Getting Feisty With Your Therapist...

[barefoot]

As I mentioned in another thread recently (about coping with the unbearability in therapy), my dissociation seems to have disappeared and it feels to me like it just happened overnight.

I'm finding things difficult - inside and out of therapy - because I'm suddenly feeling things I'm not used to feeling...and it feels like I'm feeling all the time. And I know not dissociating is A Good Thing and a sign of progress. But I'm finding it completely unsettling and feel lost. In fact, in a way, I think I feel a bit abandoned - like I've just been left with 'too much' feeling - but obviously there's not a someone who's abandoned me. It's like I feel let down by the dissociation itself abandoning me, but I know that doesn't really make sense.

Anyway... I've noticed that for the past couple of sessions, I've been quite feisty with my therapist. I think because dissociation isn't kicking in to 'help' me, I feel really exposed and uncomfortable and then I start to panic...so then I get defensive and a bit...well...p•ssy...with my therapist. I don't actively mean to get p•ssy with her and I don't want to be like that with her. But it seems to have emerged as my fallback position in the absence of being able to find comfort in numbing out. Actually, now I'm writing it, I wonder if I'm somehow angry with her because my dissociation is gone...like working with her has made it go and so now she's 'to blame' for how exposed and rubbish I feel...she's the one who's put me in this vulnerable position with horrible feelings... Hmm...

I've noticed that I'm keeping very busy at the moment - I'm being very motivated, very productive, doing lots of work and just generally keeping myself really occupied so that I don't really have a moment to just sit and be. I know this level of distraction is just about me being avoidant. I just feel afraid that if I just sit, with nothing to keep me occupied, I'll ruminate and then get flooded by feelings. I'm guessing it's very possible that the feelings I'm feeling are just a 'normal' level of feeling but for me it feels like flooding/overwhelming because I'm not used to it. So by keeping busy I'm avoiding being with my feelings - so I'm just making myself do what dissociation used to do.

I know I have to change because my psyche presumably thinks I'm ready and can manage otherwise the dissociation wouldn't have gone. So I need to somehow make myself just dive in to the work - but I'm stopping myself by being defensive and avoidant.

Does anyone have any tips about getting out of the way of yourself so that you can 'do the work'? Or anything that helped when you found yourself potentially damaging the relationship with your therapist because you're too busy kicking out (metaphorically!)? I'll speak to my therapist about it at my next session but any thoughts, tips or shared experience from anyone here would be much appreciated.

 

[WillyKat]

I think anger is a stage we go through where we're able to let feelings come out. And I can relate to what you're going through. Finally, after years, decades, a whole life, we're expressing feelings. But...we don't know how to manage it. It's like the comic book superhero who just realizes they have laser beam eyes and has to destroy everything they see until they learn how to turn it off and on.

It ain't easy.

I can relate too to that sense of abandonment. I told my therapist once that I felt I was on an alien planet and didn't know what to eat, what plants were poisonous, if that was really water or another form of poison. Downright disconcerting.

I'll make an attempt at some advice. Just understand that I'm still trying to figure it out; it's a work in process: First try to understand where the anger comes from, its source. It isn't your therapist, although s/he probably has on her checklist to get you in touch with your feelings. For me, I had assumed that being molested was the source. Well, that was certainly part of it, but there was also my family and teachers at school that weren't savvy enough to detect the obvious distress I was in. They didn't protect me when I needed them. I can dismiss it all now; they just weren't able to read the signs and that's not evil. But in the simple mind of a six year old, they abandoned me, and that anger was still inside me even at 50 years old.

Anyhow, work on figuring out where that anger comes from. Once I understood, it took some more time for me as an adult to comfort the inner child within. I was out in the desert fasting for three days, realized this, started sobbing, then literally hugged myself. That was the first time I actually felt self love.

Maybe that applies to you; maybe not. Hope so.

In short, this is part of the healing process. Let the process roll as painful as it is; I think it will work out.

 

[Deleted member 30639]

What Willy said is true for me, too.

Although for me, also, anger comes on the heels of exquisite pain like the pile up of water during and just after the rain. It has to run off somehow. I managed to bottle it up for three decades, which is more remarkable than the fact it's coming out at odd times now and then, and in heafty doses.

Why not anger? Everyone feels it, and often.

I work by noticing and observing microexpressions of irritation and anger and just being safe while observing it. (AKA, this person is angry (although not with me) and I am safe; they won't attack me!)

Doing this as a regular practice, looking for signs of minute anger/subtle anger, and just noticing it and what seemed to trigger it in that situation has helped me accept my own anger. Now I see it everywhere. It's not just me exisiting within anger.

