Apr 9 2013

Sand Table

I played with the sand table with art t yesterday for the first time. I’m not sure “playing” is the right term. I didn’t know what to do, so I just kind of grabbed stuff off of the shelves and put them in the sand. I was feeling emotional before I even started due to some things that happened during the day, and I tried to pretend that I was having fun.

Art T says she will take a picture of it, and I also took pictures with my phone. She wouldn’t let me take it apart and put the stuff away, she says I am supposed to leave with it all still in the tray.

You can click on these pictures to make them bigger.

Over there in the back left is my house, with my husband (the golfer), my daughter and her horse, and my son and my dog. The lady in the green shirt is my mother saying “Woe is me, my daughter is getting divorced, what will my friends think?” And my car with me driving away.

Then on the right is me, the wicked witch, in my new house, which is just an empty shell, with a bare tree. There is my conscience, the guy in the robe pointing his finger accusingly at me, and the cowardly lion, who I can relate to because I wish I had some courage. A little farther away is a tombstone, since I don’t think I’ll live very long.

In the other corner are palm trees, and a boat in the water, because I have a fantasy of running away to the beach forever.

Art T asked me if I wasn’t represented by a witch, who would I be. I tried to find an ugly lady in among the figurines, and I did find one, but she was crazy looking and art t said I should try again. Then I saw Alice in Wonderland and I picked her because I think she is a mindless silly girl who just chases rabbits and falls down holes and eats and drinks things without knowing what they will do to her.

Of course art t had different interpretations of all of this. To her the empty house was an archway to a new life. And she said I should think of the good parts of my beach fantasy and try to recreate them here in my current life. And she says she has a different opinion of Alice, that she is the only sane person in a crazy world and she is just trying to make sense of everything that is happening around her.

I’m not really sure of the purpose of this exercise, art t says it is very Jungian and as we do more with the sand table more of my subconscious will come out. Not sure if that is a good idea or not.

Another weird thing – at the end of the session she asked if anything was new with J (my old therapist) and for a second I didn’t know who she was talking about. I still miss him, but not as much and I don’t think about him as much. I did email him about 5 weeks ago and tried to tell him all of the positive things that were going on in my life. He responded by saying that I am amazing and I deserve all of these things. So now I don’t want to let him down by telling him what is really going on – that I am leaving my husband. I found another place to live and I will move in there on May 1st. I don’t know if he would be surprised. Art t knew everything that was going on with my marriage, and she was still surprised when I told her that I found a new place to live and gave a deposit.

I’ve been reading everyone’s blogs, but I haven’t been commenting – I apologize for that. I know some of you are having a hard time, and my thoughts have been with you. Not that it helps much. Maybe now that spring is here in the northern hemisphere things will look better.

Feb 5 2013

The “Relationship”

Apparently my problem with therapy is that I don’t think the therapist and the client have a relationship. And the key to successful therapy is the relationship between the therapist and the client (this pertains to the type of therapy I have been looking for, of course there are other types of therapy where the relationship is not the key). Because the therapist will respond in different ways than the client’s other relationship people have responded in the past, and that will produce a change in the client, so that even if the other relationship people in the client’s life continue to give those same responses as they have in the past, the client has developed something inside of her that enables those responses to not bother her anymore. And she has developed this thing inside of her because the therapist consistently gives more positive responses than the other people in the client’s life, or the client’s past life.

In my case, I don’t believe anything the therapist says about me, because it is her job (his or her, I will just use the feminine), and I pay her, and she has to respond positively and have unconditional positive regard because that is what a therapist does. Even if the therapist says it is not fake, that part of her job is “attunement” and she feels the feelings of the client. Which she claims is ok, and she would only need supervision if those feelings that she has interfere in the therapy with the client. And apparently feeling the feelings of the clients all day long is not overwhelming to her because she has good self care.

So it all boils down to the “relationship” which I do not think is what the situation is between a therapist and a client. I think it is more of a business arrangement, or a working alliance. Like an accountant, but instead of discussing numbers, we discuss emotions. That doesn’t make this a “relationship”.

So maybe that is why I never change, and maybe therapy just isn’t for me.

Jan 5 2013

An Explanation

I read something on the internet the other day. Here is the link: http://ocduk.org/types-ocd

This is me.

Violent Intrusive Thoughts – obsessive fears of carrying out violent acts against loved ones or other people. Intrusive thoughts include:

Violently harming children or loved ones.
Killing innocent people.
Using kitchen knives and other sharp objects (compulsion will include locking away knives and sharp objects).
Jumping in front of a train or fast moving bus.
Poisoning the food of loved ones (compulsion will include avoiding cooking for family).
Acting on unwanted impulses, e.g. running someone over, stabbing someone.
Thoughts about accidentally touching someone inappropriately, with the aim of hurting them.

Most sufferers with these types of fears often end up labelling themselves as a bad person, simply for having the thoughts. They falsely believe that having the thoughts mean they are capable of acting upon them. The constant analysing and questioning of these disturbing aspects of OCD becomes incredibly upsetting and because of the nature of the thoughts many sufferers are reluctant to open up to health professionals to seek help, fearing they may be labelled.

