Working Through What Trust Is

[joeylittle]

What he doesn't seem to get (or maybe he does) is that this is probably more than I've ever trusted because I've opened up to him about what's going on in my head and the really intensely embarrassing things that have happened... that has made everything feel more... terrible and raw because he does know. It hurts when I think he might tell someone or that he's judging me and suddenly it's like sitting naked in front of someone while they calmly sit there sipping their coffee asking you how you felt about that. ummm....

I really just want to share that I could have written this. I actually have written this, in my own words, more than once in my diary in the last few weeks.

And I've been thinking the stuff you wrote about vulnerability, and trust, as well. I never worried about whether or not I trusted my therapist until just recently, and I did not have the same extreme feeling of vulnerability til now. A thing happened where he let me down, twice. It corresponded with me moving into some stuff in the trauma work that is harder to talk about, more physical. And I suddenly find that him sitting there and just listening, without displaying any sort of weakness of his own, is leading me to thoughts about how naked I feel.

Mine shares about his life and his past a great deal. Sometimes, too much. And even when he doesn't, I'm not sure he knows how transparent he is. When I brought up recently how I was frustrated because he never showed any feeling, he got tense and said "If I recall, I told you how this all makes me feel." Which is true, he did, probably a year ago. It made me realize how much of a choice that must have been for him, if he remembers it that clearly (I remember everything, but I'm not the one seeing 8-10 different people every week).

I told him last session that I didn't know if I could trust him, and that was new for me, because before I never cared. So now this is a topic.

He suggested I go to a PHP that is focused specifically on PTSD, so I had more support, and I heard it as "I can't deal with you anymore".

I keep telling him, lately, that I can tell he doesn't understand what I'm trying to say, about how badly I feel. And he keeps saying, "what do you think I don't understand?" And I know that is just using basic therapy skills, but I hear it as defensiveness.

I'm sorry for rambling on your thread. I just really identify with what you are saying. And I've thought hard lately about switching therapists, but right now going back to the beginning with someone else does not seem like the smartest move for me. Or, emotionally speaking, I'd rather be squeezed through a juicer.

But some things I know for sure: He is supposed to be a container for everything you spill out. Every insecurity, every feeling, every everything. It's therapy 101. They are the container. You can want and expect him to be that. SO, that's the piece where he goes all neutral and doesn't get provoked.

Therapy 201 is where you don't always want him to be neutral, and he has to understand how to reveal enough about his person (not past so much as ethics, morals, therapeutic stance) so that you can "believe" or "trust" or "accept" (I think they are interchangeable in therapy) that he is on your team. That you have a therapeutic alliance.

And 301 is when we are all messy and people are complicated and even therapists make mistakes, but that's not what we are paying them for, so are we supposed to forgive them, and whoa, forgiveness is a "personal" emotion, not a "client" emotion, and "hey therapist work this shit through with me because I don't know how to talk to you anymore." I think that's what their whole third year of training should be about.

As much as you can, just keep talking. And ask him specific questions about how he talked to the dog lady.

I'm going to tell mine next session that I would like him to make himself vulnerable to me, again, in some way. Not that I need to see him have feelings, but that it would help me if he would drop a little penny of "personal" into my container. It would help because I can't talk about these things with a stranger. I could, at first, but now, I can't. And it's not that he's a stranger, literally - but it is that transaction of human experiences that creates trust. And I hope it works.

Anyway, you're not alone in this one.

 

[desiderata310]

"It is the transaction fo human experiences that creates trust."

Creates... breaks... and yeah I'm bawling my eyes out.
shit.

Yes, I think that my therapist might be a bit too close at this point to catch this one. I'm a hard, shitty client. I try very hard to leave him alone but I still ride past that office everyday. I still email him after sessions at his behest. I think this is bad... for him. ANd whle most people will argue and say that the theraputic relationship shouldn't work that way, I would argue and say that if you're working with someone that closely and you get to hear all the really terrible and horrible and scary embarrassing, mortifying things where I lay my entire being open for you to politely gaze at while you drink your coffee, then YES, there SHOULD be some tiny bit of recoprocation in that. Because I can't do it otherwise. I'm not saying that I need to hear everything abot his life (because he wouldn't tell me anyway) but I should becase it's f*cking HUMAN to do so, know about some of the stuff that makes him tick and I SHOULD give a shit about how it's impacting the person who's having to process the shit I am telling him, while I am trying to process the shit I lived through

I remember a while back we had a really bad time in therapy and when we finally came to a resolution he pointed out that he can make mistakes.

