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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 25 of 29. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by bent on February 4, 2005, at 12:21:25
I am freaking out. I feel so dumb, so pathetic. What is wrong with me? I saw my T, my perfect mother therapist today. Shopping with her daughter! Her daughter! Oh my gosh, I don’t know what to do. I am so panicked. My heart wont stop, my mouth is so dry. What is wrong with me? I hate therapy. Gotta cancel next week’s appointment. Cant see her. It’s all fake. Its one stupid hour a week. She doesn’t care about me. I saw her and I wanted her to see me yet I wanted to run so fast from her. I am sure she saw me and I am sure she knows I saw her but our eyes never met. This is so pathetic. I hate myself right now for ever getting into this.
Posted by mair on February 4, 2005, at 12:43:04
In reply to panic, hate, need help, posted by bent on February 4, 2005, at 12:21:25
bent - I don't know why this came up in my therapy session today, but my therapist was telling me about a conference she went to where it was posited that there are 2 dynamics that can particularly derail therapy if they are not brought out into the open and discussed. One is projection. The other (and this surprised me) is a client's envy of a therapist. Envy of a T's life; envy of a T's children, envy of a t's friends etc. She said it's not at all unusual for the envy to become angry envy as in anger that the T doesn't care about the client because the T has this otherwise fulfilling life. She said it tends to be more acute when the T and client are of the same gender and maybe have other things in common.
I think she was bringing it up just to try to flush it out if it is there, and to let me know that if it is there, it's ok and I need to feel comfortable talking about it. I look at my T's life (she would say an idealized view of her life) and sometimes feel inadequate which is not quite the same. If it is, it's not angry envy. So this is one bullet I get to dodge (projection is another story altogether).
I know you're upset with your reaction and that you don't want to have to go back and tell her about it. But it sounds to me that what you're describing is not at all unusual and that your T should be able to help you sort through some of this. It also sounds like something your T would want you to talk about.
Maybe your T didn't see you, but even if she didn't, I'd encourage you to talk about it anyway. If anything, it'll make the next encounter less traumatic.
Mair
Posted by Daisym on February 4, 2005, at 12:52:25
In reply to panic, hate, need help, posted by bent on February 4, 2005, at 12:21:25
Whenever I want to run from therapy, quit all together, I know it is important to force myself to talk about why. I get so mortified by the intensity of my feelings, because often they make no sense to me.
It is hard to come face to face with the realities of this relationship. We think about our therapists so much, we agonize over every word we said, what they must think, how we must bother them, etc. etc. To put it in perspective of ALL their clients, that we are just one of many, is really really hard. It hurts, no matter how much we *know* why it must be this way.
Please don't just quit. Go talk to her. You will probably find that she makes you feel so much better about your feelings. They are very normal and understandable.
Posted by Bent on February 4, 2005, at 13:01:24
In reply to Re: panic, hate, need help, posted by mair on February 4, 2005, at 12:43:04
I guess what I am feeling right now is angry envy...I never thought of it that way. I know I idealize my T too. I have a hard time accepting she is human too. I haven’t had a panic attack in years and this almost brought one on. I am so afraid she will think my reaction is too strong, that I am too attached, that it isn’t healthy, and she will refer me to someone else. Maybe i am just over thinking right now. She has told me before that she won’t leave me (yea, i have abandonment issues) but I feel like one day its all going to breakdown because I am too much. Maybe I just can’t think rationally right now.
Thanks for your insight.
Posted by Bent on February 4, 2005, at 13:12:12
In reply to Re: panic, hate, need help, posted by Daisym on February 4, 2005, at 12:52:25
Daisy-
I felt very comforted by your post. I hope you are right. My T has understood in the past when I get mad at her for simply being human. And in my three years with her I have probably tried to ‘just quit’ once or twice. She knows when I am looking to get out for the wrong reasons. I am so afraid of her rejecting me. Afraid that she will think my reaction to seeing her was unhealthy and that I need to get away from her. Maybe my mind is just racing right now but I keep thinking, what if she thinks I was following her or something. I saw her in two stores. The only two stores I had planned on going to today and she was there! I am sure she saw me. I probably looked so dumb. I wasn’t shopping at that point; I was too distracted and overloaded with anxiety because she was there. Maybe I can call and leave her a message. One minute I want to and the next minute I don’t. I just need her to tell me its ok and she isn’t going to leave me. Geeze that sounds like I am a baby. I hate this. Thanks.
