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Re: more rollercoaster » tabitha

Posted by JenStar on July 24, 2004, at 13:16:42

In reply to Re: more rollercoaster, posted by tabitha on July 23, 2004, at 1:33:23

hi Tabitha,
I had a few more ideas. Maybe your T realizes that you are the more mature of the two (you & MW) and that's why she's asking YOU to apologize, even though MW really should be doing it.

Sometimes people quickly veer from defensive to friendly after you (I, anyone) makes a friendly overture. They realize they are wrong but pride prohibits them from admitting it, and the escalate further and further into bad behavior.

Once YOU take the higher road, offer the olive branch, act all submissive and apologetic, then SHE might turn around & do the same thing. You know inside that she should have apologized first, but she might need an example or a prodding to get there, esp. if she's troubled and perhaps using her anger at YOU to mask real anger at herself, her problems, etc.

Maybe it's a kind of "turn the other cheek" policy. I suppose it's worth a shot! And if that doesn't work, a swift kick to her rear might help you feel better. (<--- joking...but sometimes it feels better just to think these thoughts, even if you can't act them out!)

anyway, I guess life is full of MW's, all over the place. Maybe your T is trying to help you deal with her here, so you can deal with all the other ones that are randomly scattered through life in every situation.

Good Luck! keep us updated.
JenStar


> Well, that positive glow lasted only a day, then all the insults came to mind, and I couldn't help comparing the severity of them to one thing I had said a couple weeks ago, that the T encouraged me to offer an apology about, after MW (yup, I'm calling her Mean Woman again tonight) made an issue of it. What I said wasn't even an insult, it was just a challenging question, and not about her at all, though I recognize it came from a defensive place in me. She said some awful things, criticisms, accusations, and in an angry, even contemptous voice. A whole load of stuff. An onslaught. I don't even want to repeat it here for fear someone might agree with her. I know some of those criticisms will stay with me, and anytime in the future I'm doing what she criticized, they'll come up again. It will take me a long time to shake them off.
>
> I started thinking my positive outlook that I posted here was some kind of desperate effort on my part to make what happened be OK. Like that syndrome where people fall in love with their kidnappers, or when kids make excuses for their abusive family. Or like I'm so desperate for approval from the T and to succeed in the group, I'm ignoring my own pain to get it.
>
> My T tells me I need to have boundaries against stuff like this and not let it in to hurt me. She tells me that MW isn't seeing me clearly, she has dirty glasses on, and she has incomplete information about me. I get that, it's a good idea, but I don't seem able to do it consistently or completely. I'd really rather some stranger in the street shouted at me or cussed at me-- I'd know that had nothing to do with me. MW's stuff has just enough of a grain of truth in it to make me doubt myself.
>
> Then I worry I'm actually exposing myself to abuse, and not taking care of myself, because no matter what they say it is, it feels like abuse to me.
>
> So in my individual session once again I was ready to tell her I'm quitting group, quitting therapy, walking away to take care of myself.
>
> We argued quite a bit about it. At least she admitted that MW was attacking me, that it's escalating, that she's attacking because she's hurt by what I said about her. I still couldn't fully understand why this is necessary or valuable. I asked for more tips on how to not let this get to me. I'm not sure if her suggestions were helpful or not.
>
> Then at the very end I told her how I'd felt so hopeful and positive for a whole day after the session. She brightened up and said that was my adult or my higher self or something, and those were the new ideas, and it was hard not to fall back to the old thinking. So I told her that high lasted only a day, and it wasn't a grounded feeling-- it was like I'd abandoned my little girl and left her there to feel abused, while I was off with my new thinking seeing the whole situation as OK somehow.
>
> I realized that's pretty much what's been causing the rollercoaster. I can sign up to these new ideas, I can believe in Bizzarro World for a day or so, but meanwhile my little girl is still feeling abused, and then abandoned, because I'm off with my new ideas, where everything's OK. But she still feels hurt. So then I flip back into the old thinking.
>
> So my T tried to tell me how to keep the new ideas, and comfort her at the same time, so I don't have to flip-flop I'm not sure I got it entirely, but I think we're on the right track.


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poster:JenStar thread:368465
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