Posted by Tamar on December 15, 2005, at 4:18:55
In reply to starting to feel the pain (long ) **triggers***, posted by fairywings on December 14, 2005, at 20:19:22
(((((Fairywings)))))
> earlier in the month i told my t the crux of my problem, and now i'm feeling a lot of pain because of it. i knew i'd have to go there if i ever expected help, but like cricket said i guess i expected support, but what i'm getting doesn't feel very supportive. my t is a really kind, caring person, and i'm sure he wants to help, but it feels like he just wants me to get over it already.
It sounds as if you’re in a lot of pain. Maybe you need to keep telling him how much pain there is.
> as far as what i told him, the ''big'' issue for me is that after i was raped, it got to a point where i just couldn't deal with anything anymore. i ended up cutting my wrists and arms. now, i'm so ashamed of the scars that i'm afraid to be around people, i'm afraid they'll see the scars and judge me. i have never been able to get beyond it.
Before I knew about self-injury I saw marks on someone’s arms and assumed she’d been in an accident or something. It was only much later I realised what they were.
All right-thinking people would see your scars and think, “That’s a woman who has suffered. It’s a shame that people suffer in this world.” Anyone who would judge you negatively doesn’t understand, and so doesn’t deserve an opinion.
But actually I wonder if these scars are very symbolic for you. It sounds to me as if they symbolise both the shame of the rape and the shame of struggling to deal with it. And I wonder if your fears of being judged for your scars are somehow symbolically fears about being judged for being raped. Women are often blamed when they experience rape; we’re told it’s our fault if we were drinking or wearing revealing clothes or walking outdoors after dark or associating with people who take risks. And these attitudes surround us constantly; it’s difficult to get away from it.
And rape is also minimised in our culture; on TV it’s used as a shocking event to create a plot twist, but the woman character usually bounces back as if it were no more than a minor setback... Or sometimes the plot doesn’t focus on the woman but on the chase to catch the rapist (in which case it’s a struggle between the cops and the criminal rather than between the woman and the criminal and the woman becomes invisible). It’s also very hard to convict a man of rape because of the way the criminal justice system works. So it many ways it’s not taken seriously enough, and if women struggle to cope with it they might feel they’re making too much of a big deal out of it.
So I can imagine you might worry that people will see your scars and believe that the rape was your fault and that you should have coped with it better. And maybe, deep down, you still wonder if it was your fault or if you could have done something different. So at this point I’d say: IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT. But you have to believe that yourself.
> in my last therapy session my t, got me to see that i don't belong anywhere. i never let people in, i don't trust, i have no real relationships other than with my family. he also made me realize i don't have a clue what i believe in. i've lost my faith, at least the people part of it.
That sounds lonely. Do you feel lonely? Or do you feel that safety is the most important thing?
> this is one of the hard parts for me. he asked me at what point i move on, at what point i put this behind me and get on with my life. i told him i've tried to move on, i've tried to put it behind me, but i haven't been able to do that. i felt like he was saying what's done is done, now quit feeling sorry for yourself, and move on. I felt so pathetic. how do you just "move on"?
You can’t just move on. It’s a process. I would say that one thing that might help would be coming to believe that no one has a right to judge you about the scars on your arms. Sometimes people can be judgmental, and often the people who are most judgmental are the people who have the least compassion or understanding of human suffering. But you don’t have to take their opinion seriously because you know they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Have you experienced people saying unkind things to you about your scars? Sometimes I think it’s a good idea to have a planned retort: something you say automatically if anyone mentions your scars. It doesn’t even have to be true: you can lie you *ss off. You can say something like: “Actually, that was part of the initiation rite of the street gang I was in,” or “I had surgery as a child after both my hands were severed in a freak accident.” Or simply ask, “What are those holes in your brain?” And then there’s my personal favourite, “Mind your own damn business.” Replace ‘damn’ with an expletive of your choice, depending on the context.
> what was also very difficult for me was that he forgot about our appt. he came out, and said, are we meeting tonight? it didn't bother me at first, then i was thinking, there are no coincidences, he didn't want to see me. it was just one appt prior to this one when i told him about the cutting, and now he's forgotten our appt. i know ppl might hear that and think it was an innocent mistake, and i'm sure it was, but when clients forget appts. after big stuff, it's supposed to indicate they're avoiding something, right? So his forgetting our appt. could mean he didn't want to see me, couldn't it?
Hmm… while I can go along with your ‘no coincidences’ idea, I think you might be stretching it too far when you infer that he didn’t want to see you. I think it *is* significant that he wasn’t prepared for your appointment. But there are many possible interpretations. If you had a big session last session, perhaps he wanted to think quite a bit about where to go next. And maybe for various reasons he hadn’t come to a definite conclusion. And so perhaps unconsciously he wasn’t ready to see you because he hadn’t sorted out in his own mind how best to proceed. That would also explain the half-hour history lesson: a distraction from the real work, which he hadn’t decided how to approach.
I don’t know if that’s what happened, but it’s an alternative (and, I hope, plausible) explanation for his lack of preparation. There may be other explanations. Maybe you could ask him?
> he also spent the first 1/2 hour giving me a history lesson. it was interesting, but nothing to do with me. he's a story teller, he gets off on tangents a lot, but i want to do therapy. i do find what he says interesting, but time is limited, and next year i'm going to be more anxious about his tangents because the # of appts will be limited.
Yeah… it is supposed to be your therapy! Do you find it hard to interrupt him?
> also, he seems to be somewhat critical of a friendship i have with someone i met on the internet about 8 years ago. it's no secret to my family. my kids "know" her kids, i know her, she knows me. he finds it "compelling" that i consider her a friend, when i have very few IRL friends, and no IRL friends who are really close.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the word compelling. It’s not necessarily negative. I read a compelling novel last week and loved it: couldn’t put it down. I think he just means that the online friendship is something that you feel very drawn to. He might find it significant that you are emotionally very close to someone you correspond with rather than meeting face to face. He might think you enjoy the distance inherent in an online friendship because it might feel safer to you than a friendship IRL.
> he knows nothing about babble, and now i'm really afraid to tell him. i guess i live a virtual life, although lately i haven't been on the computer much because i don't feel like doing anything.
It sounds as if you’re afraid he’s going to judge you negatively. And yet, is he really doing that? After all, there’s nothing wrong with having online friendships. I think he’s simply asking you to consider the possibility that you avoid IRL friendships because you find it hard to trust people and you don’t feel safe. There is nothing wrong with having difficulty trusting people and needing to feel safe. But if that’s how you feel, you might be happier if you are able to begin to trust people more. I’m sure he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong or bad in the way you live your life… but maybe with a few changes you could be happier. That’s what therapy’s for (IMHO).
> sorry, i guess i haven't been very supportive lately.
First: no need to apologise for not being supportive. No one can be supportive all the time.
Second: Actually you have been very supportive; I see supportive messages from you all over this board!Take good care of yourself.
Tamar
poster:Tamar
thread:589142
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20051210/msgs/589249.html