Quick Question re: therapy obstacles

[Ales2]

Quick Question re: therapy obstacles

There usually comes a point where I cant go to therapy anymore because it tends to make me more depressed. Its kind of a disappointment, an obstacle that I have trouble getting over. I get this feeling that I am beyond hope for my troubles and that I am wasting my time. Some of it is also trusting the therapist with these feelings, I generally don't. I feel like they use these feelings to keep me coming back week after week wihtout really progressing. I've been burned so many times by letting someone see my weaknesses. When it happens, I feel permanently weakened in the eyes of this person and I cant recover.  So, I cant tell whether this is where I need to keep going, to overcome this obstacle and I'll reach my destination or if I am right in not continuing. 

Does anyone have any thoughts/experience to share about this one?

[Ami]

Dear ((Ales))

   I can tell you I understand TOTALLY what you are expressing. You said it so well. I think it is shame :a very deep self loathing.
 I have had that circular experience in my therapy experiences.
 My friend, whom I write about , pulls me OUT when I get self loathing and filled with shame. That leads me to believe that either the therapist was not healed enough himself to pull a patient out or perhaps wanted to keep them there.
 Either way, I know what you mean.
 I think you have to have a healthy person help you and they have to want your best interest. Finding that is very hard, IME.
           xxooo   Ami

[Ales2]

Dear Ami - thanks for your response and (). Much appreciated. I did think shame/self loathing was at the bottom of that. Thanks for validating my POV.
All the best to you too.

Alesia

[Hopalong]

Hi (((Ales2)))

You're not in their eyes.
It's their eyes fading with some judgment that comes from inside them, not from you being/doing.

Someone who condemns you, looks at you in a disparaging way...they've got a sight problem. They're losing their own precious ability to see...

You are separate from them, their busy thoughts. You're fine. They can think, blablabla, you're still fine.

But perhaps you feel as though you "leak" into the eyes of others, little pieces of yourself floating off, lodging in other people's faces, and you're not sure how to gather yourself together again. So you feel weaker.

It's only boundary stuff. Feeling entitled to a warm strong envelope of self, within which you are good and safe. You know you are good and you like your company.

I think Nsurvivors can create/layer/strengthen those envelopes. We can tuck ourselves in in a more contained way. Balanced inside ourselves, as though we've learned some emotional yoga.

Compassion for yourself. Loving thoughts that are sincere. Direct them at your inner girl, who's shaken by others. Talk her through it. Remind her she is learning and growing. That she's stronger than she knew.

It's only practice you need. You are not fatally leaky. You're just patching. You'll be stronger in those places.

hug,
Hops

[Ales2]

Thanks Hopalong for that. Very helpful.

The other thing that I have been learning - my brother whos on his second marriage and I've been always single, seems to think I am gaurded and he once told me that I needed "to break down the walls". When he said this, I was really pissed, because I was actively dating and putting myself out there, but no one was interested. What I learned was not about walls, but about boundaries. Mine were weak because they had been violated without me even realizing it - so it was not that I was guarded so much as I was unable to be open in a constructive way. I wasnt walling people off, I just needed them to accept my where I was coming from for anything to develop. I've come to view it as their loss, not mine.