Posted by antigua on January 30, 2004, at 12:28:32
In reply to Re: What I need » fallsfall, posted by Dinah on January 30, 2004, at 11:03:17
hi fallsfall,
I had to respond, but as everyone says, this is just my opinion. But I admit, I'm biased...I don't get it. Was your T having a bad day or something? It seems to me that he picked the wrong "thing" for you to validate yourself on. Using the experience to "teach you lesson", I think, doesn't work when he is perpetuating "the lesson".
That's like my therapist (old one) ABRUPTLY (I mean immediately) abandoning me when he learned about my sexual abuse issues because he couldn't help me, when the major issue I face is that I feel I will be abandoned if I tell anyone about the abuse (i.e., if I told my mother, she would leave me, etc.) In my case, I was abandoned anyway, so fear of abandonment is my most major issue--and this T abandoned me. And he didn't get it either, when it was clear as a bell to me.
My T now literally jumps for joy when I figure those kinds of things out. She's always very reinforcing and supportive of the hard work, which you very obviously have done over the last several days. If mine responded that way I would have been crushed. For years my T has been telling me to give myself a lot of credit for pursuing these painful self-discoveries. She's my biggest cheerleader because she knows I've never had anyone to help me. I usually brush her off and say it's nothing, but she has convinced me that she is right. This IS incredibly hard work and when you put some pieces together like you did you want it acknowledged.
Maybe you could go back (or call) and tell him how you felt. That you know you feel good about your self-discovery (you do, don't you?) and you just wanted him to acknowledge it. It sounds like to me you didn't need him to approve, because you already do approve of what you've discovered about yourself. But it would have been better if he had been able to support you--not necessarily over the subject, but just over supporting you for having the strength to do this.
I'm sorry, but now I'm really mad... reminds me of that terrible T I had...
antigua
poster:antigua
thread:307199
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040123/msgs/307305.html