Posted by Dinah on February 4, 2005, at 13:21:32
In reply to panic, hate, need help, posted by bent on February 4, 2005, at 12:21:25
When do you see her next? If it isn't for a while, I'd go ahead and call. If I find I'm too distressed, I'll have usually worked out a whole scenario about what's going to happen that is based entirely on conversations I've had in my head. He prefers I check in with him and have him stop the process before the session if it's going to be too long.
I hate seeing my therapist in public period. With or without someone. He thinks it's a bit funny that I feel so strongly. But inside the therapy room I'm Dinah and he's my therapist/mommy. Outside he's him and I'm a client. It's not so much that I don't want to see him, as I don't want him to see me when I'm not Dinah to him. He tells me that inside or outside the therapy room, he's my therapist and I'm Dinah to him. But I'm pretty sure that's not entirely true.
What you're feeling isn't all that unusual, nor does it represent excessive attachment on your part. If she's done this very long, she's probably met this reaction before and will know how to handle the experience.
In some ways you can see it as your really correctly understanding the therapy boundaries and not liking to have an encounter outside them. I know I like to think of it that way. :)
Posted by bent on February 4, 2005, at 13:46:44
In reply to Re: panic, hate, need help » bent, posted by Dinah on February 4, 2005, at 13:21:32
Thanks Dinah. My appointment is Monday. I don’t think I am going to call. I called to see if she’d be back in her office today and the secretary said no. I don’t know what to say when I see her. I think I just might cry. I am much more depressed than usual these days and I have some things on my mind that I want to tell her about (my post about that is above-1/27/05), not to mention termination. Just so much on my mind and this isn’t helping. She’s been a T for over 20 years so, like you mentioned, I am sure she’s been here more times than I have…I hope. I hate that this can have such an impact on me. Really makes me think this whole attachment thing isn’t healthy. Have to think about this more when my head stops spinning so much. I think I recall from some of your posts that you’ve run into your T a few times. The joy of sharing the same town! This is a first for me; weird because I often wondered what it would be like if I did run into her one day. Never thought it would be like this, although perhaps if her daughter hadn’t been there it would be different, but I really doubt it. Thanks.
Posted by Susan47 on February 4, 2005, at 19:27:54
In reply to Re: panic, hate, need help, posted by mair on February 4, 2005, at 12:43:04
oMIGOD omigod mair omigod why oh why didn't my therapist tell me this why didn't he know it?
This is exactly what I wrote to him today, and a few weeks ago, I am so ENVIOUS of his life, I want his life so badly he has the comfort and the spouse and the gifted children that I've ALWAYS wanted and never achieved... why didn't he talk to me about that????
I'm taking this to my new therapist .. she needs to know...maybe I CAN be helped, after all. I feel maybe I'm not hopeless now, maybe I'm not hopeless, it's not me, it's not all me, but why does this happen?
WHY DID MY THERAPIST GIVE UP ON ME? I HATE HIM!!!
Posted by Susan47 on February 4, 2005, at 19:55:34
In reply to Re: panic, hate, need help » mair, posted by Susan47 on February 4, 2005, at 19:27:54
of talking to my therapist at his home, on his home phone, he walked through a room where his child was playing piano, practicing something beautiful. It killed me to hear, it absolutely killed me to hear that. It triggered major amounts of stuff about my own self and my eldest son, I was jealous and sad from that moment on, and I told him that the playing was beautiful and that it took a lot of love to have a child play like that, and all he said was a"Well, thank you." And the next session I brought it up, I brought up the playing and the inadequacy I felt because I never got past a certain grade and my dad used to yell horribly, frighteningly, and I remember him once hitting my fingers, it was so scary, he was my "teacher", and I endured it for ten years ... and I know I could've played beautifully, I'm smart and gifted and it's in my soul but oh it's too too late now, it's too late, and it hurts so much. And we never talked about it. Why? Or did we talk about it? Maybe we did, but we never brought up the fact that I was jealous. Maybe he never knew that? Maybe that's what drove me to be so intense.
