Posted by Shortelise on June 18, 2005, at 1:22:10
In reply to T today - hurt and angry - may trigger, posted by Shortelise on June 16, 2005, at 14:31:33
Dear xxx,I guess your learning, your theories, your knowledge of me, and other factors I can’t imagine have contributed to forming the termination method you are using with me. I believe you’re doing what you think is best for me.
It’s just not working for me. That I came in saying I feel I have to handle you with kid gloves – you heard me loud and clear. You knew I was feeling awful and you knew I was saying so. That you ask me to speak your language, well, sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t. Still. After seven years. And that’s the way it is. I know you don’t like it about me, and I don’t like it about me, but it may be one of those things that will take longer than seven years to change. My dear psychiatrist, I am way better at it than I used to be.
I am feeling reprimanded, like a dog having my nose rubbed in my own sh*t. I couldn’t give you context for whatever it was three weeks ago because I am intimidated by you, and when you asked me that, my mind went blank as it often does when I am frightened. I’m frightened a lot.
I feel able to terminate by seeing you once a month for a while, then once very six to eight weeks, then once every few months, then once in a while after that, knowing there is a place that exists for me, where I can bring my usual multi-coloured swirls and whirls of emotion and find a listener who can help me understand, in a gentle, empathetic way, the tangles I get into.
I don’t feel able to go through the process being called “addicted to therapy” or “addicted to intensity” no matter how true those things might be. I don’t feel able to tolerate whatever it is you are doing, or to evolve in to a person who does. It feels harsh, and frankly, cruel. This is surely not your intention, but you seem to have some idea of how I should be, and it is not how I am.
I need to feel safe with you, and I don’t. The world challenges me daily, knocks me down, makes me examine my assumptions, forces me to question myself. On the whole, I deal with that with grace these days. I am not asking you be my mother. I am asking you to be on my side again.
You’ve said that you feel confident in my ability to go on without you should I chose not to see you again. I agree, but I wouldn’t like to do that. I feel so hurt and so sad – and angry, too. I don’t want to leave disliking you as I do right now and I’d like your help with this. But if you don’t feel it’s possible to alter your method, maybe reach a compromise, then it would be best for me not to return to therapy with you.
Please let me know.
Yours,
poster:Shortelise
thread:513787
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050615/msgs/514756.html