Posted by Adia on August 31, 2003, at 13:08:21
In reply to Re: Why bother with therapy? » Adia, posted by stebby on August 30, 2003, at 20:50:35
Sorry this is a bit long... :(
Hi stebby,
Thank you for taking the time to respond...
I do understand..so much. I've been struggling with the very same feelings...
I do crave to have her love and care and I feel I need that love and safety to get through the days..She has told me that in my fantasy I wish somehow that she could adopt me and take care of me as if I were a child.
I too felt bad (sometimes I still do) inside for somehow knowing I had to pay to feel loved. But I do believe that she cares about me. I try to think that she just has to make a living like everyone else and needs the money but that our relationship is real...
I have asked her soooo many times if it was real, if she could accept me and love me or if i had a place in her heart..I asked her lots of times if I could trust that our relationship is real. She has always reassured me that it is..Maybe you should ask your T and tell her how you are feeling? maybe you have already. I think that maybe you need to address all this with her? I believe that a T does care and that it is real. I do feel my T cares about me. I hold on to the things she's done which show me that, she has told me that our relationship is real, even though it's a special kind of relationship and she can't love me the way I want her to...(as a mother would love her child) But that she loves me as a T, from her heart. She has cried with me, she has said I love you very much..she has always been there for me, even when she didn't have to be. I've called her thousand times in b/sessions, I've even waited for her in the stairs of her office, crying, in the middle of a crisis and she has stayed with me till I was better.
About the money, I sometimes can't help thinking that I am paying to be loved and that's sad and painful, but then I think that my therapist waits when I can't pay her, she has waited entire months without me paying her,she has told me we would always work something out, that she just had to make a living..but that she wants the best for me and we are going to work together.
I do believe in her. I so wish you could believe in your T too...She has explained to me how in between sessions it's not that I just disappear from her heart,she told me i had trouble internalizing things, or believing that she was with me even though we didn't see each other every day. She explained that the safety I seek doesn't exist..But that it doesn't mean that care goes away, that we are in each other's hearts. In a different way, but no less real.
I do feel it's true, I feel she has no reasons to lie to me or not to be honest when she knows that the truth is what I most need and she would kill me if she ever lied to me about something as important as that. She told me I have to believe in the strength of our bond. That when she's there with me, as a T, she is giving me all she is, all she has...that it is real and from her heart.
We have talked about transference and how from my abuse history and issues I sometimes wish she were my mother and I look for that kind of protection from her and I go to her as a little girl...and I fear all the time she will leave me and I need reassurance and if I don't hear her say I care about you I don't know if it is like that still or I have done something to lose it.
I've asked her if she can care about me..if she does and she has said she does and I feel she has proved that by what she's done for me.
I really hope you can talk about it with your T...
In my opinion, the love and care is real..
it's a special kind of relationship but it's real...
I may be trying to convince myself of this :-) but it's how i feel it..
I've felt the way you do lots of times, and I have struggled in the past year to get past those feelings you are having..and I do feel that I can trust that the feelings are real,I know it's painful, and I still have moments in which I don't know if I should believe...I feel scared to need her so much, to need her to love me. It hurts to have such a deep need and ache inside. Sometimes it does scare me to feel that her caring is what keeps me alive...cause I feel she has so much power over me. It terrifies me, she reassures me she has made a commitment with me and a promise and she won't abandon me.
I don't know if any of this helps in any way,
I just wanted to share how I feel it and let you know that I understand...
I think you should really try to share with your T, maybe you already have...Why do you feel that her care and love is not real? If you haven't shared with her, I think it would be so good if you could talk and somehow get to feel that it is real and it's not all about money...
I wish you the very best,
Adia.
> Hi Adia, What is it that makes it so hard between sessions that sometimes you feel like you won't survive untilthe next one? Then you get there and forget everything you want to say. Somehow its just nice to be with soeone who understands you. Often when I have left therapy, I feel like I'm all alone again and have to be strong again. I wonder if that feeling ever goes away. I often wonder (which is why I started this thread in the first place) if all of these feelings are somehow worth it. I just can't seem to get past the idea of the fact that I'm paying someone to make me feel loved and cared about. This probably isn't what you need to hear about right now, but its on my mind. And then, when you feel that love and caring, you feel you can't survive without it and you long for it everyday. Then I get sad that her love isn't real. Do you know what I mean?
poster:Adia
thread:251041
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20030814/msgs/255902.html