Posted by Daisym on November 24, 2004, at 23:23:13
In reply to no time to cry, posted by kellyr. on November 24, 2004, at 13:51:14
Oh Kelly, Please believe that you will someday be happy. It is important to have hope.
As far as crying, it can take a long time to build up to it. I automatically shut down tears when they spring up, a learned response to "tears don't solve the problem" I heard as a child. It has taken a great deal of work to learn to cry in therapy, including my therapist telling me to "leave them" when a couple of tears trickled down my face.
There have been a handful of sessions that I actually ended up sobbing from a deep, dark place. Usually these happen when the younger parts of me are "out" and telling stories. The first time this happened I tried to stop really, really hard. I kept apologizing and he just kept saying, "the rules are different in here. It is OK to cry. You need to cry. I want to see your tears..."and on and on. It was nice to hear his voice and be reminded that I was in a safe place.
And your therapist might be right. I've felt less suicidal as I have been able to let it out in therapy. Healing doesn't seem so impossible after sessions like that. In fact, I've read that there is research that shows that happy tears have a different chemical make up than sad tears. So different things are being released.
All that said, there are no rules that say you MUST cry tears to grieve what happened to you. We all find our own way. Therapy isn't about right or wrong, it is about your individual journey.
Hugs from me.
Daisy
poster:Daisym
thread:419935
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041123/msgs/419975.html