Confused about my T feelings - please advise

[Gaining Strength]

Ales2 - years ago I remembered an aunt complaining about my behaviour to another adult by saying, "She is just trying to get attention". When this memory flashed back I saw in an instant that I needed attention. 

I don't know if those of us with N parents are so different from others with their own wounds but the need for being hear, affirmed, acknowledged and loved is huge.  From my current perspective, knowing what I need and what I would give were I a therapist, Ts should reflect back the pain we are in and help us see how the absence of the love and empathy we needed plays into a particular struggle.

Here you are pointing to something your mother said about you when you were 8.  You can get right to that memory and see its roll in part of this block but as children we often needed affirmation and acknowledgement of what we witnessed particularly when it goes against human nature.  N parents actions are mostly a violation of human nature and it leaves the child struggling to put these harmful actions into order.  So often we put them in order in favor of the parent rather than the child and we are left with a lifetime need to correct it.

What your mother said was wrong.  It was unnatural.  Most mothers want and long for the best for their children and will fight to the death for it. That little 8 year old needed someone to fight for her and when she reappeared to your therapist a over a year ago your therapist should have fought for her then. She needed someone to stand up for her.

I have found that many therapists come to the profession to dal with their own wounds.  Some never do and are easily triggered by their clients.  It is a very bad time for the client as it can be a reaffirmation of the original wound making it ever so much more entrenched.

[Hopalong]

Hi Ales,
Found myself re-reading the whole thread and something popped out to me,
hope it might be helpful.

I got weird feelings from him. Some was:
his judgment of me for wallowing in self pity, jealousy, disappointment;
some was like a cruel irony like I don't deserve it or are not capable of it anyway (which really hurt)
some was lack of compassion or validation for my feelings of failure and despair
some was just feeling awkward, hurt and taken advantage of, I opened up to him more than any other person, trusted him and I got nothing in return from him

It occurred to me that the ones I've bolded...were feelings you ascribed to him. The rest are your own.
But for those you ascribed to him...I found myself thinking: That would be reading his mind. Assuming that you know exactly what he was thinking or feeling.

So I wonder if in your sensitivity to what you assume or what you interpreted from facial expression...that you might be having this crushing disappointment
or anger at Ts, based on false information?

I know that with my Nmother, because she was kind of emotionally blank, I was forever ascribing feelings and intention to her, and now, I believe that half
the time I was flat-out wrong, or simply making it up. Because in my own inner narrative, I NEEDED explanations for what wasn't there.

If your experience was anything like that, I wonder if you might possibly be chronically angry at Ts for not being expert, competent, ethical or reliable,
because you're "reading tea leaves" and assuming a lot of negativity present in them that might not really be there?

If a T SAYS to you things that make very clear they DO feel all those feelings/judgments you are saying you "pick up" or "get" from them, then I
take this all back.

But if they don't, I wonder if it might help to ask yourself: 'Is it possible that my fear is driving me to reject them before they hurt me like she did?'

xo
Hops

[Ales2]

GS- Thanks for your kind words and understanding there. You bring up a good point about whether validation is needed for the therapist to be good at his job, and I agree with Dr. G here in one of his essays where he says the therapuetic relationship with the T is what helps the voiceless overcome their invalidation and wounding. Bad therapy tends to ignore that.  In my case, the frustration is that the T is/ws an expert with NMothers, so he SHOULD know better.

But, HOPS, also brings up a good point, thats is possible I assigned meaning where there is none, or chose an unintended meaning. She could be right about that and in a couple of cases, I might agree. Fair enough, a helpful lesson for me not to be oversensitive, which brings me to my next point. One of the denials and invalidations of Nism, is "you made that up/it never occurred" and "you are oversensitive". I know that was not Hops intention here, but it also does remind me of the invalidation from earlier incidents.

Next, the point about seeing negativity when its not there and having a fear that drives me to reject are too good things to be aware of. I spent considerable time with him and I did complain about my lack of progress several times. This is a T who has a "moving on", lose the baggage checklist in his book, but never took me through the process and I was floundering. When I complained his answer was to book to more appointments, there was no discussion of alternate plans or therapies (besides medications, which I tried and voila, they did not work.)

