Archive

Archive for the ‘needs’ Category

What I learned in therapy Lesson 5 – The relationship of love and pain

December 8, 2011 22 comments

This is lesson five of what I learned in therapy: Pain is not a part of love, love is the answer to pain.

This lesson actually came later in my healing and my work with the Boundary Ninja. I’m writing about it now as it’s been a subject that has been both coming up in a lot of conversations I’ve had lately and because I am learning to experience it as a lived truth. If forced to choose, I think I would pick this understanding as the most powerful that I learned in therapy. It is also extremely difficult to explain because at its heart is a mystery that lives at the heart of our existence. It’s not so much a truth that you understand, as much as you learn to accept. Continue Reading

Categories: abandonment, acceptance, ambivalance, attachment styles, boundaries, childhood sexual abuse (CSA), commitment, dependence, disorganized attachment, earned attachment, encouragement, feelings, healing, hope, insecure attachment, limbic resonance, love, needs, pain, safety, self-worth, transference

But therapy can take us a long way: Learning Developmental Skills Part 1

November 23, 2011 4 comments

This was going to be the second part of a discussion on how therapy is not enough. I talked about how therapy isn’t enough to make up for the loss of the unmet needs of childhood which are impossible to meet now because we are no longer children and unable to take in the kind of love and care on a deep enough level to completely wipe out the loss. Even if someone was willing to re-parent us, the behavior a parent exhibits towards their child is not appropriate for an adult. But the second half of the equation, that I wanted to address here is the developmental steps that were skipped or distorted by not having our needs met or being taught certain skills because our parents did not know them either. This is also a big part of why therapy can be so painful even though no one is doing anything wrong this time around. I had been planning on covering all of the developmental learning in the rest of this post but as I outlined what I wanted to say, it became evident that the post would become a twee long even for me. So instead, this is the beginning of a series. 🙂 Continue Reading

Categories: attachment theory, boundaries, dependence, earned attachment, encouragement, feelings, healing, insecure attachment, limbic resonance, needs, safety, self-worth

Therapy isn’t enough

November 21, 2011 27 comments

Therapy isn’t enough. Never has been, never will be. The Boundary Ninja would often say that to me when I would bring up my pain about his boundaries. I had all the classic complaints. How could I work through what I needed to in only 50 minutes a week? How do I open up when I need to and then pull it back together to walk out? Why couldn’t he hold me and comfort me when I was in pain? Why couldn’t I see him outside of therapy and know more about him? Why couldn’t I live under his desk? 🙂

Now the first time he ever told me therapy wasn’t enough, I must confess gentle reader, that what went through my head was “What the f***?!?! If you know that, then why in hell am I here?! I have no f***ing idea what you’re talking about?!?” Took me a long time to express that (I do believe I cleaned up my language when I asked. But maybe not, I could sometimes really rip loose in the BN’s office. Mainly because the first time I ever used the “F” word in front of him, when I calmed down I apologized for my language. He informed me, in no uncertain terms, that I was never to apologize for that, adults talk that way when they’re angry, we sanitize things too much and I should express myself however I needed to. I have often wondered if he ever regretted saying that. :)) He said many times to me (he had to repeat most things to me about 13563 times as I am slow to catch on) that therapy isn’t enough, and honestly, I thought it was extremely puzzling for a long time. I mean, I heard the words, but had no idea what he meant by them. But I eventually learned their truth. Continue Reading

Categories: acceptance, ambivalance, attachment theory, boundaries, dependence, disorganized attachment, earned attachment, feelings, healing, limbic resonance, needs, self-worth, transference

Why won’t my therapist just tell me how this works?!?

November 16, 2011 13 comments

I don’t know about anyone else, but one of the most frustrating things about therapy for me was the fact that I was working so hard to get it “right” but the Boundary Ninja refused to cooperate. In any way. He’s a very stubborn man. Or perhaps determined might be a better word.

When I started really working with the Boundary Ninja on an individual basis, I was consumed with the worry that I was being a nightmare of a patient, way too needy and that he was just sitting across from me keenly anticipating the day that I would finally leave. I was consumed with worry about how I was doing in therapy. Was I getting it right? Was I being a good patient? Was I working hard enough? Did he actually like me or was he just tolerating me for pay? I’m sure most of you could come up with a long list of your own. Continue Reading

Categories: acceptance, ambivalance, boundaries, dependence, feelings, needs, self-worth

What I Learned in Therapy Lesson 4: It wasn’t my fault

November 7, 2011 16 comments

Therapy Lesson One
Therapy Lesson Two
Therapy Lesson Three

Therapy Lesson #4: I wasn’t responsible for the sexual abuse nor did I deserve any of it.