Posted by Susan47 on February 5, 2005, at 22:35:35
In reply to Re: panic, hate, need help » Dinah, posted by bent on February 4, 2005, at 13:46:44
I don't know if you're still thinking about this thread, but I am. I was over here tonight and finally realized I felt exactly the same way when I met my T in public. You're in touch with your panic, please talk about it with your therapist for sure. I touched the surface of the issue with my T but obviously something else went wrong because my anxiety drove me psycho. I knew I would die if I weren't important to him. We just didn't discuss it enough, I guess. I did everything I could to stop myself from dying. Within reason. Kind of. If you count 30-40 telephone calls to an answering machine a day, reasonable.
Posted by bent on February 7, 2005, at 8:26:10
In reply to Bent?, posted by Susan47 on February 5, 2005, at 22:35:35
You are not psycho. The therapeutic relationship can be very intense and it does things to us. It must be handled carefully. I really should take my own advice considering I am making myself sick with worry about my appointment today. I am so scared. I dont know what to talk about. Well, I know what needs to be talked about, I just dont know how to do it.
Posted by Susan47 on February 7, 2005, at 15:32:57
In reply to Re: Bent?, posted by bent on February 7, 2005, at 8:26:10
Posted by bent on February 7, 2005, at 16:08:54
In reply to panic, hate, need help, posted by bent on February 4, 2005, at 12:21:25
Of course I didnt talk about the main thing that had been making me sick all day. Not once. All i said was that i didnt feel like talking today-with an attitude. I swear we both knew what it was that was bothering me. Why didnt she come right out and say she saw me? (Why didnt I say it?) Cause I am pathetic. I felt embarrassed about it for some reason?? I feel like calling her(again). I just feel like I need to set the record straight about some things I have been avoiding for several weeks. Then my head might stop spinning. I dont know what to do. I am still rather weirded out having been in the same dressing room, at the same time as my T!! Geesh!
Posted by Susan47 on February 7, 2005, at 16:29:47
In reply to i suck at therapy, posted by bent on February 7, 2005, at 16:08:54
Can you write her a letter telling her everything you can't talk about face-to-face right now?
Posted by mair on February 7, 2005, at 16:36:39
In reply to i suck at therapy, posted by bent on February 7, 2005, at 16:08:54
I can't even begin to count the numbers of times I've told my T that I suck at therapy.
Not to engage in one upsmanship, but here's one that beats yours (imo) Several years ago I discovered, very much by accident, that my T's husband had just published a memoir about his own struggles with depression. I bought it and read it. It was intensely personal and had a lot of detail about what his illness did to his marriage. It totally blew me away. It was very strange to have that window into my T's life and it was particularly unsettliing because it made me realize that there were similarities between her situation and mine. We were pretty involved then in talking about my marriage; I couldn't imagine how my T could listen to me without thinking about those similarities. It sort of made me think she was a hypocrite. I thought from the start that I probably needed to tell her I read the book even though she certainly had never told me that the book existed. An ex-poster here was great about encouraging me to take the plunge, but I discovered that I'd do anything to avoid having to raise this issue, and during some sessions I deluded myself into thinking that maybe I'd never have to mention it. Unfortunately, that I had read the book started to get in the way of therapy; she'd be sitting there talking about my marriage and I'd be sitting there thinking about hers. I had a difficult time concentrating on what she was saying because anecdotes from the book kept flashing through my mind. What I did, and what I've done a few times since then is drop a comment about it, literally as I was on my way out the door. Something like "btw, next time remind me to talk about your H's book." Somehow I could get that much out and yet it sort of shifted the onus on her to raise it at the next session. It was still difficult to discuss, but somehow not so bad when I didn't have to be the one who really introduced the issue.
Sometimes there are ways around our own cowardice.
Good Luck
Mair
Posted by lonelygal2 on February 7, 2005, at 16:41:25
In reply to i suck at therapy, posted by bent on February 7, 2005, at 16:08:54
aww... can you call and leave a voicemail (maybe it would be easier if she's not actually there answering)?
> Of course I didnt talk about the main thing that had been making me sick all day. Not once. All i said was that i didnt feel like talking today-with an attitude. I swear we both knew what it was that was bothering me. Why didnt she come right out and say she saw me? (Why didnt I say it?) Cause I am pathetic. I felt embarrassed about it for some reason?? I feel like calling her(again). I just feel like I need to set the record straight about some things I have been avoiding for several weeks. Then my head might stop spinning. I dont know what to do. I am still rather weirded out having been in the same dressing room, at the same time as my T!! Geesh!
