Therapy Resistant?

[Sterre]

I wonder if your old therapist just got impatient.

......Even thought you feel alone, you have us, sterre. Hang in there, please.

I was the one that got impatient after 6 years of hard work, and my T responded to that by breaking the therapy up.

Thanks for your kind support olaja, at this moment I consider this forum to be my life saver, and I will hang in there as well as I can. I can feel I am not alone, I feel it throughout my computerscreen, and I cannot express how much it means to me, right now that all of you are trying to pull me trough this!

I hold on to the support as best as I can.

 

[BloomInWinter]

I'm glad I had a comforting, trustworthy T. - several, actually...to 'get me through' earlier in life.

They were like I am with my kids....the ones I'd feel safe to fix my boo-boos and help my feel better. I needed that, several times, in my late-teens and 20's.

But they wouldn't work so well now. Because the kind of person who comforts you when you fall off that bike isn't the same kinda person who's gonna push you to get back on and risk getting hurt again.

That's my current T. - direct but gentle, firm but fair...and he has the long game strategy so I don't ever worry he's going to caught up in pity...because while a part of me would love that, it just isn't going to improve my tomorrows.

 

[mamachick]

Sterre I know this has all been very heart wrenching for you and yet you find such logic and acceptance toward you former T. You should be very proud of that. I have heard you acknowledge and respect her point of view, not criticizing her but understanding how the two of you may not have the most compatible communication style that leads toward the optimal independence and health. In every post you have been very gentle and kind. Even when others have been angered and much more critical of her. I can sure understand that feeling of a mother/parent needed to feel safe. I have found that in the last few men and that has lead to a loss of independence for me.

I really liked bloomins analagy about the therapist being your vehicle. And thanks Bloomin for allowing it to be borrowed.
When I was reading it, I had an image in my head that you were on this destination and would be traveling across the ocean, down a canal, through the forest, the desert, up a mountain, through the swamp-in all kinds of conditions. You have available to you a boat, a jeep, hiking and camping gear, high water boots, and so forth.

Every item is of great value to you, however, the boat will not help you cross the desert. Survival and the art of travel is reasoning out what you need to meet the next destination.

You have made a discovery and it sounds as though this particular T has given you something, or offered you something to help you to the next destination. Now it is time to plan for the next excursion and pack light, selecting carefully what is needed the most.

Bloomin, I hope you meant that because I think I just borrowed your material. Hugs to you both

 

[maddog]

I want to echo what others have said about your incredible, rational, pragmatic, mature and wise response to all that has happened with your situation Sterre. It humbles me, I doubt I could find such balance, compassion and reality if I was to be faced with such a conflicting painful situation as you are. You are truly a credit to your own healing, and to the inner wisdom and strength that have brought you so far in life.

I think your situation illustrates one of the common, unintentional, terribly unfortunate challenges and pitfalls to the therapeutic relationship. There is always a place for caring and compassion and it's almost inevitable that an element of the pseudo-parental style will creep into the relationship. But where the need for professionalism comes in is the knowledge that however we or they may feel, a T is not your parent, or even your friend, not primarily anyway. A T is a professional paid to help you to develop strategies and to utilise tools to allow you to make the most of your life and the least of your challenges. A T is paid to help us to heal, not only through compassion and validation, but through pushing us to step outside of our comfort zone and find a strength we didn't know we had.

Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it's painful and cruel and seemingly more confronting than we want to admit. I think at times we all almost childishly want our Ts to just "make it better" and stop hurting us. But it's tough love... it has to be.

Currently I feel my relationship with my T is about as constructive and healthy as I am capable of - thanks almost entirely to him and his professionalism, which, for me, entails an almost ideal mix of gentleness and pseudo-parental compassion, and a ruthless, persistent and sometimes forceful determination to never, ever lose sight of my best interests, even when I do.

But if, for whatever reason, the balance should ever leak out of this relationship, I hope I have the insight and honesty and dignity to acknowledge it as you have done Sterre, and to remember that healing is a painful and long journey that sometimes entails making the decisions that hurt the most.

I'm glad you have this forum now Sterre, more than ever. Please write as often as you need.