A person with these types of intrusive thoughts will avoid public places like shopping centres and other places, where social interaction may be required, to avoid coming into close contact with people that may trigger the obsessive thoughts.

To sufferers and non-sufferers alike, the thoughts and fears related to OCD can often seem profoundly shocking . It must be stressed, however, that they are just thoughts, and they are not voluntarily produced. Neither are they fantasies or impulses which will be acted upon.

J didn’t understand when I told him about this, and, let me tell you, it was not easy to talk about. He thought I was talking about fantasies. He told me that he had a fantasy that his wife was dead and everyone was feeling sorry for him, and that is a normal fantasy when you think that you are taking care of everyone all the time and not getting cared for. Or he had a fantasy about shooting a guy’s tires out because he cut him off on the road.

When I told him these aren’t fantasies he tried to make them logical. Like if I have the urge to stab my husband in the back with a kitchen knife it is probably because I am annoyed with him for snoring and keeping me up in the night.

He never understood. But maybe whoever wrote this website understands. However, I am not sure if what I have is OCD, or if I am just an evil person. J told me that thoughts are not actions. But thoughts can be bad. And it’s not always thoughts, it often feels like a very strong urge. I don’t know what that is, and why I have that. My aunt told me she has it too, so maybe it is some genetic fault in our family. Badness in the genes.

Nov 5 2012

Talking About Therapy In Therapy

Wow, things have been really stressful in my life. Financially things are quite bad, and we are going to sell our house. It will be relief to sell it, but also a very daunting task to pack everything up, get rid of a lot of stuff, and move to a smaller place. Work is stressful and I have decided to quit one of my jobs. I haven’t been feeling well, and I think it is due to stress.

I saw Art T today. I thought we would work on the mask, but I first mentioned that this week I should be starting to see J again and the whole session ended up being about that. She asked me about that and I said I don’t want to do therapy with him anymore, not right now, that I think therapy with her is better. But it feels weird that I will never see him or talk to him again. She said that she believes in a goodbye session, but I don’t know if I want to do that. I’m afraid of having things left unsaid. We talked a lot about my therapy with J and how it wasn’t quite right for me, and that I wondered why he didn’t refer me to someone else.

Although I probably would have been devastated if he did refer me to someone else, but at least I would have gotten a different therapist sooner.

I know that he must have liked me as a client because I paid out of pocket, I never cancelled, I was never late, I paid on time and I didn’t bother him much between sessions – at the beginning I emailed one or two times a month, but later on I stopped doing that. And I only called him once. I know I was difficult in session, but the rest of the time I think I was an ideal client.

I asked her what she would think if she had a client for 4 years who took a break, and then she never heard from the person again. She said she would definitely wonder about the person, and would be sad that she didn’t hear from them, but hopeful that they are doing well. I said that I don’t think he really thinks about me, or remembers me, and she was pretty surprised at that. She asked how could he not remember me after working with me for 4 years, and I said he has a lot of clients. She said she has a lot of clients, but she couldn’t forget someone that she worked with for even a few months.

Then we got into the whole thing about how intimidated I was by him and how he never wanted to talk about it. I had mentioned a few times to her that J claimed to be a psychodynamic psychologist, but he didn’t seem like that to me. And that he changed over the years, we did more feelings stuff at the beginning, then as time went on it became problem solving. How when my cousin overdosed he had something he could really work with, and when that ended I got cancer, and again he was great about that.

Art T said she didn’t quite get why he didn’t want to talk about my intimidation, because that is great stuff for a psychodynamic therapist.

I also told her that there is something unresolved, and I don’t think I can ever resolve it, so I don’t quite want to say goodbye to J yet, and that thing is the time I gave him a link to my blog and he searched for sex. I told her that I wasn’t able to actually confront him about that, I just asked him if he found what he was looking for, and he said he wasn’t looking for anything. I told him that if he had any questions about me, he could just ask, and he said he knew that. I told him that I have a statistics monitor on my blog and I can see who has been there, what pages they visited, how they got there, and if they searched for anything. But he never said anything, and I never came directly out and asked him why he did that.

Art T and I talked a lot about that, about why I couldn’t ask him, and I said that it is hard for me to confront people. And what if he had lied and said he didn’t do it? At least if I didn’t ask him, he couldn’t deny it. I said I know that many people would have walked in there and said, “What the hell, why did you search my blog for sex?” And she said that would have been perfectly justified, and why didn’t I do that? She asks hard questions.

I asked her why he would search my blog for sex, since it wasn’t ever an issue, we never talked about it. She said that maybe because he was intimidating to me there was some kind of sexual anxiety or something between us, and I said that I don’t think so. I made sure to never wear anything revealing and to stay far away from him. But she said it could be unconscious. I said that I would never want to touch him, or have him touch me, not even a handshake, and she asked what would happen if he and I shook hands? I told her that I would think he would be repulsed and I would be very ashamed. That I don’t even know how he could sit there with me in the same room for the whole 45 minutes. That one time I asked him if he ever terminated with a client, and he said he did three times – once someone physically assaulted him, and two times women came on to him. I wanted to be sure that he never thought I would do that.