The fear one I will think about. Fear is not really my thing, but I will get back to you on that one.

Thanks all for the input very helpful.

[Twoapenny]

My pet peeve with therapists is this:

Quote
Blaming people, life or your family is like wearing cement boots swimming & wondering why your drowning?? Own your life no-one else can!

Written by my former therapist on his twitter page. He doesn't seem to understand the negative conditioning and coping patterns that come from NMothers...except, guess what, he wrote a book about it.  Hard to believe that he can be this insensitive.  As a therapist, his job is to help his patients understand their maladaptive coping patterns from NMoms that interfere with them taking full responsibility for their life.  No wonder therapy with him did not work out.

Hi Ales,

Something I find irksome with self help books and/or motivational messages (or messages on Twitter, Facebook, etc) is that they're one dimensional and, as such, can be interpreted in different ways.  Part of what he says rings very true with me - it is your life, you do need to own it, it won't change unless you do, and so on and so forth.  But part of that, for many people, is working through things that have happened in the past and truly laying the blame for someone else's actions at that person's feet, rather than thinking or feeling that something we did was to blame for that happening (and we all know what that's like!).

In a later post you mention him supposedly being an expert in NMothers and that he should know better.  I think someone can be an 'expert' on an intellectual level - but not really understand or feel it all on an emotional level.  Personally I find the two are very different things and the two best therapists I've ever seen had been through similar experiences to me in their own lives (as I found out much later on) and therefore really understood a lot of things that I still didn't at that point.  And that was really important for me, having people who could actually name and label feelings and emotions for me.  We never talked about anything like that when I was a child, so I found I just couldn't talk about feelings at all, or even identify them - I'd never learnt how to.  Those women taught me how to do that.

Again, on a personal level, I found having female therapists incredibly good, because they gave me a lot of the mothering that I'd never had.  They genuinely cared about their clients, they were kind, patient, compassionate and, most importantly, very wise.  They knew when to push a little and when to pull back.  They knew when I needed space and when I needed to be encouraged.  They encouraged my anger - something I'd been shamed for my whole life and had never expressed.  I'll never forget an afternoon with one of them, a lady in her sixties who was very polite and well spoken.  We were talking about my step-dad and how he used to walk into my room whenever he wanted, regardless of whether I was dressed or not.  I'd never dared say a word to him about it when I was a teenager and I found that in counselling I still couldn't speak.  She said "what do you want to do" and I barely whispered "I don't want him to come in".  And she said "I give you permission to slam the door in his face and tell that bastard to f**k off!".  It was wonderful - it was what I wished my mum had done for all those years when she just ignored it.

I don't think this therapist sounds like a good one for you.  If I were you I'd avoid his Twitter page (and anything else he might be on) and maybe use what didn't work with him as a sort of check list of things to look out for if you ever do go into therapy again - or even if you just chat to people about things sometimes.  I have learnt to just trust my instincts now - there are some people I don't feel comfortable sharing with so I don't anymore.  I used to feel obliged to answer questions, even if they were inappropriate, now I'm learning to deflect and/or ignore them.

[river]

  Quote
Blaming people, life or your family is like wearing cement boots swimming & wondering why your drowning?? Own your life no-one else can!
 

There may be truth in this quote, but its simplistic and somewhat brutal, it skips a needed process of claiming and re-allocating responsibility. 

I have found this a very important subject, the 'allocation of responsibility'.   The simplest way I've ever heard it put is:  "We are not responsible for our wounds, but we are responsible for our recovery".   

At the same time, I have found that part of recovery is looking accurately at what happened, that includes the roles that people played.  With an Nmum, I went thro many years of utter disgust and aversion and anger with her.   In recovery I learnd techniques for detachment, I could then manage myself around her.  The damage done by that dynamic has been stupendous.   I see the whole thing with a sort of urgent sadness now.


 I have come to understand the whole thing about the developmental arrest and the N thing.  But taking responsibility for my life, and allocating it to others for what is theirs is still a learning process, to how to handle all that, and I still feel I'm at baby steps.  And still feel out of control over some of my reflex tendencies to shut down on myself.  (and regret laterthe moments I missed to express something).  This is a central growth issue for me.