THe problem here is I think I have made the mistake. It's that this is all something he can't handle as a therapist or a person. It's not a judgement on him so much. For the last serveral months, I have had trouble expressing myself in my sessions. I clam up and if we get anywhere it was a damn miracle until I sent him a portion of my journal to read once. He encouraged me to keep doing that. Hell, when I stopped recently because I had gotten the supposedly wrong impression that I shouldn't do that anymore, he questioned me about it and asked me to start sending them again.

The problem is that I've spent a lot of time sensoring my journals. The last several I sent him were raw and angry. Actually a lot of them recently have been downright mean. I'm in an ugly, raw, shitty place. I get something and I feel a little better about it and then I rebound and my rebounds are ugly and mean, and all in my head and I have to work hard to claw back and regain any sembelence of benig close to where I started. If he says I am "smart" and gets me to agree that I might be smart, I will bounce back and actually become angry and hateful and begin a tirade of inner hate that I am not only NOT smart but I am the dumbest thing on the planet. (I STILL don't belive it but I conceded that I can at least fool most people into thinking I am because I have an advanced degree)

It gets ugly. and it happens. a lot. I write this shit. so I can work it out. IF I didn't he'd probably never know and would assume that we had worked past all that but in my writing the themes come back again and again and again. Just like my inability to trust. It's not resolved. It's never that simple for me. I might feel better for a day or two but it always comes back and if he reads the shit I write it's there. I can, for this moment at least, imagine that reading that would be frustrating and demoralizing.

I don't feel free to say what I really feel in session but I don't really hold back on spewing the angry bile in my journal.

I think it has become harmful to the work that is being done. I need to be able to rant and hate my therapist, and hate the world and scream about suicide and cutting and not worry how that is going to impact my therapist. I am at a point where I either spend too much time editing what I send, or I am not truthful in my own writing, or I quit sharing that information with him. I need to write. But I need it for me. I don't see where editing it is useful and I am not sure he can be the vessle for all that vileness that I am spewing out.

I'm certain that other patients don't send their journal entries to him. I'm sure that somehow we will manage to progress without it... or we won't.

I think that this has become unfair to me and to him
I think that at the heart of the current issue is him knowing too much about what is really bouncing around in my head. That all seems counterintuitive but there it is.
I don't know...

 

[joeylittle]

I think that at the heart of the current issue is him knowing too much about what is really bouncing around in my head. That all seems counterintuitive but there it is.

I don't think it's counter-intuitive. I think when there are many, many issues going on, it is at least partially up to the client (you) to set the agenda for the therapy. I have massive, massive issues with my relationship to food, and my weight, and all those are playing out right now for me. But it's not what I need or want to be doing in therapy right now. It would make it impossible to do anything else, because the issue is too big. So I don't get into it unless it is relevant to what we are working on.

It really is a two-way street. The client determines the overall trajectory of the therapy; the therapist helps create the path as things go along.

Do you know if your therapist likes challenges? Like, is he a person who takes pride in achieving goals, does he say things that indicate that he is a fighter? I'm asking because you might call yourself a shitty client, but when you flip that around (and this isn't necessarily a nice quality), to a therapist shitty equals exciting - a bigger challenge.

I know I see myself as a very difficult, very needy client. And actually, if I separate "me" from "my problems", it's true to say that my problems are very, very difficult to solve/heal and they need very consistent attention and support. My therapist so far seems to thrive on challenges, and whatever he gets out of being a therapist, a big part of it is that he values his ability to support people. In this way, I try and see us as a good team.

Have you asked him if he's ever fired a client, and why? That has been really important info for me. Mine only fired someone who sounds like they were misdiagnosed depressive/eating disorder but were really borderline. It was, as he puts it, the client "playing games" with him over suicide threats and crises.

I don't feel free to say what I really feel in session but I don't really hold back on spewing the angry bile in my journal.

