Posted by Dinah on September 16, 2008, at 13:46:19
I really am grateful for my therapist's genuine positive regard for me.
But there can be drawbacks.
My "therapist out of town" numbness predictably wore off this morning. So my session was all about how unfit I am, socially. How friends drop away. Whether I should contact the friend I've had since I was a girl, who I've always kept in sporadic contact with, but who I quit contacting when I realized that I was the only one to initiate contact. It eventually entered my hard brain that no contact was contact of a sort.
And I talked about my problems in church. I'd finally found a group of people who were accepting of me, despite my quirkiness. But now I fear I have shamed myself in their eyes, because of my unorthodox and somewhat heretical views. I'm afraid they won't like me anymore. I'm afraid I talk too much.
His reaction was just too positive. I know they try to bolster our confidence. And I know he's likely given up on changing me in any substantial way.
But these things are issues in my relating to others. There is something wrong. So many people reject me merely on sight. I'm ugly. I don't dress well. I don't conform on so many levels. I can't conform. I don't know how. The same with church. I have alienated most everyone I've met in church. My last sunday school prayed for my immortal soul. Literally. In front of me. Not by name, but by exact description.
But even with people who don't dislike me from the surface, I manage to do the wrong things somewhere down the line. Maybe I'm too rigid. Or too thoughtless.
I need to address those things. I don't need my therapist to admire or be amused by my reluctance to compromise my beliefs. I need him to help me find a way to manage to combine not compromising my beliefs while also being socially acceptable.
I don't need him to assume that any problems with friends must not be on my end. I need him to assume they are and help me find a way to improve.
Well, maybe I need a bit of both. Here's one person who isn't family and who has seen me in real life and who has put up with the best and worst of me, and who still likes and values me. I am not saying I don't find that valuable. I do.
Hence the mixed blessing.
Sigh. Of course it's more complicated than that. I find myself discovering that I'm not the person I used to be. I don't necessarily believe the same things or enjoy the same things I used to. I find myself struggling with that a lot, and it's part of why I feel so out of place everywhere. Neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring.
poster:Dinah
thread:852299
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080906/msgs/852299.html