healing | Tales of a Boundary Ninja

The Repair Part I

August 16, 2013 Attachment Girl 12 comments

I am back with the promised account of my last session. This post is the first of two (it got REALLY long). It was a very long, very intense session, so I’ll do my best to describe what happened. As in the last session that I described in Disruption and Rage, there are exchanges that stand out, but sometimes the order in which they occurred can get a bit fuzzy. And honestly, it feels like there is no way to convey just how powerful and intense this session was. As BN said later in the session, we were in right brain territory and it is in that place that words often fail. I do want to say up front that I experienced that my relationship with BN is very real, involves deep care on his part, I even dare say love, and some of my anger and all of my fears were based on my past. Even in the midst of being angry with BN, I am immeasurably grateful for him and his (sometimes appreciated, many times hated) boundaries.

I also want to confess that this feels scary to post. I am uncomfortable (such a weak, inadequate word) with my anger, so to allow others to see me at my most angry can feel like everyone is going to be deeply disappointed in me. But I thinks its an important part of owning this part of me to speak of this here. Sorry for all the bad language; to quote BN “you do like to cuss.” Especially when I am angry. 🙂 Continue Reading

Time to Run: The Power of the Amygdala

August 5, 2013 Attachment Girl 31 comments

A member on the psychcafe forum, Closed Doors (CD), started a discussion about what dependency on your therapist means. In the course of the discussion, I ended up writing a formula for what happens when we want to run from our wish to move closer. With CD’s kind permission, I am going to reproduce it here.

She asked for examples of how other people have been dependent on their therapists. In discussing what dependence looks like, the conversation turned to the shame that can arise around recognizing that we have needs and how terribly vulnerable it is to express them. CD is returning to therapy after a long break, which she took because the feelings and need for her therapist were feeling too intense (Raise your hands if you have ever experienced this. Yes, yes, I see those hands. You can put ’em down now. :D)

Some Handy Links

August 2, 2013 Attachment Girl 23 comments

Greetings all, just a quick post to provide some useful information. 🙂 I am working on a post to talk about how I am actually doing but its slow going. Promise I’ll get there eventually. But in the meantime, I have a couple of useful things to share. Continue Reading

Categories: acceptance, anger, avoidance, boundaries, childhood sexual abuse (CSA), disorganized attachment, healing, perserverence, responsibility, transference, trauma Tags: boundaries, Childhood sexual abuse, erotic transference, therapeutic relationship, trauma victims

What’s a therapist to do?

June 27, 2013 Attachment Girl 35 comments

Alex asked the question below over on the Ask AG page and I am going to offer my take on it.

I am wondering if you have any insight on a psychotherapist’s role when a patient is demonstrating persistent, self-destructive behaviors? I’m referring to damaging, non-suicidal behaviors that artificially regulate emotions– such as self-injury, eating disordered behaviors (restricting, purging, etc.), reckless impulsivity, or drug/alcohol abuse (though this last one might be slightly different, I guess, since it compromises your mental capacity more extremely).

This is a really excellent question and in some ways goes to the heart of what therapy is about. I do want to be upfront though in that I am still working through my own behaviors with food so I approach this topic with fear and trembling. I would recommend approaching this post with some skepticism, dear readers, as I may be speaking out of the wrong orifice. 🙂 Continue Reading

Categories: acceptance, ambivalance, anger, avoidance, boundaries, dependence, Emotional regulation, feelings, healing, hope, interdependence, pain Tags: anger, boundaries, developmental skills, indentifying needs, responsibility, therapeutic relationship, unfulfilled needs

Peeking out

June 12, 2013 Attachment Girl 52 comments

Hi All,

I’m attempting to come back out and play, but its a bit harder (and more complicated) than I thought it would be. Of course, when isn’t it? 🙂

First, I want to say thank you so much to everyone who left such supportive comments. Your care and interest was the difference between me just bolting and coming back. I’ll be responding to comments over the next few days.

I am feeling much more rested and not nearly as fragile, but am struggling with just a boatload of shame. I continue to be affected by a number of events, including being cut off from my mother, and the online mess (although both of those are mild at this point) and other family stuff (about which I am being vague to protect other people’s privacy). But I have also been working in therapy on looking at my eating/body issues, which have tripped off a lot of realizations about beliefs about myself and my worth. Continue Reading

Categories: acceptance, ambivalance, childhood sexual abuse (CSA), disassociation, disorganized attachment, Emotional regulation, feelings, hate, healing, love, needs, pain, perserverence, self-worth, shame, trauma

Why keep going back?

