Not much to report about my session yesterday. I started by talking about how I used to self harm. I said “that is pretty disgusting isn’t it?” J said that is not the word he would use. I asked him why I did that, and he talked about self harm for a while. He remembered the collage I made about it, I had forgotten about that. It was actually a slide show, but I just gave him the photos. Here is a link to the collage. Here is a link to the slideshow if you want to see it, it is the second one.
He asked me why I was thinking about it and told him how I was alone all weekend and that is when I would self harm, but I came up with things to do and I didn’t watch any bad movies or drink. I told him that Thanksgiving coming up is causing some of my grief.
He wanted to know why I hate Thanksgiving. I didn’t really want to get into the whole story, so I gave an abbreviated version. Then we spent the rest of the session talking about how to get through Thanksgiving day. I hate sessions like that – I could read that on hundreds of blogs “8 Ways to Get Through Thanksgiving.” He was asking “What will you do if xyz happens?”, or “What can you say if someone says abc?”
We talked about why I am angry and resentful about Thanksgiving and his suggestion was to move on from that. He said it’s not fair, but that is the way it is. I agreed that the whole thing sounds so stupid and juvenile, I’m not 12 years old after all. I guess I should put it all behind me and just be happy and full of glee at Thanksgiving with my husband’s family.
I mentioned that I wasn’t sure if I should come next week, and he said ok. I said, “don’t you want to know why?” I told him that the session after Thanksgiving last year was one of the worst ever, and I have no reason to believe that would happen again but I’m just superstitious. He said he was sure we could handle having a productive session next week.
Last year a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving I had sent J a long email, which I frequently did back then, and he encouraged it. Then he would send me back an email that would say “You have a lot of good thoughts in this email, and we should cover them in our sessions. It could take a few weeks to cover everything.” Then we would talk about it the next session, not have time to finish, and the next week he would forget that we were in the middle of discussing the email and I would be hurt. So last year the session after Thanksgiving was one of those where I thought we would finish an email discussion from the week before, and J forgot about it. When I reminded him he said he thought we covered everything “at least on the surface”. He got frustrated with me because I spent the rest of the time talking about dealing with stuff on the surface. At the end of the session he said, “When you came in you told me that you didn’t go to your family’s Thanksgiving dinner. That would have been the perfect thing to talk about.”
That made me so angry because for months, even years, I had told him that I didn’t know what to talk about, and he said I could talk about anything. But that was obviously untrue.
I don’t send emails anymore.
Now I talk more about things that J likes to talk about. He asked me a few weeks ago if I do that to appease him, and I said yes, but it is still helpful. But I still don’t have anyone to talk to about the deep stuff. He didn’t really have a response for that.
If you want to read about here is a link to the blog post.
I gave him a rock at that session, I wonder if he still has it.
I sense that you’re feeling a lot of resentment. Resentment that Thanksgiving isn’t how you would like it to be and finding a way to get what YOU need out of therapy is hard when you feel you have to balance the needs of your therapist.
Harriet, you really should be able to talk about what YOU want to in therapy and J should be helping you to discuss what is important to you. I’ve been in the same trap and it’s hard not to cater to what other people want/need in relationships instead of getting what you need/want too.
Obviously, I don’t speak from experience in being able to find this balance in relationships. The only thing I do know is saying that hard shit in therapy – the stuff you’re really thinking and feeling in those times when you just want to pull away and be angry in silence – those are the times to speak.
From what you’ve wrote, I think that J, like any human, can go on the defensive, so approaching any discussion would have to be thought out to avoid fallout or a bigger disagreement, but really…..therapy is where we’re supposed to work it out right? Figure it out in therapy and then apply to “real” life.
If I can offer some unsolicited advice, it would be to get this on the table with J. Even if it’s from last year, bring it up and work through it. Ask him if he can be that person for you. The person who you can get deep with. If he can’t be, then ask for suggestions on finding someone who can, because it’s obviously what you (and everyone!) needs.
Obviously therapists do guide us, but therapy is supposed to be about what WE need. You should be able to express this and find out if J can help you or not, because if he can’t, you need to know it so you don’t keep looking and hoping for it and end up with resentment instead.
Love you sooooo much Harriet. If this has been too preachy or too in your face, please accept my apologies in advance. I hate seeing you struggle with this and I want you to be able to get through this.
So I see that that session last year was very painful for you. I wonder if that was because it brought out the real fundamental differences between what you want in therapy and what J offers? But because it was painful doesn’t mean it wasn’t revealing or important, IMO.
I agree with Sanity that you need to basically, fight or move on. You need to keep raising the issues you want to talk about. You’re not paying J to keep him in his comfort zone. That is just so wrong, to appease him. And he doesn’t fight you on that? That doesn’t even bother him?
I think you could do a lot better with a therapist who is on the same page as you are, however, I know you don’t want to move. He just sounds so terribly bad sometimes. Or, to be more diplomatic, focused on a kind of therapy you are not looking for.
He is a professional, and should not be defensive no matter what you raise with him. The fact that he does get defensive is not a good sign.
However, only you are in that therapy hour. I know sometimes I post about my session, where I fight with my T, and commenters do tell me to look for someone else, but I have no wish to do so. It could be the same for you, I don’t know.
Here on your side Harriet. take care
J does seem to miss you completely sometimes (though it will be different for you having been in the session).
I think you are still a 12 year old in one sense. And so am I and so are most people reading this. And the way to move on is to get that person’s needs met. Frustrating a need doesn’t move us on from it – it leads to either us being more frustrated or habitually closed down in some way.
Hope Thanksgiving is an enjoyable time for you.
sanity – Thank you for your comment, it is not preachy or in my face, as a matter of fact it has given me a lot of think about. It is very hard for me to do what I need, rather than what other people need. And it is hard to overcome that in therapy, which is the place where it should be worked on.
Ellen – Yes, I know I need to keep talking about what is important to me, or maybe at least tell J that I don’t feel that I can talk about what is important to me because I feel that I need to talk about what he wants to talk about. And it does trouble me when he gets defensive, especially because he will then say “I am not defensive.” You bring up excellent points, thank you.
Evan – How does one get the 12 year old part’s needs met? And thank you, I did actually have a nice Thanksgiving.
Hi Harriet, roughly there are two ways.
Recalling what you needed as a 12 year old and doing it now (eg. Your own bike or ear rings or whatever).
If you can’t remember clearly that time of your life paying attention to when you feel like this and seeing what you need then (maybe to speak up against a peer group instead of going along to fit in or pursuing something you are interested in even if it is just a passing fancy). The examples have to do with my 12 year old self not necessarily yours.