Posted by littleone on August 5, 2006, at 22:23:21
The topic of my last session was ... babble. Babble is almost my only connection to other people. So I guess it's kind of important to me. And yet I find it so very hard to be here.
I'll make a few posts, then something will trigger an old response to run and hide. So I'll be invisible for a long time until something triggers an old response that causes me to respond to something. So I'll make a few posts til I'm driven to run and hide again.
I have made progress though. Even though I'm still reacting to the triggers, I'm starting to be able to recognise what exactly triggered me and how it ties in to old mum or dad stuff. Little turtle steps.
In the past if my mum has expressed even the slightest dissatisfaction with something I've said, my automatic response is to rush over straight away and fix things and make them all better and basically make mum all better again. If I don't do this, I get totally ignored by her to the extent where I basically feel like I've ceased to exist to her (and maybe at all?).
So anyway, a recent post triggered this old jump in and make it all better response. Which I must point out was not a bad thing. It was actually really good in that it really helped me to see why I post the way I do.
However, once I recognised how and why I was responding, I was left feeling very confused. I can see it's probably not helpful to repeat the old response, but by the same token, if a poster is in need or after support or whatever, I don't think it's right to ignore that simply in an attempt to break the old automatic response.
My T came up with a suggestion that I was hoping you guys could share your thoughts on.
He suggested that I do reply, but that I start off the reply explaining why I felt compelled to respond (ie how it is similar to old mum or dad stuff). He stressed that I should make clear that the poster said nothing wrong and that it's not a bad thing that I've been triggered. It is actaully good in that it gives me an opportunity to work through these issues. The main thing is that I express how I felt and why. And after that, then I can go on to respond to the poster's original post with support or ideas or comments or whatever.
He said the main beneifts of these were working through the trigger, increased self disclosure and learning certain things by experiencing them (eg in a response I may get back).
I had a heap of arguments why I should not do this. Which he shot down as soon as I could put them up.
- Increased self disclosure is very scary and threatening (ack!)
- I don't want to hijack anyone's thread ("start a new thread re your reactions")
- If people post looking for support or whatever, they don't want to hear all my rubbish first ("Isn't babble a place to share your feelings and thoughts?")
- I don't want people to feel bad because they said something to trigger me. I don't want them to feel like they have to treat me with kid gloves ("Make sure you stress it is a good thing and that they've done nothing wrong")So I decided to go halfway for now. I thought I would post this to see what you guys all think about it. Postive or negative comments are perfectly okay. I'd just like to get some honest feedback to take back to my T. Thanks for reading this far (if you made it).
poster:littleone
thread:674140
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060721/msgs/674140.html