Art T said that if she and I talk about my therapy with J it could be very therapeutic to me, we could uncover some deeper issues that I have, despite the fact that she wasn’t actually there with us. She asked me if anyone else has ever responded the way J did when I asked him if he found what he was looking for on my blog, and I said that my husband frequently doesn’t answer my questions. She asked if anyone from the past did that, and I couldn’t think of anything except for my mother sometimes invalidating me, but she didn’t actually ever lie, she really believed what she said.

J said that therapists and clients have reenactments of other relationships. I told Art T that I asked him what it is about me that makes people respond to me in a certain way all of the time (he frequently responded to me the way my mother would). I can’t remember what he said, but Art T said that people often are attracted to the same type of person, so it’s not me that is doing anything, it is that I surround myself with a particular kind of person and that is why I often get the same response.

We never got to do the mask, but I brought it home so I could work on it here. It’s kind of strange to me that we spent the whole session talking about J, but I think it brought up other things. And I decided, with her help, to put the J/goodbye issue on the shelf in a box for now. I’m not avoiding it or denying it, just tabling it for a while. She said I could certainly tell him that I want to continue the break for a while, and I asked her if I owe him anything. She said I don’t, I am a paying client, but somehow it seems disrespectful to just ignore him, so I know I’ll do something at some point. Maybe I’ll send him that email I wrote. I don’t know, I’m not going to think about it now.

Oct 16 2012

Art T Recap 10/15/12

When I got to Art T yesterday I told her that according to my story I had cancer for 43 days. I had looked at the story that I wrote, and when I was talking about it with her last week I couldn’t remember exactly how many days it was. She said she would like me to bring in the story and read it to her, she said she likes when the client reads their writing to her, but she could read it if I didn’t want to. I told her that it really wasn’t that interesting, I don’t think she would learn much about me from the story, but in the writing class I took I did write some stories that she might be interested in. I told her about the writing class and how it was emotionally hard for me, and how I dropped out, then went back, and that we have reunions every few months. I try not to write anything too emotional because I have a hard time reading my stories to the group.

She asked if we could talk more about myself – my childhood, my husband, my kids, etc – but I said that I would really like to work on the blocks I have in starting this new health coaching business. We did that for a while, talked about the difficulty I have in calling people, asking people for things, charging money for my services, etc. CBT techniques. Somehow this led to some deep stuff.

This is what I always thought I would want with J. He wanted surface stuff, and I wanted deep stuff, and he said by working on the day to day things the deeper stuff would come out, but it never did with him. It certainly did with Art T yesterday! We somehow got onto the subject of how when I was a child I never felt normal, I was very weird. She asked in what ways I thought I was weird and I said I was socially inept, I was introverted, I thought about different things than the other kids and I was ugly. I had told all of this to J, but I’m not sure I ever actually told him that I was an ugly child.

Art T asked at what age I was when I wasn’t ugly anymore. I thought she was tricking me or something. I didn’t understand the question. I said there was no age when I wasn’t ugly anymore, and she acted surprised. She said she didn’t view me as ugly at all, that she actually saw me as attractive. (Not pretty or beautiful or good looking, but attractive.) I think I started to cry at this point. I asked her if this was a trick, and she said it wasn’t a trick, that there are no tricks. She said “You experience yourself as ugly?” Which is a very strange way to put words together I think. I said, “I know what I look like.” She asked about what particular things I think are ugly and I mentioned quite a few, and the things I thought were ugly about myself when I was young.

I told her she was being nice to me and telling me I am attractive because that is what a therapist is supposed to do for their clients. She said that when she says something to a client she has to believe it. She said “if someone was ugly” and “I don’t even know exactly what that would be”, she would not say something to them that she didn’t believe.

She asked if I always thought I was ugly and if I look at childhood photos of me do I think I am ugly. I said that I was cute until I was about 3. All kids under the age of 4 or 5 are cute, I taught nursery school so I know that. I told her about an old family video I was watching with my aunt and there was a cute little girl in the video. I asked my aunt who that little girl was, and she said it was me. The little girl was really really cute. She was 2 years old.

Things kind of got difficult. I do this thing where when there is something that is making me anxious or I don’t want to think about, I sing the ABC song in my head. I find myself doing this when Art T is talking to me. I can hear her, but not hear her, you know? I don’t think she notices, but I should tell her that I do this. It’s not respectful for me to sing in my head while she is telling me important things. She kept talking about a young part of me and that part not getting what it needed. That my parents didn’t act like “Oh what a great little girl we have, she likes to sit home and read books, and she thinks about things that other kids don’t think about!” And something about how my father and sister were sick a lot so I didn’t ask to get my needs met.