I used to send emails; but more and more I noticed that we never really talked through them. And then it got me thinking that yes, I could see how it was useful info for him to know what I was thinking, but I wasn't comfortable having him know that stuff without us actually talking through it in session. Stopping sending them did help me get braver (out of necessity) about saying things in session that I couldn't before.

if you're working with someone that closely and you get to hear all the really terrible and horrible and scary embarrassing, mortifying things where I lay my entire being open for you to politely gaze at while you drink your coffee, then YES, there SHOULD be some tiny bit of recoprocation in that. Because I can't do it otherwise. I'm not saying that I need to hear everything abot his life (because he wouldn't tell me anyway) but I should becase it's f*cking HUMAN to do so, know about some of the stuff that makes him tick and I SHOULD give a shit about how it's impacting the person who's having to process the shit I am telling him, while I am trying to process the shit I lived through

Yes, to all this. And just adding something you left out: you totally should give a shit about how it impacts him. And he absolutely should be able to honestly and openly assure you that he is able to handle it.

I think mine is trying to get me to understand that him being able to handle it doesn't mean he has no feelings about it. He tells me he cares. But I say, how am I supposed to know that you care if none of it really lands on you, if you are so teflon? And he says he's not teflon, but his job is to be the container. he said that so often I had to look it up, and it is actually really common in how therapy is taught.

Hey, thanks for starting this thread. I really feel a lot less alone right now. It's a strange co-incidence to have such a similar thing going on, but hey, misery loves company, yeah?

 

[scout86]

I think this is bad... for him.

THe problem here is I think I have made the mistake. It's that this is all something he can't handle as a therapist or a person.

This is not your job. You can worry about looking out for him if you want to, but I think that will just get in the way. I tend to do the same thing. And got told "Thanks for doing my job for me, now STOP" and, "I'm quite capable of looking out for myself, but thanks for caring." I wanted to protest, but, you know what? He was right.

It's possible my T isn't as good at looking out for himself as he thinks. (Although it really looks like he is.) But, this is actually about trust too. I have to trust him to take care of himself and I have to trust him to do his job. I have to trust that he knows HOW to do his job. In spite of the fact (and it IS a fact) that I might do it differently, if I was in his situation. In fact, there's a good chance that the people you guys are working with would do things differently too. Because they are different people, with different personalities and different styles.

If we really COULD look out for everyone we care about and keep them safe, we are depriving them of the opportunity to succeed or fail on their own merit. That's actually not fair. I really don't HAVE to trust him at all. I just can't imagine any of this doing any good if I don't. For me at least, sorting out "trust" is one of the big things I need to work on

@desiderata310 , are there things that cause you to think your T might be especially fragile and in need of your protection? It's possible you're right, and that you really DO have to worry about taking care of him. If that's true, though, you need a different T and HE needs a different career. (Personally, I'll bet he's fine.) What's your definition of "a shitty client"? Do you know what HIS definition is? (Forgive me? The past 2 therapy sessions have included a lot of mention of the importance of word choices and precision in the use of language.)

The problem is that I've spent a lot of time sensoring my journals.

I keep a journal too, at my T's suggestion. He said early on that he'd read it or not, it was up to me. I said "Not!" with no hesitation. He laughed and we've never talked about it again. I DO email him. Sometimes not as much as he'd like. And, I will say stuff in emails that I probably won't in his office. I'm sure at least some of the information is useful and I'm sure sometimes he wishes I'd be more forthcoming. (But, hey, if I could talk about this stuff I probably wouldn't need therapy in the first place. Not because talking is necessary, but because it would be "nothing but a thing" if it wasn't a problem.) Even when I email him, a lot of the time he sees the second or third draft, which tends to be a little toned down from the first one. Would he find the first draft useful? Maybe, but that's not what I'm willing to share just yet. (And I'm probably glad that he only suspects how paranoid I can be, rather than knowing for sure. LOL) I think this is a balancing act. Sharing information with him is probably helpful, but you ought to feel like you're in control of the process. For myself, I'm in the process of deciding whether or not sharing my thoughts is "safe". It doesn't FEEL safe. Every time I say something and nothing bad happens, maybe "trust" grows a little. Maybe?

I agree, this is a good topic. I think there are a lot of people who struggle with it, one way or another.

 

[desiderata310]

What's your definition of "a shitty client"?

One who has flashbacks during session. One who has "the worst case of PTSD I have ever dealt with" (words from my therapist's mouth). One who can't trust (HAHAHAHAH!) him and take his word for things. One that finds it extraordinarily difficult to SPEAK in therapy and has to write everything to get out what is going on inside..
I'm not sure what his definition is actually. I would guess that would be the one that he had problems with because s/he crossed the "therapeutic lines and things got ugly". I dunno.

This is not your job.

Is it not? I don't know that I can't NOT do it. I KNOW (without knowing how I know) when things are bad. There's an impact on me when there's not an impact on others that he deals with so if he is unaware then I have to be more observant?

