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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 12 of 12. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by FindingMyDesire on October 17, 2008, at 23:19:03
This is soooooo long. It's really a personal journal entry but I HAVE to tell someone!!!!!! I can hardly contain myself right now.
I am on the brink of something big. I have been feeling it coming as my feelings about everything have intensified to a point that I can hardly hold. It feels like my insides are just going to come out because I just can't be in my skin right now.
I feel more for my therapist than I could ever describe in words - more love, attachment, need, desire, want than I can handle. At the same time this suffocating shame is taking me over. My internalized homophobia is wreaking havoc on my thoughts. My acknowledgment of my sexual desires makes me think I have some serious pathological problem. I blame my gender issues for my losing two pregnancies in a row. I am flip-flopping from self-hate talk (I just want to disappear) to self-soothing loving talk, sometimes from moment to moment. All of this happening at once cannot be a coincidence.
Therapy on Thursday was really good. I talked about some things in my life that don't feel quite as big or pressing as the above - new work relationships and some parenting struggles - but I was talking to her with a sense of trust I have just begun to feel - just in this week.
Maybe the bad stuff is backlash for the attachment and trust I feel?
Thursday night I started thinking about my past relationships. I wanted to remember something in particular and couldn't so I went to the basement and emerged with two boxes full of journals dating back to sixth grade. (I started writing when I first started having crushes on girls.)
I started reading them in order and just couldn't stop. I got to the ones that started around 14 years ago - when I was in therapy before with a great therapist that I share the occasional holiday card with now. I was super attached to her. I had remembered that. She was fatherly-like to me. I had remembered that. I knew at times I had been crushed out on her. I knew that we worked through some good stuff and that when I left she was encouraging me to be ready to "grow up" and settle down in a way. I had remembered that.
What I cannot BELIEVE, what I can hardly admit out loud to myself, what makes me question everything - not in a bad or good way - just EVERYTHING, is that for a good portion of those six years in therapy I was writing the SAME things I am writing now about my therapist. THE SAME SH_T!!!!!!!!!! I could literally compare page by page (except my hand-writing was so bad then - why do they even teach cursive?) Same lack of trust, same crush, same love, same attachment, same questioning of her, same pain, same worries, same self-talk - ALL OF IT!!! The only differences were that I clearly had more of a child-father dynamic with her and with my current therapist (who is extremely attractive and more of a peer) - it presents as more romantic and erotic. BUT EVERYTHING ELSE is the SAME.
So this shocked me and made me feel so cliche. On the one had this makes me feel like now I REALLY don't know what is real and what is projection! On the other hand it has given me more insight than anything else. This REALLY means something. I am doing IT right now. Whatever IT is. I'm amazed I don't feel more hopeless, like, geez, can't I figure this out after 14 years? But it's not like that. I have been pouring over books to understand my attachment to my current T and that's really not going to tell me anything about ME. What tells me something about me is reading in those journals over and over the SAME story - with my teachers, with my bosses, with my lovers, with my therapists (only they know what's going on and try to help). I do the SAME things in all of these relationships. All the time. My whole life.
Thursday I was trying to explain to my T why I'm reading books and she was trying to explain how every T is so different in their approach and that she thinks it would be better if I tried to come to her with my questions and that she would talk to me about her methods and approaches and try to help me understand what I'm going through. Then she said something to the effect of the therapist-client being "sacred". That it was "SPECIAL". I listened and nodded and got distracted by my thoughts, "Yeah, it's special alright. I am so in love with you and I can do nothing for you or to you to manipulate you into loving me a certain way. I'm just attached and in pain while you sit there kind and patient and unavailable."
But this morning I woke up with a thought as clear as day. It must have been the journal reading, the detailed accounts about my father's criticism, and this conversation with her. My dad always told me that we had something SPECIAL that no one would ever understand (so don't bother telling them about it). That he knew me better than I knew myself. That I needed him and he did not need me (or anyone). That he understood me like no one ever would. And I believed him. We had a secret connection - almost psychic we said - that no one could ever take away. Only HE TOOK IT AWAY whenever he wanted to and sometimes without warning and usually when I was feeling the most love for him or attachment or I relaxed or I expressed joy or I needed him. Out of the blue he would say, "I guess I was wrong about you. You aren't special. You haven't learned a God damn thing from me..." When I would cry he would abandon me further saying, "You brought this on yourself. You are going on your own trip." And he would just look at me in disgust or hang his head as if he could not bear the disappointment.
