Posted by Shortelise on May 26, 2005, at 20:27:54
Saw T today.
Asked what he meant when he said if I go back to him after termination, it would be different, and I said it felt like a warning.
He asked in what context it was said. I blanked. I said I didn't know.
So then he started, my verbose T, to explain to me how difficult it is to answer this sort of thing out of context, how it just so happens he remembers the context perfectly, but that to take something like that right out of context and ask, well, it might be very difficult for a person. He was meaning outside of therapy.
It felt horrible. I felt unheard, misunderstood, hurt, criticized. It was awful. I know what he was getting at, (that it won't work well for me in relationships if I use this kind of "you said blah, what did you mean" tactic. Well, I don't, not now, not since I have learned all that I've learned in therapy) and finally I said to him, after he explained, re-exeplained, re-re-explained, etc., that I though he was one person I could come to with such a question and he would help me get to the answer. He said that he can't keep doing that for me, that I need to do that for myself, that he felt I was asking him to do all the work. He said that keeps me "addicted" to the process, and that he has to encourage me to do these things for myself.
BTW, when he said things would be different he meant that by virtue of the fact that time passes and people change, things will be different between us if I don't see him for a year or two and then go back with a problem.
He said I used to be addicted to intensity. Kind Babblers, please hear this: this is the main part of my pain right now. It feels so ugly, so un-nice, so insane frankly, to be "addicted to intensity". He talked about how hard it was to deal with that intenstiy, and how necessary. I feel kind of beaten up.
So the change I've felt in him, despite him saying he is the same, was in fact a change. He is trying to change our dynamic - if that's the right way to put it. He is trying to get me to do for myself what he helped me do these past seven years. SO yes, he is withdrawing from me the things that he considers are keeping me in a sense "addicted" to therapy.
He conceded that yes, in this way he has changed.
So, sometime in the past seven years I overcame an addiction to intensity. I see that, I recognize it, but it feels like a blow, not a relief. To so define something, now, when it's over.
And I know he still cares about me, he told me so, and that withdrawing the nurturing, the kind understanding I have come to count on, is part of that caring. He wants me NOT to be dependant on him, he wants me to be able to take care of myself.
But I tell you how it feels, and this will sound familiar: it feels like a broken promise.
I want to hit him, never go back, throw things at him, bite him --- hurt him.
Please don't criticize *him*, ok? Please? I will want to defend him and I don't feellike going there. It's not about him, it's about me, and I know he's doing the right thing in a perfectly appropriate way. What is hard is how I feel.
Thanks very much for reading this, and for your perspectives. Right now, I just want to die. I won't act on it, but I feel that awful.
ShortE
poster:Shortelise
thread:503352
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050521/msgs/503352.html