Posted by bob on May 11, 2000, at 23:26:06
In reply to Re: Rage and Cutting, posted by Cynthia M on May 11, 2000, at 20:34:46
> bob- I think that it had something to do with sitting in ona counselling session with my daughter and having her tell my therapist basically what a horrible mother i am.
Youch!! Geez, Cyndy, that was harsh. I'd call that a trigger. So you're supposed to sit there quietly and be supportive while you're being told you're just the opposite. I remember a discussion we had here in Babble a few months ago on cutting and someone (who didn't cut or do anything self-injurious) thought just talking about it might be triggering some of us, since some of the descriptions were so vivid. NOTHING on that discussion hit me like that comment of yours -- I can feel the "feedback loop". You've got to break it. You've got to focus on the facts of how you ARE a GOOD mother. On how teens are so ego-focused that they can have no awareness of the impact of their own words. Of just how manipulated you were in that situation.
> Today I went in to mental health because I can't seem to get past this rage episode and while I was in the counselors office she went totalk to the pdoc and I overheard her co-workers in the hall talking about me , mentioning me by name and what I had done( cut) and saying that I was just trying to get attention. Talk about rage! I told the counsellor when she came back and left.
Is this the same therapist as above? HELLO! How f*ck*ng irresponsible! Either (a) she doesn't know the first thing about self-injury or (b) she had better educate her colleagues, because they sure as hell don't know a damn thing about it.
Where are my steel-toed *ss-kicking boots when I need them? grrrrrrrrrrr...
Not only should you tell her just how unprofessional that was of her and her colleagues, maybe she should bear the responsibility of explaining this to your daughter (after she educates herself). Did she do NOTHING to defuse that bomb your daughter dropped on you? Does this therapist regularly let your daughter trash you like this while you're sitting there, or do you rarely sit in on her sessions? Maybe I'm getting a bit carried away with my speculations -- I'm assuming a lot from a little information -- it's just that it's so easy to see myself in your place and to see a pattern of discourse that would trigger me in a heartbeat.
> The worst is my daughter heard, she was in the lobby and heard now I have to explain to her. What a pain! Help!
Well, that is definitely ONE problem your therapist should bear some responsibility for coming up with a quick solution. It's so hard to say anything from this side with so little information on your relationship with your daughter.
Let me throw this out, and you can take it or tell me I'm nuts (which, of course, is true ;^).
Like I said earlier, there's nothing rational about my thinking when I get into one my rages against myself. A few months back, right before heading off to therapy I had stopped at home (coming from work) to check the dogs and the mail, and I'd received a letter which triggered me. That and a 30 minute subway ride, and I walked into that session completely, hysterically irrational and seething with self-hate. Somehow, my therapist was able to say, in words and in tone, the equivalent of a good, hard slap in the face. It didn't snap me out of it immediately -- I was too stunned and worried that she was furious with me (she wasn't angry at all, but quite concerned) -- but by the time I got home I had to call her to thank her and tell her she was right in what she said, no matter how hard I tried to deny it while I was with her.
The point of the story is that she interrupted my delusions of how evil I was, of how I deserved to be punished and hit me with some empirical facts in refutation to what had triggered me in the first place.
Now, maybe you breaching this topic alone with your daughter may not be the best thing to do. But maybe your therapist could earn the title and bring it out in the open with you and your daughter together. Coming from you alone, it could be interpreted as who knows what, but the worst would be an accusation of blame -- of your daughter thinking that it's entirely her fault that you cut yourself. Maybe I'm overly optimistic in how having your therapist mediate this revelation could be something positive for both (or all three) of you, but this is what I would hope for the two of you: (1) that your daughter would see just how much you care, even if you can't express it in a way she can see it right now, and that (2) your daughter could then get past the "my mother's an ogre" front to talk about what lies behind it.
Maybe THAT would be something within both of your reaches to fix, to change -- something truly within your control to set right -- instead of making you feeling you need to punish yourself for crimes you can't identify but you're sure you've committed all the same.
I hope this makes some sense to you, Cyndy. Your whole post just resonates too much in me to allow me to separate enough from my own perspective to maybe see yours more clearly -- but perhaps that might give me some incite as well. I hope it helps.
be well,
bob
poster:bob
thread:32887
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000508/msgs/33243.html