Gee, I WONDER why I'm having ATTACHMENT issues with someone who sees me and who I love and who I need and who says we have a SPECIAL relationship????? OMG!!!!!!! I'm so clear on this right this minute I'm giddy!!!!! I see my T tomorrow. I'm sure none of this will surprise her. I've told her some of that stuff about my dad before, but I TOTALLY GET something about it now. I GET something!
Whew. Thanks so much for reading if you made it this far.
FMD
Posted by Kath on October 17, 2008, at 23:30:28
In reply to MAJOR Find - a LONG piece of my STORY (triggers?), posted by FindingMyDesire on October 17, 2008, at 23:19:03
Jeez - I am SO mad at your dad. (In my opinion he doesn't deserve a captial "D" - I hope I'm not hurting you by saying that).
I am SO sorry that you experienced such painful, damaging, cruel things from him.
Those things were extremely traumatizing, in my opinion. Of course it would affect you BIGTIME.
I've had great healing from EFT, EMDR & TAT. They're alternative methods, I guess you'd say. In my experience, they can heal without me having to go through ANYthing again or even particularly think about things much.
If you're at all interested, feel free to ask.
Thanks for sharing your new realizations here. They're pretty huge!
((((((((you)))))))) Kath
Posted by lemonaide on October 18, 2008, at 9:15:13
In reply to Re: MAJOR Find - a LONG piece of my STORY (triggers?) » FindingMyDesire, posted by Kath on October 17, 2008, at 23:30:28
Wow! You have figured out something big in my view. It makes so much sense to me. Who would want a special relationship when it included emotional abuse too?
You are doing such a good job, I hope you can work this out in therapy. Let us know how it goes. Your T will be very happy that you share this with her. (((((FMD)))))
Just a personal note, my grandma used to keep journals too, and I remember when my grandpa died, I got to see some of them that talked about when she cared for me as a baby and older. It felt so good to read such nice things about me as a baby, knowing I was loved and cared for. ;-) One cool thing was that she used to eat at this neighborhood restaurant that was around the corner from where i lived, and I used to eat there too even before I knew she did. Now when I eat there I feel like I am there with her. ;-)
Posted by muffled on October 18, 2008, at 11:38:46
In reply to MAJOR Find - a LONG piece of my STORY (triggers?), posted by FindingMyDesire on October 17, 2008, at 23:19:03
They seem so obvo AFTER the fact!
Yup, definate lightbulb moment.
Good for you.
:-)
M
Posted by antigua3 on October 18, 2008, at 12:18:03
In reply to MAJOR Find - a LONG piece of my STORY (triggers?), posted by FindingMyDesire on October 17, 2008, at 23:19:03
Your story just made me think of some things in a different way--how I was special to my father when it was convenient to him; otherwise, I was just one of the pack of children.
Thanks,
antigua
Posted by Phillipa on October 18, 2008, at 13:04:17
In reply to Re: MAJOR Find - a LONG piece of my STORY (triggers?) » FindingMyDesire, posted by antigua3 on October 18, 2008, at 12:18:03
I don't think I was ever special to anyone but so glad you had a lightbulb moment. Phillipa
Posted by lucie lu on October 18, 2008, at 16:01:20
In reply to MAJOR Find - a LONG piece of my STORY (triggers?), posted by FindingMyDesire on October 17, 2008, at 23:19:03
FMD,
Once again I am struck by the intelligence of your post and also by your candor in expressing ALL of your feelings: happy, sad, excited, longing, frustrated, wounded etc. You are really so remarkable in your honesty and forthrightness (and again I think how lucky your T must consider herself to have such a motivated, honest, and insightful patient)!