It was very difficult. The whole body image/appearance subject is hard for me, and the times it came up with J I would back off and he wouldn’t press. But Art T was asking me questions and really delving into what she calls the “young part”. I guess this is what I wanted from therapy, but it is hard. I was singing pretty darn loudly in my head!

Art T was talking a lot about how you can know something logically but not feel it to be true because there is a young part that doesn’t understand logic. I asked her how to fix that problem, and she said it involves taking care of the young part and showing it compassion and being nice to it, etc. I have read a lot about having compassion for oneself, and I don’t really understand it. I told her that I thought it was somewhat narcissistic, and she said that it isn’t, that if you are compassionate to yourself you can be more compassionate to others.

It’s not really a big deal anymore, being ugly. I mean, at my age no one teases me or bullies me about my appearance, or even about my weirdness. There are attractive people, and beautiful people, and pretty people, and ugly people. It’s a fact. Growing up as an ugly child can be difficult, you know kids are mean. J is very good looking. He is one of the most attractive people I have seen. He is like Brad Pitt gorgeous, which is one of the reasons he was so intimidating to me. Perfect face, incredibly fit body, great hair, the whole package.

Art T is very pretty. But she is a little overweight, and she doesn’t wear makeup…she is just right, very approachable, not intimidating at all. We talked a little about weight yesterday, and how I perceive myself as a big person. I am big, I am tall for a woman and I have broad shoulders, long arms and legs, big feet. I believe that I am at a healthy weight, and she asked me what I thought of my weight. It was hard to talk about body and weight stuff with J because he was perfect, and it is hard to talk about body and weight stuff with Art T because she is a little overweight. Or maybe it isn’t them at all, maybe it is just difficult for me to talk about it with anyone.

I didn’t feel well after the session. I did go to job #1, but didn’t go to job #2. I had physical therapy in the afternoon, which was good, physical pain is better than emotional pain. I had a couple glasses of wine last night and watched a Jason Bourne movie. One good thing I did was to call my first prospective client, he had expressed an interest in working with me as a health coach, and all I had to do was call him to set up an appointment, and I did it, even though I had been putting it off because it was so outside of my comfort zone. Art T and I had talked about it at my session, and I did it.

But I also had bad dreams. And a bad night in general. The dog woke up in the night and wanted to go out, and then I wasn’t sure she came back so I started wandering around the house looking for her, and she was in the bedroom the whole time. And H was snoring a lot. And close to the morning I had a very bad dream in which someone was forcing me to make someone else drink bleach. I have no idea where the hell that came from. So today I had a therapy hangover as well as a dream hangover. Whew. I am tired.

Art T wants me to find photos from my childhood and bring them in to show her. That is fine with me, then she’ll see that I really was an ugly kid.

Oct 12 2012

Thoughts on J

I think that I am thinking too much about my therapy with J and how I didn’t leave despite knowing it wasn’t right for me. I hate having regrets. I knew it wasn’t right, my blog readers told me it wasn’t right, and I was just stuck and couldn’t leave.

I suppose I have to consider my frame of mind at the time. Two years ago I was suicidal and hurting myself and isolating and I was a mess. I have to cut myself some slack, I was really not in a good place and it would have been very hard to go around interviewing new therapists. Although I did see parrot t! And then my cousin overdosed, and then I got cancer, and it was never a good time to leave. I don’t know, maybe I am just making excuses for myself.

The MBTI Facebook group was making some posts these last couple of weeks with tips on how to work with the different personality types.

This is what they say about my type, INFJ:

1. Tips for working with individuals with preferences for INFJ:
1) Take time to develop rapport and get to know them;
2) Highlight and build on personal strengths;
3) Listen to and acknowledge complex, far-reaching personal vision and dreams;
4) Focus on finding, defining, and working toward a personal sense of purpose;
5) Provide support and encouragement throughout the process.

And this is what they have to say about J’s type, ESFJ:

Insights for working with individuals with preferences for ESFJ:
1) Follow a clear, structured, step-by-step process;
2) Help them set and achieve immediate, concrete goals;
3) Share examples of real people and their success stories;
4) Provide practical, factual information;
5) Monitor and reward specific efforts and results.

No wonder our styles didn’t mesh. He was always giving examples of real people and their stories, and I found it very annoying. And he is very goal oriented, and he said that I am too, but I don’t really see that. He had no patience for my far reaching personal vision and dreams, or that I wanted to work towards a personal sense of purpose. As far as getting to know me, I do believe he tried, but he didn’t understand me. That’s ok, most people don’t.

I think Art T is some version of NFP, I don’t know her well enough to know if she is I or E.

But tips for working with an INFP are:

1) Share perspectives and information about career development theory;
2) Use metaphors and analogies to explain the development process;
3) Listen carefully to their dreams and visions for the future;
4) Explore broad options without immediately coming to closure or making judgments;
5) Provide inspirational stories, especially of people achieving dreams.

