Posted by pegasus on December 14, 2011, at 12:11:20
Yesterday I had a session that has really thrown me for a loop, and I'm trying to figure out how to process it. I've lately been moving a bit out of my usual place where I'm always guarded and afraid my T is going to hurt me, and trying to stretch a little in letting him get to know me more, and asking him more about himself. I was asking him questions about himself yesterday, and at one point he mentioned in passing that he and his wife had both had some difficult times, and so they try to keep their lives pretty calm. I asked him what kind of difficult times, and he asked me whether I really wanted to hear. I said yes. So, he told me this horrible story about a traumatic death of someone very close to him many years ago.
Maybe it was too much for me to process or something, but my reaction is not making sense to me. In the session, I started shutting down. I think I was dissociating in some way. I felt really depressed, and isolated, and disconnected from the conversation, but working really hard to try to stay present and figure out something to say. I don't think I said much. I remember making a big effort to say the appropriate things like, "How awful. I'm so sorry. Thank you for telling me." Etc. I remember wanting to get the hell out of there, but feeling bad about that.
Afterwards, I felt like crap. My habitual self loathing was turned up to high. And I was also kind of distant from that, observing it, from within a depressed fog. I kept ruminating about certain aspects of the story, going over and over what was said in a non-productive way. A couple of parts of it seem particularly awful, from what I imagine to be my T's point of view. And I kind of got stuck going over and over those, along with the first words he said about the whole incident. I wasn't very functional again until sometime this morning.
Coincidentally, I'm recovering from an injury that is pretty painful and limits my mobility. So, the two things, the physical pain, and the mental fog/upset, feel intertwined somehow. I don't get how they should be, though.
Any ideas how to deal with or interpret this? It's like the reaction I often have when *I* reveal something scary. Although I don't have anything this horrible in my past. So, why am I doing this when it's my T's thing, not mine?
Times like this, I feel really broken. Why can't I just have empathy for him, and still be able to go along with life? Instead of getting totally derailed?
Peg
poster:pegasus
thread:1004940
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20111017/msgs/1004940.html