As others have said, given the emotional abuse you suffered from your father, it is no wonder at all that you have issues related to trust and intimacy. Your father sounds like a classic narcissist. Narcissistic parents do a great deal of damage to their children. You were "special" when his image was reflected in your eyes, and you were nothing when he decided to look elsewhere. You, with your love and honesty, wanted and reasonably expected a relationship that validated who you were and provided you with the love and security you needed and deserved. Growing up with such a parent is heart-breaking. It takes a long time to really understand that most people are not like that, that there are different relational models. It is really no surprise that you have been looking for years for that love, constancy, and validation that your father dangled in front of you and then pulled away time and time again. If he was a narcissist, he probably never understood the damage he was doing to his daughter or how his behavior could be so deeply wounding to another person. It is completely understandable that you were left with crazy deep longings and yearnings from the many ways the relationship with him hurt you and failed to meet your needs. In therapy, you can confront those feelings head-on, as you are doing. You can learn to manage them and eventually be able to convert that negative energy into something positive in your RL relationships and also for your own self concept. You will finally have a chance to be happy and not fear intimacy as your father misrepresented it. I am so sorry that you had to grow up like that :(
As I see it, the major insight you had from rereading your journals was that you have been trying for many years to get over these wounds in relationship after relationship. In other words, you obviously have been trying as best you could to heal yourself, you were trying to learn to become whole and grow beyond the point where your father let you down. I admire and am touched your strong drive to be healed, FMD. It requires both courage and heart. I am glad that you have found, and are beginning to form a healthy attachment with, a great T who will help you heal and grow and experience the loving intimacy that you were denied. And despite the challenges in your past, you have managed to make a good and enduring connection with your partner as well. She is lucky too :)
FMD, you have so much to give and you really are so special! I am certain that you will learn so much from your therapy and be able to apply it to your real life. I really look forward to hearing about your journey.
Congrats on the good work. Really!
((((((((((((((FMD))))))))))))))
Lucie
Posted by JayMac on October 18, 2008, at 17:17:12
In reply to MAJOR Find - a LONG piece of my STORY (triggers?), posted by FindingMyDesire on October 17, 2008, at 23:19:03
How very exciting!!!! I can't wait for you to share all of this with your T! How special to have such a major find and let it become a major turing point in your life. Wow! That's THERAPEUTIC!!!!
Many hugs to you!
Posted by turtle on October 19, 2008, at 10:54:45
In reply to MAJOR Find - a LONG piece of my STORY (triggers?), posted by FindingMyDesire on October 17, 2008, at 23:19:03
FMD,
Your giddiness is infectious! How did it go when you shared this with your T? I'm very happy for you right now. Figuring out this pattern is a great find! Youve done some very hard work. It's such a great feeling when it all falls into place and finally something makes sense!
I feel pain for you when I hear your negative self messages. I have to admit that I very selfishly wish that I could make your negative messages go away and replace them with self-love for the great person that you are. This must be very difficult for therapists! As I say this to you, I also have to admit that I'm not ready to let my own negative messages go yet! I know, not fair! But I can wish that for you anyway, can't I? I so very much wish you could know the truth of your internalized homophobia, which is just another form of using self-hate to make sense of incomprehensible rejection. I have some negative core beliefs of my own. (Of course I was rejected by everyone, starting with my parents, it's because there is something inside me that is repulsive. Because of that, I can't risk letting others close, including my therapist. I couldn't do that to her) My therapist is pretty smart, she resisted the urge to reach in and try to rip my belief away from me. She is gentle with me but does say that these beliefs need to be challenged when they appear.
Although these negative messages that I tell myself are painful, somehow when I hold them close and believe they are real it makes the twisted shape of the world make some sort of sense. At least my feeling like I "understand" the rejection makes me feel a little better. (Even if the "understanding" is self destructively turned inward instead of seeing the other persons issues.) With your new discovery your world has suddenly become a little less twisted. You clearly see how your patterns formed and how they have influenced your life. I truly hope that with this new understanding the negative messages will begin to no longer fit and will lose some of their power over you.
Thank you so much for sharing all of this! I loved reading how you figured all of this out!
