Why Do People Care?

[kris]

I just have a question if other people experience this in their therapy sessions. I have a hard time accepting the fact that the therapist cares, that someone would give a shit about me and actually show compassion for what I have been through. He feels sorry, not for me but for the fact that I didn't have help as a child to deal with the abuse and to learn proper coping skills then and to have the abuse stopped. I just can't accept the fact that someone who has only know me for a few months and I only see once a week would actually care. Why does he? I know it's not all because he is paid to, well really he isn't paid to care he is paid to listen and change thinking.

Why though? I guess I just don't understand why people actually care about others when they don't know each other. I understand to some point I guess but why do they show emotion and feel bad about what happened to me.

Sorry for the ramblings, I just am having trouble accepting the fact that anyone cares about me and what happened to me as a child. Apparently I have never really had that in my life, because if I did I wouldn't have all these emotional issues that I have now.

This isn't a pity message either of a why me or anything, I just don't know how to feel about people caring for me. I don't know what emotions to have over this, I usually try to blow it off as a bunch of BS that the person is telling me, but the therapist is telling me different and I don't understand why.

 

[Jade-]

I just started a thread about basically the same thing.

I genuinely care about other people. I just have a hard time when people care about me.

 

[Lauren]

Oh my gosh......that is so completely true for me too. I guess it's because we couldn't trust the ones who were supposed to care for us. My experience tells me that to let someone care is to let them close and if I let them close they are going to hurt me. I am overcoming that though. I have a friend who suffers from PTSD too and won't let me push her away. She gives me space when I need it, but she won't let me go no matter how hard I try to run away. It is helping me to work thru this.

 

[kris]

I still can't get over the fact that someone on this damn earth cares for me. I know my family does, but their family and even then I have my doubts sometimes though. Today I had a therapy session it had been a very tough week and I had thought and was at the verge of commiting suicide a few times through out that week. I didn't want to tell the therapist this because well, because I knew he would want to help and I knew something would have to be done about this. I also feel ashamed that I have these thoughts and act on them as well, I guess that's a good thing it means I really don't want to harm myself (so I am ASSUMING), but sometimes it feels like the best way out of this.

The look of concern that the therapist had freaks me out, it literally makes me sick to my stomach that someone could care like that. Although I didn't like his options for helping me very much, going to the hospital or him calling my family to keep a close eye on me I understood why one of these options needed to be done. Sometimes I think I really do need to go to a hospital and get some additional help, but I am afraid to admit that to anyone even myself. As I have written in previous threads it's more so the fact that my family doesn't know I am in counseling or know anything about my abuse. To admit that I need the help and act on that would mean I would have to tell them something. It would be a little strange for me just to be gone for a little while with no explanation of where the hell I have been.

 

[anni]

Hi Kris,

I only clicked on this because it's kind of familiar, but since it's REALLY a touchy sort of subject please ignore this is it's off-track. I loathed the heck out of having my T ( the good one, finally) CARE. It was awhile ago, but God it was so IEW, uncomfortable, icky-feeling and just-plain almost repulsive I almost quit a bunch of times. I won't get into 'it', but had to get past an aversion to anything touchy-feely, 'mushy' or at all sentimental also. You probably already know this, but 'it' was self-worth in the end.I loathed me so good God what was anyone thinking having any kind of nice emotions towards me?What a misguided idiot! 'It' still is, just tend to have a few more channels open here and there thanks to my T having a light approach, I think and possbily a good perception of how far to push.I know other's no doubt have other reasons for not being able to allow closeness with others, this is just mine.

Anyway, I don't mean to make it sound like 'Ta-Da, there it is' like a rabbit out of a hat, and of course your 'rabbit' might be different but mine turns out to be self-dislike. It made enough sense that working on things from there was at least possible, you know?

I hope you're not feeling as awful this week, anyway. Please, if this made zero sense please ignore, and do take care.

Anni

 

[gdf]

When you think about it therapy is a most intimate relationship. I have never really wanted a therapist to be all huggy, touchy and warm and fuzzy. Caring is one thing but I don't need someone to hold my hand but take it and guide me through all the scary PTSD stuff about my abuse.

