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Hi Abstract,
I'll have to split up what you said and I'd like to reply to as it's partly different for me than it seems to have been for you.
It is something I did and still do today. It is such a huge part of me -- I usually refer to this as being "burned into my cells", in German meaning that it is so very much in me that it really has become part of me in all the little things that getting it out once and for all, I truly believe, is impossible. Not within one lifetime and least.
What you said in the first half (bold) applies to me as well. I wasn't aware though that I really wanted to please the therapist in a way. I look at it rather as "big-time stockholming". I don't want to please THE THERAPIST -- I just want TO PLEASE. I want to avoid to cause just anyone anything that might disturb them in any way.
The second part of your quote does not apply to me at all. For me, it has nothing to do with denial at all. It has to do with having made the experience as a toddler to literally not be able to do ANYTHING at all to have another abuse you sexually and all that comes with it (i.e. physical abuse and psychological maltreatment). I don't want to go into detail, but I can match me in that therapist's office to my experience back then, in detail. It's what my therapist always calls "absolute resignation" (as in: giving up completely, your self, your life -- translation may not be idiomatic, but no clue how to say it better. It's difficult to put into words...
I was and am there in therapy. So, I'm not dissociated, at least not in the way you said. I can now realize when I do it, but I can't do anything about it. I do it not only in therapy, but anywhere, depending on the state I'm in. I have not been well at all because finally, ALL the trauma hit me, and all the connections, the severity, not of individual trauma, but the "bigger picture". It all falls into place. This has left me as a person so fragile that I have retreated to those old behaviours very much, even outside therapy, even with things I have not had to retreat to this for many, many years (decades). So, I am not DOING it consciously at all, but sometimes now, while I'm doing it, I can realize that I am doing it. And can do nothing against it.
Hope this helps a bit to clear things up.
Wishing you well, Abstract. Take care.
I'll have to split up what you said and I'd like to reply to as it's partly different for me than it seems to have been for you.
It is something I did and still do today. It is such a huge part of me -- I usually refer to this as being "burned into my cells", in German meaning that it is so very much in me that it really has become part of me in all the little things that getting it out once and for all, I truly believe, is impossible. Not within one lifetime and least.
What you said in the first half (bold) applies to me as well. I wasn't aware though that I really wanted to please the therapist in a way. I look at it rather as "big-time stockholming". I don't want to please THE THERAPIST -- I just want TO PLEASE. I want to avoid to cause just anyone anything that might disturb them in any way.
The second part of your quote does not apply to me at all. For me, it has nothing to do with denial at all. It has to do with having made the experience as a toddler to literally not be able to do ANYTHING at all to have another abuse you sexually and all that comes with it (i.e. physical abuse and psychological maltreatment). I don't want to go into detail, but I can match me in that therapist's office to my experience back then, in detail. It's what my therapist always calls "absolute resignation" (as in: giving up completely, your self, your life -- translation may not be idiomatic, but no clue how to say it better. It's difficult to put into words...
I was and am there in therapy. So, I'm not dissociated, at least not in the way you said. I can now realize when I do it, but I can't do anything about it. I do it not only in therapy, but anywhere, depending on the state I'm in. I have not been well at all because finally, ALL the trauma hit me, and all the connections, the severity, not of individual trauma, but the "bigger picture". It all falls into place. This has left me as a person so fragile that I have retreated to those old behaviours very much, even outside therapy, even with things I have not had to retreat to this for many, many years (decades). So, I am not DOING it consciously at all, but sometimes now, while I'm doing it, I can realize that I am doing it. And can do nothing against it.
Hope this helps a bit to clear things up.
Wishing you well, Abstract. Take care.
