Posted by Dinah on December 18, 2006, at 17:24:02
There are times in therapy when I just can't talk. I can hear him talking, and I want to respond, but something feels like it's keeping my mouth closed and my tongue heavy. I can't even open my eyes although I work all the eye opening muscles as hard as I can.
I try conveying this to him with gestures (hand in a palm up wavy thing, or looking at him beseechingly with closed eyes) but he fails to get it most of the time. He interprets it as me not wanting to talk about something or that I'm angry and sulking, when if I could speak (and when I eventually do speak) it would be to say "Help pull me back!!! Talk to me in a way that commands an answer louder than my brain is commanding silence! I can't speak!"
I've tried to tell him that's what I mean when I do that, but it is difficult for him, I think. Because sometimes something similar might mean, I can't think of anything to say. Or I've run out of therapy topics. Of course, my eyes aren't usually shut in those cases. Plus his memory is definitely spotty.
I'm trying to think of some gesture that is absolutely unmistakeable in nature (since his memory is so poor), but not so difficult to form that it will be beyond me at the time. Does anyone have any they use?
Therapy's been up and down lately. Friday's session was loaded with his countertransference at how I get into unreasonable moods where I refuse everything he offers to me and of course he draws back from me because he's frustrated and angry (when I noted that he was folding his arms and raising boundaries). Sigh.
It led to two hysterical phone calls to his machine about the cruelty of yelling (well, probably not literally yelling, but still...) at me on a Friday, when I won't see him for days, and when I already am feeling like everyone in the world thinks I'm terrible and here he's telling me something about me that he can't stand.
And two calls on Friday and one on Sunday from him to check that I'm ok. I'm not sure what's going on with that. It's unlike him, but I did recently compare him unfavorably with Daisy's therapist on the topic, so maybe that's why. Or maybe he's trying to tell me that even though he crossed his arms and pulled up his boundaries in anger that he does care about me and can stand talking to me.
I don't know.
But Thurday's session was fine. I guess he *can't* stand to see me more than twice a week. I won't make that mistake again.
poster:Dinah
thread:714845
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20061210/msgs/714845.html