There is a delicate balance there between support and caring from a professional aspect and getting so emotionally wrapped up in your case that it becomes absent of all objectivity. A good therapist realizes where the boundaries are and should have some idea of how much "caring" you can take. They are trained in the pitfalls of transference and patients becoming too dependent and attached. My previous therapist seemed to need to physically connect with me beyond a hand on the shoulder or a hand shake and continued even after I expressed that the hugging thing bothered me. To him I suppose it was an expression of caring but to me with PTSD I found it somewhat awkward to be hugging a person in a professional role (I don't hug my physician each time I see him) and a married man and father at that. I often wondered what does his wife think of this? It made me question if I was abnormal because it felt awkward? For me caring would have been better expressed by letting me work though my feelings of how horrible my abuse was.

 

[insomnia]

I am usually a very social person but since i started having ptsd my life in chaos. I just saw a therapist last week but I feel comfortable with her. I really hope things work out for you yake care GBU.

 

[sonickel77]

For the longest time I was convinced that my therapist didn't care at all. He was only in it for the paycheck, he could never understand, he was properly upper middle class and I wasn't, etc.
When I did look up once after telling a particularly horrible story and saw his look of concern, I got quite challenged by it all, too. Is he just putting it on? What's the difference between professional and personal caring? What did it all mean? And then, finally feeling attached to him after that, was the scariest thing ever, and I pretty much arced up and ran away from it all.
I don't think people get into psychiatry (at least the interpersonal, psychoanalytic part of it) without being a pretty altruistic, caring person. There are so many other ways to earn money in the world, without all the study, heartache, student debt, and years of talking to miserable people all day.
That can be a pretty hard thing to accept, though....

 

[kris]

Yesterday I had a therapy appointment, and once again the dude showed compassion and cared for me and what had happened to me as a child. I don't know why but I get such a weird feeling deep down within me that I can't describe when this happens. It's like I am trying to push the caring and kind words and stuff out because I don't want them. I don't want someone to care or tell me that it wasn't my fault or whatever else. I am trying to accept the words and let them soak in and accept that I am not a freak and that it wasn't my fault or that taking a compliment or giving one to myself once in awhile isn't going to kill me. I am trying but damn it is hard, who the heck thought that giving yourself a pat on the back for a job well done once in awhile would feel like torture.

 

[anni]

I'm trying to figure that out, too-whether it's some deep reserve built into 400 odd years of New England, no-nonsense genes or just plain frightening to the point of repulsiveness to have someone CARE like that *sswipe said he did? I stll don't know, but suspect now after an awful lot of time that besides the whole self-loathing issue ( everyone's favorite ball of wax )I'm deathly afraid of the consequences of allowing some of this locked-down, highly, highly contained emotional and physical 'stuff' to escape. No idea on the planet what would happen there since it's the only way I know how to function and do not wish to find out.

Everyone's different with this stupid thing, of course. Sometimes when picking through others thought proceses one comes across something which sets off some little bell of recognition, so thought I'd at least add one more possibility.

 

[Grama-Herc]

While I was in hospital I met with 4 different therapists. They all cared. They all were concerned about me. While each one had a different approach, they all had 1 thing in common. They were all vicitms, just like us, in one way or another. YEP! VICTIMS! Victims of abuse, traumas, depression, etc and yet they were able to get through their issues and educated themselves in order to help others just like them. Note I said through, not over their issues. Thank god they decide to go into the field of therapy. Who better to help guide those of us who are lost and in need of direction?

When I got out of the hospital and assigned a private T., the first thing I noticed about him was his willingness to listen. I felt like no one had ever really listened to me before. The second thing that struck me was when he told me that he takes a week off every 3 months and goes to his cabin in the mountains. When I asked why, he replied "For my own sanity".

Thinking back to the days of my visits with him, I realize he was the only person who I actually talked with----not talked at. He listened, he cared, but most of all he paid attention too me. Most of us here are not use to that, therefore; it feels weird