Maddog

 

[Sterre]

I really liked bloomins analagy about the therapist being your vehicle. And thanks Bloomin for allowing it to be borrowed.
When I was reading it, I had an image in my head that you were on this destination and would be traveling across the ocean, down a canal, through the forest, the desert, up a mountain, through the swamp-in all kinds of conditions. You have available to you a boat, a jeep, hiking and camping gear, high water boots, and so forth.

Every item is of great value to you, however, the boat will not help you cross the desert. Survival and the art of travel is reasoning out what you need to meet the next destination.

Brat17, I like how you take the analogy even further, because it fits my situation perfectly.If you dont mind I am going to put this in my dairysection as well, as a reminder against the guilt and shame I also feel towards the break up with my T.
Thank you!

I want to echo what others have said about your incredible, rational, pragmatic, mature and wise response to all that has happened with your situation Sterre. It humbles me, I doubt I could find such balance, compassion and reality if I was to be faced with such a conflicting painful situation as you are. You are truly a credit to your own healing, and to the inner wisdom and strength that have brought you so far in life.

I'm glad you have this forum now Sterre, more than ever. Please write as often as you need.

Thanks maddog, but iI feel it is to much credit for me now. I am not there yet, I dont feel solid ground underneath my feet about the situation with my T. It feels that the only way to survive this situation for now is to keep my head cristal clear and not to blur the reality of what happend between her and me.
There is this voice inside me that wants me to believe that she never really cared for me, and that the whole relationship was a failure. That everything was negative betweeen her and me, that her compassion was false, that her support was false, and that my progress is an illusion.
There is also a voice that wants me to believe that I messed this up, that I made myself so impossible to work with that she had no other choice than to break it up, that she is disgusted with me and my impossible behavior. That I am guilty of this failure, that I am guilty of all the failures, and that I put her trough hell while working with me.That I will never get beteer, and that I will ruin every single relationship, therapeutic or otherwise, every single time because I am an impossible creature.

In order to keep those voices down, I have to hold on to the middle ground and to the reality of what acctually happend. Otherwise I am lost and a playball of my destructive emotions.

I am surviving at this moment, and to do that I need to hold on to the reality as strong as I can. And the reality is that it just didnt work out, and thats it is not my fault or hers, but that at this point in time we are incompatible.

I am scared, because I know/am affraid of, that there will come a point where those voices will creep inside my skull, and then there is no T to calm me down.

Thanks for your support, and your wise words!

 

[Tessa]

We are all here with you as you step out and look for another therapist. I have been through this too and blamed myself for being hopeless at therapy. It can actually be good to be free to research a therapist who is a better fit for you. I try to cope on my own and just ring for a session when I get triggered I am going tomorrow as have had a bad week).

 

[maddog]

Hugs to you Sterre. I'm sorry if it seemed I was presuming you had no misgivings or difficulty with this decision, I can truly imagine that it is not that easy and that this must be an enormous ongoing struggle for you. But you have so clearly identified the competing forces and negative voices and all that you need to try to do to keep them at bay, and other than that, trying to just live one moment at a time and knowing that you have a safe place here to come when you need to share, are all that you can do.

Please take care and let us know when we need to kick in and start yelling at those nasty little voices as well.

Maddog

 

[Sterre]

Thank you so much maddog, for your kind and soothing words.
I know you werent presumming that I had no misgivings or troubles with the break up.

 

[olaja]

Just checking in.

 

[Sterre]

Checking in as being therapy resistant? Or at breaking up with your T?

Care to ellaborate some Olaja? Are you okay?

 

[olaja]

Hello. I was just checking in on your thread to see if you reported that any of your feelings were settling down. That kind of thing.

I am all right. And, that was very kind of you to ask. Thank you.

I am up late again reading posts instead of trying to fall asleep. But, it feels like I may sleep if I tried now. I am sleep resistant lately.

Have you tried dialectical behavioral therapy? It works for me because I can't argue or take charge. Imagine a therapist have Miss Piggy sit with own herself, and sit and sit. And, sit.

 

[Sterre]

Thats very sweet of you Olaja!

No, the feelings are not setteling in yet, but a start has been made. I still feel anxiuos about it, and still expect something bad to happen to me. I dont feel safe yet, but I am trying as hard as I can to stay on top of it, and for now I am doing fine.

Try and get some sleep Olaja, take rest! Sleep well!