Posted by TherapyGirl on June 18, 2009, at 19:30:57
In reply to Re: I've done nothing to get ready for tomorrow » TherapyGirl, posted by Dinah on June 17, 2009, at 21:41:18
So tonight she started out asking me about her vacation next week (big deal, when I'm facing the rest of my life without her). Then she wanted to "clarify" what I meant when I told her last week that I thought she either forgot our previous breakthroughs or chose not to deal with them to make it easier for her to walk away from me. She asked me why I said that and I said, "I'm just trying to figure out why you're dealing with this so differently than anything else you've dealt with in the past 24 years." She told me that it was never going to be easy to leave me and she wanted me to know that. She then said (again) that it seemed like I didn't think she understood that this was hard for me. I told her I thought she said the words in moments, but I didn't see any understanding in her actions. She asked for more information so I told her that the things she's suggested to help me deal with the loss of her would be great if I was just losing my therapist. But I am losing my mother. I told her I know she's not my mother and I know she doesn't feel the same way, but that doesn't change the fact that I AM LOSING MY MOTHER. She said she was very aware of that, but that she probably could not imagine how difficult this is for me. She asked me what I needed from her. I told her that I needed something closer to what she would give her daughter if her daughter was losing her. I thought before I said it that it might piss her off, but it didn't. She said that was a helpful way to think about it, but she wasn't sure if she could do that because she felt it was important to hold the boundary with me. I told her that I knew she couldn't do it exactly like she would with her daughter and I didn't expect her to, but that I needed something from her that was WAY closer to that than what she's been doing and that she had figured out a way to work around the boundaries for all these years and still give me what I needed and I thought she could do that again. She agreed.
Then she started talking about how hard it is for her to lose me and how she has been consulting about our process and trying to hold the boundary, which was very hard for her to do (the implication being that she wants to fix this for me). She said that she thought she had erred on the side of holding the boundary too firmly AND that she thought she should start sharing with me her feelings about this. She asked if that would be okay and I told her it would.
She even admitted that in the same way that she's pointed out to me that I'm using my anger at her to keep her at a distance, that she's been keeping me at a distance because it's been so difficult for her to hold the f*cking boundary.
I don't know what this all means and I have no idea if she'll actually follow up this time, but it felt like real progress. I guess we'll see what happens in two weeks.
Thanks to all of you for standing by me and helping me articulate things.
poster:TherapyGirl
thread:900637
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090614/msgs/901890.html