February 14, 2013 Attachment Girl 43 comments

***Trigger warning: Religious content, I talk about my Christian faith in pretty specific terms late in the post.

A reader emailed to ask me a question whose answer I thought would make a good topic for a post. So with their kind permission, the question is below, followed by my answer.

I would like to ask how you got through it. I mean when the feelings became so intense with your therapist, how were you able to keep going back? What stopped you leaving?

This is a really good question. There were so many times I threatened to quit, or told BN I wanted to quit. I lost track of how many times I said (often out loud) “I cannot do this anymore, I can’t take it.” Sometimes on the way to therapy. I wish there were a simple answer to this question, but it was, as usual, a complex interplay of a number of factors. Experience, fear, attraction, desire, longing, faith, hope, determination and belief. One at a time, all at once, or some subset were what kept me going. Continue Reading

What I missed

February 1, 2013 Attachment Girl 22 comments

Since I’ve been on the topic of how we work through our grief for that which we did not have, I thought I would share some particulars losses I ran into and what was underneath them. As I’ve worked my way through therapy and uncovered the feelings I had buried so long, I also uncovered losses I had not been able to admit, let alone grieve. This is a very personal list. I expect that some of this will resonate with other people and some of it will be not true for them or seem like a significant loss. These are mine, what I needed to mourn, and I again offer the disclaimer that not everyone will need to do this the way I did. But I am hoping by being more specific about some of the issues I faced, that the process might be more understandable, even if my reasons to mourn do not resonate with you. Continue Reading

Categories: abandonment, acceptance, ambivalance, anger, boundaries, disassociation, encouragement, gratitude, hate, healing, hope, needs, pain, perserverence, safety, self-worth, transference Tags: boundaries, detachment, grief, healing, therapeutic relationship, unfulfilled needs

Sorting the Past

January 18, 2013 Attachment Girl 28 comments

In the comments after my last post, It’s still no, but still helpful, a number of questions were asked that I felt needed a longer answer than I would want to put in a comment and since they were all related, I decided to address them in a new post. They appear below:

Greeneyes: … how did on earth have you gotten through the struggle of accepting there’s so much we can’t get that we want? And how have you gotten through how painful the therapy boundaries are?

MetaMantraMe: How can we tell if we really are being denied something in the current time that we should be receiving? Or if it is, indeed, a projection of the unmet, and old, need from before onto today?

Liese: … when will we know that we’ve grieved all the losses from the past and that what is happening to us in the present is from the present? In other words, when will our feelings simply be about what is going on now?

It’s still no, but still helpful

January 6, 2013 Attachment Girl 52 comments

I am back with the promised update on my last session with BN. (For background, see my previous post The Whole Story of the No.) It was an intense, difficult session but a very productive one and I left feeling better than I came in and with a much clearer understanding. And a lot of respect for everyone’s comments as they highlighted a lot of the material we ended up talking about. I do want to put up a language warning as both BN and I were indulging in order to convey the emotions.

It felt scary driving to BN’s office, but I realized something very important that also felt like a significant step forward. My fear was about how difficult and painful the feelings would be that were evoked by what we needed to talk about, not about the relationship. It hit me that through this whole thing I have not been worried about our relationship in terms of its ending or being damaged beyond repair. I trusted BN to handle any of my feelings that arose and any anger directed at him and I also knew whatever we decided, we could work through it. This level of security has been a long work in progress, and has been building very slowly, but it was satisfying to realize I had come this far. Continue Reading

Categories: acceptance, anger, boundaries, earned attachment, feelings, hate, healing, needs, pain, safety, self-worth, shame Tags: anger, boundaries, grief, healing, indentifying needs, pain, shame, therapeutic relationship, unfulfilled needs

The Whole Story of the No

January 2, 2013 Attachment Girl 58 comments

In my post I HATE hearing no, I talked about BN saying no to something I asked for but didn’t go into too many details. Some of it was lack of time, but I suspect, gentle readers, that some of it was embarrassment. So now I’m going to tell the whole story, mainly because I am working very hard to understand what is going on within me and where I want to go from here. I see BN on Friday and I am struggling to discern if I am just trying to avoid loss or if this is something I can have in the here and now. I strongly suspect from the intensity of my feelings that BN gave me the right answer, but I’m not sure whether I am ready to give up the fight yet. But I’m getting ahead of myself… Continue Reading