This was a VERY tough lesson. It’s a very tough lesson for most victims of abuse but especially so for people who experience long term abuse as children. So many of the circumstances around abuse and developmental truths about children can feed into the perception on the victim’s part that they “deserved” the abuse, they “asked” for the abuse or they are some kind of pathetic target for abuse because there is something fundamentally warped in them. We can have a very good cognitive understanding that it wasn’t our fault, but to get that emotionally? Long uphill battle. There is an almost incomprehensible level of shame around this subject, which doesn’t make it easy to talk about. But the only way to break through shame is to talk about it. Terrifying to say the least. Couple this with the fact that so many victims actually believe that if they get close to someone and let them know what happened, they’ll infect them with their “darkness.” So it took a very long time and being told over and over and experiencing compassion from so many people around me to learn this one. Continue Reading

Categories: acceptance, ambivalance, attachment theory, boundaries, childhood sexual abuse (CSA), disassociation, feelings, needs, responsibility, safety, self-worth

What I Learned in Therapy Lesson 3 – The Goal of Healing

October 17, 2011 16 comments

See here for Lesson 1

See here for Lesson 2

Healing is not reaching a place of perfect peace and safety. It’s knowing that you can remain safe and be at peace no matter where you are.

Like most people, I went to therapy because I wasn’t happy with how my life was nor how I felt in it. So I wanted to get “better.” But the problem is that I really didn’t know what “better” was, just that it needed to be different from what I was. So, again like most people, I headed off to therapy, explained the problem as best I could, and trusted my therapist to get us headed in the right direction. Which she did. I just had no idea how very long that journey would be and how much ground it would cover. Continue Reading

Categories: ambivalance, feelings, healing, needs, safety

Disorganized Attachment or Why You Think You’re Crazy But Really Aren’t

October 14, 2011 176 comments

People with insecure attachment: avoidant, anxious or disorganized, tend to have a much more interesting time in therapy than people who formed secure attachments in childhood. I want to talk about insecure attachment and its affect on therapy, with an emphasis on disorganized attachment since that was with what I struggled. Human beings are born unable to care for themselves in any way; they are totally dependent literally as a matter of life and death on their caregiver, usually their mother, but whomever it is that is responsible for caring for them as a child. (That’s so our heads are small enough so that a baby can be delivered. Can you imagine delivering a child with an adult sized head? Time out for all the readers who have delivered babies to wince and say “OUCH!” Okay, everyone back?) There is a biological imperative for the child to stay close and there is a corresponding biological imperative on the part of the caregiver to respond to the needs of the infant. Thus the two humans, infant and caregiver, form an attachment bond. Humans form attachments throughout their life, but none as profound or far-reaching as the one they experience with their parents. That bond, formed while we are developing, has the power to shape both how we see ourselves and the nature of the universe in which we live. Continue Reading

Categories: abandonment, ambivalance, attachment styles, attachment theory, dependence, disassociation, disorganized attachment, earned attachment, feelings, insecure attachment, needs, self-worth, trauma

Dissociation and Trauma: It wasn’t really that bad, was it?

October 6, 2011 14 comments

This post is based on an exchange I got into with another member on psychcafe a few years back which ended up being a discussion of dissociation as a response to trauma. This particular member was struggling with “choosing” to disassociate in the face of stress. Her assertion was that she shouldn’t have disassociated as a child because what happened to her did not qualify as trauma, and even if it did qualify as trauma, she was no longer in the same danger so why did she keep going away? It’s very common for trauma survivors, especially of long-term trauma in childhood from a caregiver to believe that they are making WAY too big a deal of what happened to them and seeing themselves as weak or damaged if they continue to disassociate now that the abuse is no longer ongoing. These are beliefs that were reasonable to form during the abuse or neglect, but that doesn’t make them true and continuing to accept them can really interfere with healing. Fighting them is what makes healing such a “hellish bind” to quote the Boundary Ninja. Continue Reading

Categories: disassociation, healing, needs, self-worth, trauma