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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 5 of 5. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by wittgensteinz on October 4, 2009, at 10:15:54
It's been a long while since I've posted here.
I don't often weep in session - in life in general I try to keep my emotions hidden - but lately the sessions have been very intense and painful. I go home feeling exhausted with red eyes.
One of my long-standing problems is distrust and suspicion. It's as if I am on the look-out for a sufficient reason to distrust a person. I'm always doubting peoples' intentions, fantasizing what 'they are really thinking' in a given moment, spinning a perfectly normal situation into a threatening and negative one where I feel rejected and I run away into myself. I know where the roots of this problem lie - I understand the factors in my past - but I don't seem able to change the way I react to the world.
The week before last I got myself into a very bad place. I was suicidal and very very nearly did something terrible. More by chance than anything I didn't and managed to keep myself together. At the time I didn't feel I could reach out to my therapist - I didn't feel I could reach out to anyone - and that made it a particularly dangerous situation. I posted just over a year ago about a serious attempt I made on my life. The irony is that I felt that was in the past, that I was doing so much better but the same vulnerabilities and tendencies remain and bubble up every now and again.
When I saw my T for the next session, I told him about the week and how close I'd come to doing something that would have been terrible. I had to admit that, although I am clearly very attached to him, I didn't feel able to reach out to him. I didn't feel he would have wanted me bothering him - I couldn't trust that he would be glad or relieved to hear from me. This constant distrust is something he finds difficult to bear. He began to weep, so I looked away and soon I was weeping too. I felt so ashamed that I'd made him so sad. What a helplessness he must have felt and it made me feel helpless too. I really want to be able to trust and let go of my defences but there's just something so deep and fixed inside me that at the slightest sign of abandonment or rejection I retreat and hide and then things start to go wrong.
I saw him again last Friday and toward the end of the session his voice started to crack up. I'd used the word 'probation' - that it was like I kept him on probation (in retrospect I feel like it was a stupid word to have used) - if he made a 'mistake' then I would quickly retract the trust I had in him - I think he feels he deserves or has earned more than that from me. He said "but how long are you going to keep me on probation? 2.5 years? (that's how long I've been seeing him).. 5 years? 10 years? Forever?" And now that comment and his shaky voice are ringing through my head and I feel awful. Things can go wrong very quickly and that terrifies me. I can go for weeks and months feeling reasonable - coping with life more or less - then the floor will drop away and I will be in unbearable emotional pain and all I can think is to get away from it - as if someone is holding a burning object against my skin - that's the urgency I feel in those moments. I asked him once if he'd ever lost a patient and he said 'no' - I guess I'd assumed that all therapists had 'lost' patients, somehow (perhaps as selfish as this may sound) it wouldn't have felt as bad if he'd lost patients.
Lately, life and therapy have just been too hard.
Witti
Posted by sunnydays on October 4, 2009, at 11:16:05
In reply to When the therapist weeps (might be triggering), posted by wittgensteinz on October 4, 2009, at 10:15:54
(((Witti)))
My therapist has never cried in therapy, but he has definitely looked very sad, and I *think* I have seen tears in his eyes sometimes.
We have had a similar conversation about trust recently. During this conversation, where we were talking about how hard it is for me to trust, he said something like, "We've been seeing each other how long? Five years?" Me: "Yeah, something like that." Him: "How long do I have to keep showing up for you to trust that I'm not going to leave or go away? How about you try to feel taken care of in those moments instead of running away from the attachment? Of course, I know it's not that simple, but it's something to think about."
I know my T lost a patient a while ago, and he was absolutely devastated (I can always tell when he's acting different, and I generally call him on it, and he'll tell me if there's a reason). I think it's really hard for them.
So, we both need to try to trust our T's, I think. But that's easier said than done.
sunnydays
Posted by onceupon on October 5, 2009, at 23:09:09
In reply to When the therapist weeps (might be triggering), posted by wittgensteinz on October 4, 2009, at 10:15:54
Hi Witti,
I'm sorry to hear that you've been struggling so much recently. I don't post here often, but I do remember some about your posts from your previous suicide attempt and the aftermath with your therapist at the time. I have so many thoughts and feelings when I read your post, and would like to share some of them, if that's okay.
First off, what you're describing sounds like a confirmation bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
I apologize if you're aware of all of this stuff, but it seems like there's such a strong automatic quality to the phenomenon. It's a struggle I know very well, in that I also struggle to trust my therapist, and am constantly testing her in little ways, even though I intellectually *know* that she's trustworthy. I just can't always *feel* it. The gap between knowing and feeling drives me crazy, and I'm also beginning to learn that it has an effect on my therapist. (I was about to write that it frustrates or annoys her, but that would be my own bias at work). It sounds like it has been effecting your therapist as well. Have the two of you talked about his tears (or yours), and how exactly you might be influencing him (even if it seems obvious to you)?
Second, I wonder about how your history with him, especially following your previous attempt, is influencing what's going on between you now. I think I remember him being somewhat cold with you following your attempt (please correct me if I'm way off base here). If that was the case, that would provide for me further information about why you're continuing to struggle with trusting him. Of course, even if that hadn't been the case, that doesn't mean that you "should" be trusting him at this point. I'd say that timeline is up to you. Or at the very least, to be "negotiated" between the two of you, in that you can share with him what helps to build trust and what detracts from it.
That said, I also wonder if some specific reassurance from him that he *would* be relieved for you to reach out to him would be helpful. Do you think he would offer this type of reassurance? Would it be helpful for you? I imagine it as something that you could weave very concretely into a sort of box or container of reminders (to be used "in case of emergency") of the positive connection that you do and have had with him, as well as what to actually do when you're feeling beyond despair. (I ask this while simultaneously filing away the idea of talking with my own therapist about something similar.)
Again, I'm sorry that life and therapy have been such a struggle. I don't know where you live, but for me, the changing seasons in N. America have been wreaking havoc on my mood. As have other things, but that's beside the point. What kinds of soothing things are you doing for yourself? IIRC, you had a partner who was quite supportive. Is he still in the picture?
Take care, witti.
Posted by Dinah on October 6, 2009, at 7:54:13
In reply to When the therapist weeps (might be triggering), posted by wittgensteinz on October 4, 2009, at 10:15:54
Hi Witti. I don't really have anything much to add to what Onceupon said. But I did want to say that it's good to see your name again. I'm sorry you are having such a hard time.
Posted by onceupon on October 12, 2009, at 23:05:35
In reply to Re: When the therapist weeps (might be triggering) » wittgensteinz, posted by Dinah on October 6, 2009, at 7:54:13
Hi Witti - Haven't heard from you - Just curious how you're doing. Hope that all is well.
This is the end of the thread.
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