ENFP:

1) Approach them with energy and enthusiasm; focus on opportunities for growth;
2) Develop rapport and demonstrate interest in them as individuals;
3) Focus on mentoring and/or coaching rather than directing or structuring the process;
4) Listen to, acknowledge, and appreciate their idealistic ideas before turning to realities;
5) Support them and encourage decision making and follow-through.

Both of those types sound like they would understand me. One thing that continues to bother me is that once I figured out J’s personality type I tried to change my communication style so that he would understand me better. And that did work, but in the end I didn’t get the kind of therapy that I wanted, and he thought I finally became “competent” at therapy and was doing it the way he wanted.

I told Art T about the time that I made out a script on index cards to give to J so that he would say what I wanted him to say. Art T said there isn’t a more concrete “in your face” method of telling someone that the way they are communicating with me isn’t working! But it didn’t really work.

I had a dream about J last night, I can’t really remember what it was about. I have dreamt about him before, but I don’t believe that I have ever seen his face in a dream. I have dreamed about trying to get to a session and getting lost, in another dream he was driving and I was in the back seat, in another dream I was in his office and he wasn’t there. But in last night’s dream we were doing therapy.

I wonder if I’ll ever talk to him again.

Aug 6 2012

August update

Hello readers, if any of you still check here. I thought I would post a little update.

I am taking a therapy break, last Tuesday was my last day for three months. My daughter is going to Europe to do a semester abroad and I want her to be able to travel as much as possible while she is there. The $500 a month I spend on therapy would be better served for her travels, hence the break.

I’m not upset about the break, although I do find myself thinking about J and about therapy every day. At our last session I asked him some questions about therapy and about my progress and I had a list of things that I think I need more work on.

I didn’t want to leave therapy with anything up in the air, but of course that is what happened. I asked J, “How important is it to talk about feelings vs things to do, things to say, behaviors, etc?” and J said that he is solution oriented, and that I am too. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I know he is solution oriented, which seems opposite from his supposed “psychodynamic” approach. Perhaps it is because it is difficult for me to talk about my emotions that he feels I am solution oriented. He also says I am goal oriented, although right now I don’t feel that I have any goals.

On my list of things that I still need work on is: Identifying emotions and figuring out what to do with them.

Maybe he is not fully aware that I continue to use less than great coping mechanisms when I am confronted with a difficult emotion. This is much less severe than it used to be, but whenever I feel a bad feeling my first reaction is to reach for a bottle of wine. I would like to learn what to do with these emotions when they surface, rather than just drink.

Also on my list was “do something about my marriage” and “body image issues”. I said these two things are very hard to talk about, and he said that whenever the topics come up I back off right away. But I really should do something about my marriage in particular, as I told J, if I don’t die I could live another 40 years. What the hell am I supposed to do for 40 years?

I asked him if it is worth talking about the past, and he said if it comes up in relation to something that is happening now, then yes, but basically we should concentrate on the here and now. The reason I asked this is because I was with a friend last month and we were talking about our mothers. I remembered a couple of things that my mother did (or didn’t do) and I thought maybe those were things I could talk about in therapy. But really, what would be the point? We know that my problems relate back to my relationship with my mother, so is it necessary to rehash every little thing?

I asked J how he feels about me going off my meds, and he said as long as I don’t have side effects I should stay on them. I asked if more therapy would be beneficial for me and he said I can function without it (my pdoc doesn’t seem to think so) and it won’t hurt (can’t be too sure of that) and it can certainly help.

I told him that I realize there might not be room for me when I want to come back, and he said there would always be a place for me in his practice. When I left he said I could email him every week or two. I don’t know why he would say that, I certainly don’t want to do therapy by email. I am looking for a great thank you card to send him though.

I’m wondering if I will want to go back. If I do go back we are going to have to talk about how intimidating he is to me. This is a serious impediment to my therapy, and when I bring it up he brushes it off. So if I can’t get past that I don’t know if I will continue.

I have been seeing J for 4 years. For some reason that makes me feel somewhat ashamed, but a lot has happened in those 4 years. At first I was just screwed up, then I got suicidal, then my cousin overdosed, then I got cancer. Whew. He was there for all of that. I can’t say that about anyone else in real life.

My box and my rock are still on his bookshelf. He didn’t ask me to take them home with me, and I kind of forgot about them. So maybe there is a little piece of me still in his office.

Dec 26 2011

Family Therapy Recap and a Christmas Hike

Last Thursday my husband, son and I met with the first family therapist that we are interviewing. I wasn’t particularly crazy about him on the phone, he kept referring to himself as Dr. C, even when he called me back he said “This is Dr. C.” No first name, and his last name is an extremely common name, as a matter of fact I have another doctor named Dr. C. He also has a voice similar to my son’s old therapist, and the photo of him on his website reminded me of my son’s old therapist as well. But I thought we would give it a try.

