Posted by onceupon on April 6, 2010, at 0:41:10
In reply to Re: Why do I need my therapist?, posted by Daisym on April 1, 2010, at 0:44:00
Hi Daisy,
I don't come here much anymore, and when I do, I don't really post anything. When I saw your original post last month, I wanted to come out of lurkdom, but your topic hit too close to home for me to be able to. Even now, it hits way close to home, but I felt compelled to respond tonight, because I've been circling this same topic with my therapist (again).
You've given me the very sage advice in the past to try as best as possible to allow the connection without struggling against it - that it is so much *easier* when we can allow ourselves the connection - and yet, *just* allowing it feels damned near impossible sometimes.
I could have written your post, verbatim. Some days, I feel like the struggle is just interminable. Your question of, "Do I matter?" is *exactly* what my therapist and I have been talking about of late. She keeps pointing out that I do matter to others. Including her. She just about knocked me the couch last week when she told me, unprompted, that I matter to her. It seems like your therapist (like mine) gives you lots of signs that you do matter, a great deal. And yet, if you're anything like me, you doubt that you do matter down to the last atom of your being. To you, I can say that of course you are "doing something" (lots of things) for your therapist. And at the same time, I know from the inside out that it feels like that's really not the case.
I don't have much to say, I'm realizing now that I'm actually writing. All I have is a lot of feeling and a lot of empathy for what I imagine your position to be. It's really, really hard.
Perhaps I'll come back later with more. I'm finding it difficult to put my thoughts together at the moment.
poster:onceupon
thread:938580
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20100405/msgs/942425.html