Posted by Susan47 on February 7, 2005, at 16:53:18
In reply to Re: i suck at therapy, posted by lonelygal2 on February 7, 2005, at 16:41:25
Note of caution, not that I think anybody is crazy like me, but leaving voicemail when I was afraid to discuss things in person is what got me started on a slippery slope, if her T doesn't bring it up with her right away she might be in trouble. So make sure the T Brings It Up. If she doesn't, she might be unconsciously encouraging the dependence.
Posted by Susan47 on February 7, 2005, at 16:55:07
In reply to Re: i suck at therapy, posted by Susan47 on February 7, 2005, at 16:53:18
Posted by bent on February 7, 2005, at 18:08:04
In reply to Re: i suck at therapy, posted by Susan47 on February 7, 2005, at 16:29:47
I commonly resort to letter writing when I cant talk about something. This might be one of those times. I usually explain my feelings much better through writing. In a way I just want to tell her face to face though. Having a letter in case cant hurt tho.
Posted by bent on February 7, 2005, at 18:16:19
In reply to Re: i suck at therapy, posted by mair on February 7, 2005, at 16:36:39
Wow, interesting story. I imagine that could get in the way of therapy. Its weird how we battle with what to tell our T's, especially when it has to do with what we know about them. I have known for three years more about my T than she could imagine (probably) but I can’t tell her. I know where she lives; I know who her husband is. I am so afraid of it freaking her out (there I go looking out for my T's feelings again!). I guess really it doesn’t matter but if we could just come out and say these things they wouldn’t seem so powerful. But then again, no one can guarantee the T won’t react poorly. That is what I am afraid of. I have never told my T that I think I suck at therapy but I think it’s about time! Thanks for sharing.
Posted by bent on February 7, 2005, at 18:18:38
In reply to Re: i suck at therapy, posted by lonelygal2 on February 7, 2005, at 16:41:25
Yea, I am all about the voicemail thing. I like her to call me back rather than i call and she's there. Seems weird?? I've been acting so strange I feel like I owe her an explanation. I may try the VM thing this week.
Posted by Dinah on February 7, 2005, at 19:54:30
In reply to Re: i suck at therapy » lonelygal2, posted by bent on February 7, 2005, at 18:18:38
Oh, that brings back fond memories. It used to be that I would call my therapist and if he answered ask him to please hang up so I could call back and speak to his voicemail. There were just things I could not say, even by phone, with him there to answer.
It happens a lot less now, but I still call sometimes and hope he doesn't answer.
If you think it will help to call and leave a message to ask her to push you a bit next time about this issue, I think that's a grand idea. And if you want to write it down to help sort out your feelings and have a cheat sheet with you, that sounds terrific too.
When things are rough in therapy, we can use all the handy dandy aids we can muster.
Posted by Dinah on February 7, 2005, at 19:55:52
In reply to Re: i suck at therapy » lonelygal2, posted by bent on February 7, 2005, at 18:18:38
You're just at that stage of therapy where disclosing things is hard. As you might have noticed, many of us went through it, even if we aren't still there.
Take heart, eventually things get better.
Posted by Susan47 on February 7, 2005, at 19:59:55
In reply to Re: i suck at therapy » bent, posted by Dinah on February 7, 2005, at 19:54:30
Okay Dinah, how come I never knew that about you? Did we ever talk about this that's what I was doing last year, did I get this idea from you or is it not just us that did this?
Susan.
Posted by Dinah on February 7, 2005, at 20:16:59
In reply to Re: i suck at therapy » Dinah, posted by Susan47 on February 7, 2005, at 19:59:55
I'm sure it's not just us.
It was mainly something I did after a bad session, when I was angry with him. Or after a session when I couldn't bring myself to say what I wanted to say.
But I also used to call and leave conflicting messages. "Could you please call me?" "No, never mind, I'm fine." "Ignore that last message, I really do need to talk to you." "Oh, I'm horrible to bother you, please just ignore me." "No, no, this is really urgent!" "Oh, I'm just being silly. It can wait."
When I asked he said he didn't mind as long as all messages were left before he contacted me. And that it was an interesting insight into my mind. :)
I don't do that hardly ever anymore. I finally figured out it was less trouble for him if I just called and asked him to call me, then sat tight and waited. Plus, a lot of the internal dynamics that caused my ambivilance got sorted out.
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