His waiting room was small, but decorated very nicely. One of the walls was painted a terracotta color, which was really attractive. He came out to get us and shook each of our hands saying, “Hi, I’m Dr. C” each time. His office is beautiful, large and with color and comfy furniture. No beige at all. He did remind me a bit of my son’s therapist, but he was dressed like an adult, unlike how my son’s therapist dressed. He had on a collared shirt with a nice sweater over it, dark pleated wool trousers, dark socks and dress shoes.

Dr. C asked what brought us there and I told him that my son seems to be having a case of “failure to launch”.

He spent a lot of time asking my son questions, and I thought they were good questions. It turns out that he has the same kind of dog we do, but his is a 6 month old male. He even told us the dog’s name, and we talked wheaten terriers for a while. I tried not to talk much, I wanted my son to talk, and even though I didn’t have high expectations for it, I wanted my husband to talk. Of course he didn’t say much, and he didn’t exactly say what he felt. For example Dr. C asked me why my son doesn’t drive, and I said I thought it was a combination of his anxiety, panic disorder, poor fine and gross motor skills, and spatial issues. I said, “But that is just my opinion, my husband thinks differently.” So Dr. C asked my husband why my son doesn’t drive and he answered, “I don’t know, he started out driving when he was 16, but then just stopped. I don’t know why.” Which is bullshit, because he always said the reason my son doesn’t drive is because he is lazy.

Dr. C said that if we do decide to use him as our therapist he would like to meet with our son a few times alone. He wants to establish some trust with him, and he feels that my son perhaps isn’t answering questions honestly because “mom is in the room.” Nothing about dad of course, just me, I am the reason my son can’t be honest.

Another thing that bothered me is that Dr. C belonged to the same synagogue that we did. He was close to the rabbi, as a matter of fact the rabbi married he and his wife. I was close to the rabbi because I worked in the preschool at the synagogue. Then the rabbi turned out to be a pedophile and went to jail. Dr. C said he visited him in jail.

My failure to get my son what he needed in school despite having him tested and having many many school meetings came up in the conversation. Dr. C tried to make me feel better by saying that our county is notoriously difficult to deal with when getting services for a student. I said that, no, I was just unable to get him services because I wasn’t assertive enough, and I wasn’t knowledgeable enough, and I wasn’t smart enough. My husband couldn’t participate in this conversation at all because he was not involved in my son’s education in any way. He had no clue what went on for the 7 years I was trying to get my son an IEP. I did all of the explaining to Dr. C about my son’s educational difficulties.

Dr. C said this would be hard work, and we’d all have to step out of our comfort zones, but that he would support us in the difficulties.

We all thought he was nice enough, and my son said he would think about whether he wants to meet with a therapist on a one-on-one basis. My concerns are that he didn’t draw my husband into the conversation much, he didn’t ask him any questions, and I will be the one dealing with all of this while my husband flies under the radar, which is how it always is. I’m having second thoughts about family therapy. Maybe things aren’t so bad the way they are. I don’t want our situation to get worse, and if it does it will be my fault. Dr. C also lives near us (I googled him) and that might be a little close for comfort.

We meet family therapist #2 in the middle of January.

Yesterday was Christmas and I went on a hike up a local mountain with 17 people I didn’t know. I found the group on meetup.com. They were all very nice people, I chatted with two or three of them for a while. It was a beautiful day, sunny and not too hot or cold. The hike ended up being 8.5 miles, and we were out there for 5 hours, but actually walking for three. I’m sore today, I guess I’m not used to climbing mountains, even little ones like this one is.

I was observing the other hikers, and they all seemed to be alone and/or lonely. I guess if a person has nothing to do on Christmas it might mean that they are alone in their lives. No one talked about a spouse or children. A couple people had moved to the area recently and didn’t seem to have many or any friends. I’d like to hike with them again, hiking seems to be a good activity for introverts like me.

Dec 17 2011

Validating Feelings

I received a comment on the blog the other day concerning the issue of validating feelings. J had told me a long time ago that he does not validate feelings. I have written about this in the past, and I thought I would repost some old blog posts.

12/08:

J gave me two or three examples of things I’ve told him that have been very valuable and he acknowledged that those things must have been difficult for me to talk about. I like when he acknowledges that instead of just trying to resolve things or explain things, it’s nice to hear “that sounds like it was difficult for you.” I guess I need to have my feelings validated every once in a while, which sounds ridiculous. They are my feelings, what difference should it make whether anyone validates them? But, that’s the way I am.

5/13/09

Other thoughts I have are that I am wishing J was more like therapists on TV and in the movies. But I guess what I am realizing is that therapy is not a pity party for me. I don’t tell him my problems and he kindly says, “How difficult that must be for you,” or “I can see that makes you feel sad.” No, I tell him my problems and he tells me my thinking is wrong, or I’m not being logical. Well, yes, those things are true. And maybe if what I need is a pity party I should be talking to someone else. I don’t have any else to talk to though. I’m feeling like I need to have my feelings validated rather than challenged though. But just the fact of needing that makes me ashamed.