Turtle
Posted by FindingMyDesire on October 20, 2008, at 9:48:25
In reply to MAJOR Find - a LONG piece of my STORY (triggers?), posted by FindingMyDesire on October 17, 2008, at 23:19:03
Update - I shared everything with my T Saturday. It didn't feel so hard as I was talking - part of me was just so excited. But as I read something specific I had felt about my last therapist and then started to read my dad's words (from an old journal), I started to feel it all. I guess it became more emotional than intellectual. As she started responding to me I felt more "little" than ever before in there. I kept thinking in my head, "Please don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me. I don't think I could survive it. I'm totally trusting you with my everything right now." She had an amazing insight about why physical distance is so hard for me (like when I FREAKED cause she was gone for 2 1/2 weeks.) If everything that said I was worth living for came from the one occasional smile of approval I got from my dad (when he wasn't rejecting, criticizing, or abandoning me), then I didn't learn to feel like he was holding me in his head or heart when we were separated. I'm not saying it as clearly as she said it but it really resonated with me. Of course, then it was the END OF THE SESSION. I was only half in the room. I was having to try to hold onto myself. I needed to just sob. I could see through the tears that she was saying loving things and was concerned about me leaving the room. Honestly, I don't know what she was saying to me. She warned me that I might feel really angry. In a way I think it was at that moment that I was trying to build up the anger wall - how could I have to wait until Thursday to see her again? How could she leave me like this? But, when she said that - that I might feel angry, that feeling dissipated. I just felt really, super sad. I'm not sure how I walked out of there. I'm not sure how I'm holding all this right now.
Kath - Thanks for writing. Your anger was very validating to me in a way that was both soothing and difficult to read. I think seeing someone else be angry about it allowed me to feel some of the tremendous hurt. Which by today I'm getting I'm going to need to let myself be in a bit. I don't know about alternative methods, but maybe I will ask my T about them and come back to that. Thanks so much for the offer to share.Lemonaide - Your grandma's journals sound like such a wonderful treat. I love your story about the restaurant! Our histories and family histories are so important!
Muffled - Thanks for writing. Yeah, I have lightbulbs just following me around right now. I think I must look like a christmas tree...
Antiqua - I didn't have any siblings that lived with us. I don't know what that would be like. But I do know about father's power to toy with that "special" positioning.
Phillipa - Your statement moved me to want to reach out to you. I want for you to feel special to someone (just not someone that will hurt you).
Lucie Lu - I was moved to tears by your response. Thank you for taking so much care and time in writing. I feel so seen by you. How come you know all of that? :-) And how did you manage to make it sound like I have been trying to HEAL myself instead of how my head that tells me I have been SCREWED up FOREVER in my relationships? You are so encouraging. Thank you.
JayMac - Thanks so much for the hugs. I really, really need them right now. Seeing something so big has left me standing on the edge between "I can do this" and "I can't".
Turtle - THANK you so much for responding. Going in and actually sharing this with my therapist was SO HARD. And reading your post again and again is helping me to understand why. It feels impossible to let go of the negative stuff. Because I don't have replacements. I don't want to have to let go of the quest to have this particular pain fixed by someone else. I don't want to face that it will never happen. I don't want to let go of my intense, unrequited love feelings that I have had OVER and OVER for people, because although they are excruciating, they are familiar and they feel like my truth. I think I like feeling them like a drug. If that goes away, won't I just feel empty and numb? My world seems a little less twisted now but it hurts so much more. I am afraid my T will expect me to "get passed this" now - too quickly. I think I will want to talk to her about that. I need time.
Thanks for mentioning the homophobia. I always think of that as so specific and isolated - simply something black-and-white to hate myself about (the being gay part). What you said helps me think *maybe* it's just another thing I project negativeness on. I don't feel like I believe that yet, but I feel like your statement opened up the possibility.
Posted by happyflower on October 20, 2008, at 10:57:32
In reply to THANKS to everyone and UPDATE, posted by FindingMyDesire on October 20, 2008, at 9:48:25
FMD,
I so glad you came back to post what happened, I have been checking your posts, hoping you would write what happened.
Your session seems like it was so difficult but at the same time so soothing. Your T sounds wonderful and very attuned to you. You are making wonderful progress, even if if feels like you are falling apart, you are healing and doing the work to get you there. (((((FMD))))
Thank you for lighting a candle, you are such a kind person I am glad to have met here.
Posted by Kath on October 20, 2008, at 11:10:31
In reply to THANKS to everyone and UPDATE, posted by FindingMyDesire on October 20, 2008, at 9:48:25
> Thanks for mentioning the homophobia. I always think of that as so specific and isolated - simply something black-and-white to hate myself about (the being gay part).~ ~ ~ If I said to you that I hate myself for being straight, I wonder what your response would be? Maybe it's something to give some thought to. We just are who & what we are! :-)
luv, Kath
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