Does Your Therapist Asks "how Little Do You Feel?"

[Panda Bear]

It's a tough time a year, I'm often 'stuck' feeling small. I've been expressing that I feel torn between two worlds. A world of the now, being an adult, daily life and then the life when I was little. I feel small and helpless when life's stressors are introduced. My mind seems to go back immediately to those moments when I was small and helpless.

Not a fun place to be stuck, it's exhausting and painful to try and be 'big' and in control of my now life, all the while, my brain is constantly fighting for a place of comfort for that little girl.

T asked me "how little are you now" he really wants me to put and age to the little girl. She seems to take over our sessions at times. I'll get stuck and end up fighting to be in the now and act like an adult. Like, expressing emotions instead of acting like an angry and hurt child who can't trust or love. We've discussed it many times, I don't hide my struggles it stay present and not feel small and helpless.

Only this week, he wanted an age. A more exact description of how small I really was. He was persistent in getting a response. No longer accepting my answer, he wanted an age. It's interesting, I do have different ages that feel. I feel 9-10 when I was sexually abused, I feel 7-8, when my dad died....I feel 10-12 when I'm struggling with the absuive crazy that my mom dished out. I can see myself inside my head being those ages....

Any ways, it was just interesting that he needed and pressed for a more specific age. Anyone else have this Issue?

 

[GypsyThatIWas]

I don't think you're alone in that feeling of smallness--something my therapist recommends I remind myself during a panic attack is "I am in an adult body". It's common for victims of childhood abuse to have emotional flashbacks to those times when they were especially vulnerable.

 

[Bluebonnet]

Yes, mine has done something similar, asking me at times how old I feel. I have noticed that she will bring up certain topics or issues to draw out different ages at different times. Her goal is to help me have those younger ages learn different things (skills, coping strategies, changed core beliefs, etc.) so that over time those younger ages can feel alright and perhaps even whole and healed. I actually do feel much younger at times when working with her. It's odd and at first I thought it was really kooky, but it has been (and I hope it continues to be) amazing work for me that is really making a difference.