Posted by llurpsienoodle on September 13, 2008, at 11:01:12
The last handful of sessions I've had a lot of things PLANNED to say, but never got up the gumption to say them. Things like how truly grateful I was to my therapist for his constant benevolence through my dark days.
About the struggles I am facing right now, with my attention pulled in about a zillion different directions. I did manage to tell him how my thoughts are racing, and I cannot fall asleep without wondering "did I do that correctly? did I make a mistake? what if I hadn't noticed that car cut me off?" etc.
He asked me obliquely how my mental landscape is. I told him 'dark'. When the sun goes down. It's true, that's when I have the hardest time keeping myself together.
I have this 'survival self' (aha!!! I learned that in one of my readings today!) that poses as a very competent, almost confident young woman. Ready to take on any intellectual debate, as long as I KNOW I will come out on top.
I even know the source of it-- the climate of rugged intellectual rants and harangues that plagued any family interaction (until I got my own family, that is). Where heated emotions were transduced and disguised as cold, nonnegotiable facts. Where hurtful statements could be thrown back and forth as the darts of 'objective truth'.
And I find myself playing the same game with my T. I am resistent to his gentle probes "can you give me an example? [no, with my arms crossed]". "tell me more about that...[no, I don't want to, with my arms crossed".
The closer he gets to the truth, the more I back away, in horror of some decompensation. I greatly fear falling apart. I am terrified of it.
As we wrapped up our session yesterday, he mentioned off hand about people who throw themselves off of subway platforms. I got a guilty look on my face. He was quite astonished that I had had such thoughts. He said, with some of the most transparent, sincere empathy I've ever heard from him "Gosh Llurpsie, I'm so sorry that you were feeling so badly".
I tried to explain to him-- in a sea of self-loathing, it's an easy thing to do, a moment of impulse. I've had to stop myself many times by hiding in the vestibule of the station until my train showed up.
He caught on to the self-loathing part. "we should talk about that next time-- you can tell me about this stuff, you know, and about feeling like you want to kill yourself. These are things that I'd like to hear more about". "oh, the self-loathing is not just an episode, it's pretty much the status quo"
I basically made a run for the door and spent the next few hours crying. I don't know how long I'd been "stuffing" the wounded emotions behind the survival self of intellectual confidence. But it was raw, and ready to come out. I couldn't believe the caring that I heard in his voice. After so many discussions of abstract stuff, there was a real, human T under there. I had been neglecting him, shutting him out.
I think I may be ready to let him back in. Should I call his voicemail and ask for an extra session?
-Ll
poster:llurpsienoodle
thread:851774
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080906/msgs/851774.html