5/09

J does validate feelings sometimes though:

I wrote to J telling him I can’t write to him about my problems because it sounds like I’m whining. He responded by saying, “No problem. If writing makes you feel worse, don’t do it.” I thought that was nice. He didn’t try to convince me that it’s his job to listen to people’s problems and that he doesn’t consider it whining and complaining. So I sent him an email thanking him for acknowledging my feelings and not trying to give me logic. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to talk to him about my problems, but it’s nice having my feelings validated.

6/09:

But J said he understands – I am feeling hurt and unsupported, I’m feeling strong feelings, and now I want to run away. Which is nice that he understands, but how is this supposed to help me?

That time he did validate my feelings and my response was “How is that supposed to help me?”

I know I’m difficult, but this is ridiculous!

8/09

I did finally confront him with this at a session we had in August 2009. I said “it seems that whenever I mention an instance where my feelings are hurt you come up with excuses and reasons why they would say whatever it was they said. It makes me feel like my feelings are wrong, and you say that feelings aren’t wrong or right, they just are.” He said, “It’s true, feelings aren’t right or wrong.” Then he said a bunch of stuff, about why he comes up with reasons that people say things, he could say they are rude or ignorant, or he could just say nothing and let it be. I said, “What would be wrong with saying nothing and letting it be?” He said that he thought I needed to hear reasons in order to make things more logical, but there is nothing wrong with saying nothing.

8/25/09

I think he really gets that I am passionate about things, and he gets that I am sensitive about things, and I appreciate that. He doesn’t make me feel weird or unusual for feeling strongly about my values, and I appreciate that also. But when someone makes me feel uncomfortable and I tell him about it, I don’t really want him to give me reasons why they would say that. I guess I want him to validate my feelings, and maybe later when I’ve processed my feelings about it, then I can logicalize the situation. I don’t know, does that make sense?

1/5/10

J and I talked about how he doesn’t validate feelings. He asked me what validating feelings looks like, he gave me a couple of examples which weren’t validating at all. I told him that not only were they not validating, they were actually invalidating. I know he knows what feelings validation looks like, and I guess he wanted to know what it means to me, but I think it means the same to everyone, doesn’t it?

I didn’t press the issue and just told him what I thought a good statement would be to validate someone’s feelings: “That must be hard for you.” Not: “You’re not a bad person, you do x, y and z, and you should do a, b and c to make yourself feel better.” I hate that. Then not only does a person feel bad about something, but they feel wrong about feeling bad. What’s wrong with saying, “That must be hard for you.” I told him that a statement like that makes me feel that someone has empathy for me, that they understand I am feeling badly, that they are not judging me, and that they are there for me. All that from six words.

J said he doesn’t validate feelings. He says it doesn’t serve any purpose to validate feelings; I guess in the long run it doesn’t fix anything, but it can make a person feel understood. That’s something, I think.

And we talked about whether it is necessary for a person to have their feelings validated, I said I didn’t think so, it’s just a nice thing. He said I could validate my own feelings. It’s something to work towards.

1/9/10

J has said many times that feelings are not good or bad, they just are. I always wonder whether I have the “right” to feel a certain way, and I think he would say that it doesn’t have anything to do with rights. If I feel something, I feel it. It is what it is and it’s not right or wrong. I read somewhere else that “feelings aren’t facts.” I kind of like that.

J likes to explain reasons why someone might have said or done something when I say they hurt my feelings. If a friend says to me, “I would never let my daughter take a fifth year of college” after I say that my son is going to need a fifth year of college, I will feel hurt because I think she is criticizing me. However, J says that perhaps my friend is saying this because she is anxious herself about whether her daughter will need a fifth year of college, and my comment brought out her anxiety and she needs to make herself feel better. I’m still hurt, and that is my feeling, but if I can see the bigger picture perhaps I can let it slide more easily and dismiss the hurt more quickly.

The problem is when he goes too far with this technique to the point where I believe that he is actually INvalidating my feelings. We had a conversation once in which I was expressing how miserable I was being tall when I was growing up. I was taller than everyone in my family and taller than all of my friends. His response was, “I would think everyone would want to be tall.” So not only was I feeling miserable about being tall, I am now feeling like I was wrong to feel miserable about being tall because everyone wants to be tall. But I was miserable being tall, and I can’t change those feelings. It would have been nice for him to say, “That sucked.” Once he said that, he could move on to say that everyone else wants to be tall, or at least they think they want to be tall. But I think: what difference does it make how other people feel about their height? I was miserable, no matter how they feel.

Nov 15 2011

Therapy Recap 11/15/11

I started right in by telling J that I was thinking about things we talked about last week (I didn’t tell him the session got me upset, and after reading my blog post about that session I can’t figure out why I did get upset). I sort of made a verbal bullet list for him:

• I went back and read my story about my medical situation, and I had written something about my husband, but I took it out

• I could never give my husband a formal thank you for his support during that time, and I can’t believe J even asked me to do that. I said that he may as well have told me to go out and get a million dollars and come back next week and let him know how it went.