I don't know.

Tuesday was really tough. He KNEW without me having said a word in an email that I forwarded that I was upset at him. And he asked me directly, if I was upset with him. I couldn't answer that question. The answer was suddenly terrifying. Because I don't have the right to be angry.
I dissociated, things got weird, I had a bad bad flashback. The day went to shit. All because... well... I guess because I don't trust him?

I don't know.

It's still support. I still turn to him for ... guidance? I am dealing with a couple of people right now, that are passive aggressively trying to get me to do what they want: One wants me to adopt a certain dog, the other wants me to go in another direction. Both claim the other is full of shit (one trains dogs for service work and the other trains dogs and was busy talking smack about how undependable she is)Since there is a meeting (FINALLY) for me to meet the dog with the dog handler and the dog trainer in tow, I asked my therapist to be there as well. Honestly, to mediate. I get flustered very easily in matters like this and I don't expect I will have much perspective there. I just won't. I'm going to be looking to him for that.

So maybe I DO trust him but trusting him is terrifying. More than terrifying. Terrifying in my mind means butt-puckering scary . This is more like lose-your-shit-because-everything-is-on-fire scary.

 

[scout86]

So maybe I DO trust him but trusting him is terrifying

I don't think truer words have ever been spoken! (Or written.)

Is it not? I don't know that I can't NOT do it.

No, it's really not your job. It's HIS job to look out for him. But, I totally get how hard it is to give up that job. For a lot of reasons. Which, now that I think about it, might be worth talking about. The cool thing about being responsible for everything in the known universe is that it gives you the illusion of control. But, it's kind of an illusion and it's really better if everyone looks out for themselves. People who seem to be incapable of looking out for themselves scare me. (And I handle that by trying to take care of them.) These days, I try to handle that by staying away from them instead. I think your T can probably take care of himself. Wouldn't it be kind of interesting to know if he can or not?

But, yeah, I get how noticing that "something's wrong" bothers you. It bothers me too. Big time. (And now that my T noticed how MUCH it bothers me, he thinks we should DO SOMETHING about it. :banghead::banghead::banghead:) Dealing with THAT end of it IS your job, I guess, because you're looking out for yourself too.

Just so you don't feel all alone, I come pretty close to meeting your definition of a shitty client too. I don't have flashbacks often, so I've never had one of those in his office. And, he's never talked about "the worst case of" anything. I'm not real sure he even thinks in those terms. Otherwise? I've done all that. I also called him a liar...... (Which led to a conversation kind of like the one you described.......We DID get past it, but it took awhile.) I THINK most of that "shitty client" stuff comes with the territory.

Getting him to come along to mediate the dueling dog trainers was a great idea! I hope it's a nice dog and a good prospect and you can get him out of a situation where it sounds like he's got a lot of human egos to deal with!

 

[desiderata310]

I get it now; the move to once a week. It's my insurance.
Got an letter today. He's had to fight to get 20 more sessions approved between now and the end of June.
20.

I don't want of do this anymore. I want to quit. I don't want to see theses crazy women on Friday or the dog.
Oh f*ck jesus goddamn sonofabitch. I hate myself.

 

[scout86]

There really ought to be a law against insurance companies!

 

[Tinyflame]

I think it will be ok @desiderata310 . :hug:

I have not liked to think about what a 'mess' I am or my 'impermeability' of getting much better (hopeless case), but of course I live with it. Gee, I find it hard to even read through long answers in the threads. :sorry:

I can only say, no matter how I looked on the outside you couldn't get more of a 'difficult case'/ situation. Must say I've felt like the walking-wounded or a shell. And a few years of constant SI on top of it. But, hey, if I'm not hopeless neither are you.

In answer to the question of your thread, I think we do have to work on it. I am intending to try to live stopping all those questions (like your questions) in my head , when it's reasonably* safe enough to do so.. Yes, it is throwing caution to the wind.. :nailbiting: . Xox.

(I think the questions are my ptsd-brain's way of de-railing me, or stopping progress, or self-sabotage, or engineering my demise).

Edited to add: *reasonable* will never exist if I only listen to the criteria my ptsd-brain tells me is necessary.

I, too, worry very much about 'bad effects' (from me) on others, but I think that's partially another way to tempt me to give up or quit & mistrust or do myself in. Ptsd is not life-giving.

I react to most everything with equal weight. I have to be selective in what I read or hear or see. It can start snowballing badly.