When I get anger, rather than stuff it and feel shame, as I had to do growing up to avoid further trauma, I now, in my own head, say "Yes, it's okay to be angry about ___. That's normal. You're feelings are natural." and they subside. I call this Self-Validation.

The inner angry bits of me need me to validate them and they stop pitching fits.The old anger is always there, likely to always be part of my emotional landscape. I just accept it and it is not the only thing I see. So far, that is how I am coping, but I am not in therapy. This is something I will be working on my whole life.

There are times I get very angry and very hurt, and start to shake. I have a lot to learn to manage without shaking or my voice shaking.

The above I can do at work. In my personal life, I have recently begun to dissociate totally upon feeling anger in personal relationships. I literlaly pass out or faint. So although the above cognitive stuff works out in public, most of the time, in my core relations, it fails totally.

 

[shimmerz]

A lack of dissociation had me feel 'empty'. Like my brain was a whiteboard that had been cleaned and I had no idea what to write onto it again. I used the opportunity to 'learn' positive things. Psychology, Ho'oponopono, healing things. I guess I wanted to fill the empty 'space' with positive things (whatever that meant to me at the time). I did feel anger but found it passed more easily than I had thought it would but put that down to the fact that I had given myself the above noted positive tools.

I had dissociated all of my life, I believe, so the blank space in my head, when I thought about it, was to be expected. I am not sure how long you have dissociated for. My advice? Fill yourself with positive. Talk to your therapist. Ask her some coping mechanisms for the feelings you are coming across that dissociation used to cover up.

Good going btw! It may not feel like that right now. Can you post again to let us know how your therapist was able to break your dissociation? I think that would be of interest to others.

 

[barefoot]

Thank you so much for your replies - all of them have resonated/been helpful in some way. I'm probably not going to have time to properly think, realise how I feel and respond this evening but will come back tomorrow. But for now I just wanted to say thanks - I was moved by each of your replies.

@shimmerz - I don't have a clear explanation for breaking the dissociation - it just seemed to happen out of nowhere and hence has taken me by complete surprise! But I'll think back and look a little deeper and see if I can pinpoint some stuff that might be useful to others.

 

[shimmerz]

I'll think back and look a little deeper and see if I can pinpoint some stuff that might be useful to others.

You are lovely. Thank you @barefoot. I hope you rest well tonight and that the morning brings a peace and calm to your rewarded efforts. :hug:

 

[ghotiff]

My anger is coming, I can feel now that it's there, I can't quite acces it yet. When it comes I think I will be angry at my T but I think she will be okay with that. I plan to text her a rational apology/explanation and then try to let myself be angry to her. I wasn't able to express my emotions as a child so I think that expressing them to my T will be an important step, even though she won't be the true cause.

Maybe you could write and ask your T if it's okay to express yourself openly rather than the current "pissy" (passive aggressive?) way you are at the moment.

Just thoughts.

 

[WillyKat]

@ghotiff has a good idea. Let your T know what s/he's in for. They're people too, so the experts tell us, so cutting them some slack is a good idea.

 

[shimmerz]

I will be angry at my T but I think she will be okay with that. I plan to text her a rational apology/explanation and then try to let myself be angry to her.

Brilliant! Simply brilliant. As usual @ghotiff.

 

[Kintsugi]

(Preface: I started responding to this directly after it was posted, then had to do things, so I haven't read the other responses. Sorry if I'm repeating what others have said. :bag:)

I hear (and feel) this loud and clear. I am terrified of the idea that dissociation will leave me, even though that is one of the primary reasons I'm in therapy (to cope better with it, at least).

First off, I would not worry about "damaging" your relationship with your T. I think s/he can probably handle your being "feisty" or kicking out."

Secondly, I think that this is a normal process if you are suddenly left with lots of feelings on your hands. I know I would be something like that. I could be downright vicious. It's hard to say what can/may happen in my future (luckily she's sort of already used to a lot of general kicking/snarky retorts).

Anyway, what I am getting at is that, in no small way, I think this process you're experiencing is "doing the work." :)

 

[seedling]

I expressed anger toward my therapist once and he said " You're angry with me, it won't be the last time. I'd rather have you be angry at me than at yourself." He really didn't mind if I "got mad at him." He was relieved to see it expressed and starting to come out. He thought it was a healthy advancement in my therapy.

When I am in pain that seems huge and unknown I remind myself not to resist. To go toward the pain instead of trying to shrink away from it. It's bringing change, let it happen - that kind of idea. Resisting can make it worse and more complicated.

 

[Chava]

I'm not feeling pissy with my therapist, but I do notice extra anger and other creepy energy as I become less numb. It's also hard to feel too much too soon or all at once. If it's happening that way I worry less about doing the trauma work and step a little back to grounding myself. Super important. Can you talk to your therapist about all of this?