Could it be? Could it be that now I have a fourth person alive in the world who deeply understands me, my quest for raw honesty, my thoughts and the unwavering principles behind them? Let's see... there is me, my husband, Grace...
...and yesterday I noticed that New Guy spent quite a bit of time on my blog and visited several different posts. Today I checked my email and this is a quote from something he sent me:
"Telling you to live in the moment does not validate your life and all the shit you’ve been through."
I have never had a therapist who EVER said anything like that to me and only ONE who might have at some point had I continued with her (couldn't - we were both pregnant and timing is everything). That's probably a big chunk of why I'm a bit of a train wreck. As a matter of fact, I have found only one therapist ever alive anywhere who REALLY gets it and he's not and never has been my therapist, he's a blogger.
Hmm. Well, one of the reasons New Guy was chosen is because of his intelligence level and seeming lack of personal agenda and dissociative qualities. Rambo {{{my integrity}}} chose him. I chose all the others myself. Interesting.
TOUCHE' *new guy*...and neither does, "I know you want to die right now because you're in so much pain" but just think...in 6 hours or so the sun will rise and all will be right with the world once you see the hun and feel the warmth on your face." ...Yeah, I get it! ((((LYNN)))))
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I didn't answer your email last night...not a good night - and I didn't have an answer to your question....
(ok- I had to take ativan this morning already, which i never do in the day - f'n mother's day - hate it. but my word capcha is "ketyhoat" - that has to mean something - weird)
In six hours or so? That is not the present moment. So it's okay to live somewhere other than the present just as long as you are doing it for avoidance and not for the purpose of integration because that would upset your poor fragile therapist and might even oblige her to help in that process even though it would drag her from her imaginary world of warm fuzzies? Yeah, I think I get it.
ReplyDeleteI love new guy, I think I've mentioned that before. Maybe Rambo can pick me a new therapist. I'm at the point where I'm afraid to tell mine anything because he'll tell me that my perception is just wrong.
ReplyDeleteI glad you have someone who understands you, what a great feeling that must be.
I don't think your perceptions are necessarily wrong, Harriet. People have the perceptions they have for a reason. The challenge is to find out the reason. Sometimes the reason surprises us (and it's not always about major traumas). Maybe you can tell J that you're afraid to tell him anything because you are afraid he will just tell you that your perceptions are wrong.
ReplyDeleteHow I miss my old therapist Joe! (Not the person I did DBT with.) He was like this. He could simultaneously validate that I'm angry at my mom and that her behavior was hurtful to me, AND validate that she's not an evil person, didn't intend to hurt me. Not to mention help me make sense of that tension / juxtaposition.
ReplyDeleteThe intentions of the other cannot negate what we really feel about what was done to us, so I'm glad you were able to express your anger and see her actions as wrong.
ReplyDeleteWell said.
ReplyDeleteWhat's tricky is how to do perspective taking in a helpful way. Being able to understand that she wasn't out to get me should mean that I ought to make some more progress towards letting her off the hook a little. Theoretically letting her off the hook doesn't have to be the same as cutting off my feelings and how it looked to me at the time.
Whether or not you 'should' be able to let her off the hook is not anything that someone can advise you about. I'm not sure any valid 'should' can exist around such a thing. It's not for anyone else to say because it is your situation exclusively.
ReplyDeleteAs far as my mother, she kinda WAS out to get me and it wasn't just a one-time incident or even just a few small ones. I have no need to let her off the hook, I simply have a need to keep her out of my life because she hasn't changed much, is a complete freak and I absolutely can't stand being anywhere near her. She is toxic. This is certainly nothing that anyone else could have given me any 'should' about. No one else can really know except me. Same with you. No one else can really know. I don't think there are any 'shoulds'.