• I saw my pdoc last week and I was in a bad mood and she doesn’t want me to go off of my wellbutrin and she told me I was better when I had cancer. She said if my relationship with my husband was better I would be happy and my life would be complete, and he says if I volunteer until I become a grandmother I would be happy and my life would be complete.

• I had a fight with my husband, but I think it worked out ok in the end

I thought that took about 10 minutes to go through, but it was probably more like 2 minutes.

Then I sat back and waited.

He asked me about my story for the writing class reunion, and did I take my husband out after we talked about it in the session last week. I told him that I had taken my husband out before last week’s session because I didn’t like that part of the story.

We talked about how I can’t thank my husband for his support, and he said does it make it a little easier for me maybe, because I know that my husband stepped slightly out of his comfort zone to offer his support. That maybe I could step a little out of my comfort zone. Then he gave a long analogy about two people flirting in a bar, and how it is like going up a ladder, one person says x and the other says y, and then they go to the next level, or perhaps they don’t say y they say q, and then it doesn’t go any farther…….

We moved on to my pdoc telling me I was better when I had cancer. I said that I don’t remember if she used the actual word “better”, but that was the impression I got. She might have said I was more engaged. We talked about how I had isolated myself and become disengaged from friends and family over the last couple of years, but it seemed to get better this year. I said that my cousin’s hospital stay from her overdose, and my medical situation were distractions from my life.

J told me something he had already told me, but I listened again. He said at one time in his practice he had 5 or 6 women who all had anxiety about things in their lives, but when a true disaster struck – illness, death of a spouse, etc – they were totally functional and in control. He told me that he was thinking about me before the session and how situations with me always come back to the same questions:

Am I good enough?
Do I have value?
Do people like me?
Do people love me?
Do I love myself?

Makes me sound pathetic.

He asked me if I had a “project” would I feel more engaged, valued, etc. I said that is what I have been trying to say for the last two years. When my children grew up and left home I lost my purpose in life. Maybe he finally understands this now?

He told me a story about someone who worked for six years on child safety seat laws. He asked me if some kind of activism would give me a purpose.

Then he asked if my relationship with my husband was better, would that satisfy my need for purpose? I said no, and he asked why not, and I said that I don’t want my sense of purpose to be dependent on other people. My husband could be gone in a second, just like my kids, and with them went my purpose. He said a purpose doesn’t have to be one thing, it can be multiple things….

We talked about the fight I had with my husband, and I told him the whole story. He never actually said that when I apologized, or when I told my husband what would be a good thing to say, was a good thing, so I don’t know what he really thought. He did ask if after all of that I felt more emotionally connected to my husband (was he really asking if we had sex?) I told him that, no, I did not feel more emotionally connected to my husband, we made up, and things went back to normal, like being roommates. Then I asked him what is an emotional connection anyway, and we talked about that for a while and he explained cognitive dissonance and I told him about when we were in New Orleans and I saw a guy with a hat from my hometown football team and we immediately bonded and talked about where we are from, and the teams we like, etc. I guess that is an emotional connection? Or it is cognitive dissonance.

I told him that I think my husband is clueless, but doesn’t mean to hurt me or be mean. J agreed. I told him that normally in a situation with my husband when it got to the part where he doesn’t say anything and walks out of the room, I stuff my feelings and stew about it, and after multiple times it builds up negative feelings. But this time I said something when he didn’t say anything and walked out of the room. As a matter of fact, the whole episode of the fight/make up was much different from how I usually behave. J asked me what I thought caused me to be different, and I said I don’t know. He suggested that perhaps it was because my husband has been more supportive to me lately, or perhaps it was because J told me last week to thank my husband for his support.

Then J asked me if I run with a gps watch so I can monitor the elevation, and how even though going up hill is difficult the fact that you know there will be a downhill soon makes it easier. And he compared that to a relationship, ups and downs, you know if you are in a difficult time, an easier time must be coming. Then he said something about “make up sex”, and I was surprised and I guess my face showed it, and he said he was using it as an example of ups and downs and there is even a term for the ups – make up sex.

I think that was about it. I left feeling ok, I didn’t feel as though I had left anything unsaid, I hate when that happens. Maybe J finally gets the “existential angst” I have been feeling and that he never wanted to talk about. He uses different wording – I need a “cause”. That’s not exactly right, but much closer than he was before.

One weird thing was that he brought up my cousin, and how I seemed engaged during the time I was taking care of her. The weird part is he called her by her name. I have never told J anyone’s name, I say “my husband”, “my aunt”, “my new boss”, “my old boss”, etc. But during the cousin in the hospital time I guess I let my guard down and called my cousin by her name. So when he talked about her he didn’t say “When your cousin was in the hospital”, he said “When Lori was in the hospital.” That kind of made me feel uncomfortable, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because he doesn’t even know her and he is calling her by her name. I know most people use names in therapy, I suppose as a way to be sure the therapist knows who is who. But how can a therapist remember everyone’s name? I’m surprised J even remembered that one name.

Harriet M. Welch

Category Archives: Psychology