum, I don't like feeling angry either. Feeling angry makes me feel panicky and upset/teary. I don't even know why I feel angry with her. Though now I am thinking, perhaps I feel angry because I don't like the feelings of attachment?!
So, ultimately, I feel like I want to feel consistently disconnected. I don't want to feel anything towards/about my therapist. Just neutral. But it feels like disconnection with her now mainly happens when I feel angry with her. I feel angry, which is stressful, then I shut down and disconnect. But it feels more of an effort somehow now to be disconnected. More like I am fighting connection rather than just shutting down.
It feels like a total head f*ck because I just don't recognise this me and I don't understand why I'm doing it. It just feels horrible and I don't want it.
I don't really know why I'm posting. It just feels painful and frustrating and upsetting and confusing.
Any ideas about how I move forwards with this?
Should I cancel next week's session and try to create some space and distance? Or is what's happening at the moment somehow progress/a good thing?!
I feel so "ugh!" about the whole thing. I feel very stressed about it.
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