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Disruption and Rage Part I
TW*** CSA, rage and really bad language
Well, I think I have hidden in my cave long enough and its time to poke my head out and talk about what is going on with me. I am most of the way through a four week break in therapy due to BN’s vacation. In what we both agreed was spectacularly bad timing, we had a really brutal session, including a difficult disruption, just before the break. It involved what I will readily concede was a re-enactment on my part and a lot of rage towards my parents. It also included my best effort to date of expressing anger at BN in the moment. I have been struggling to stay stable and try to understand all that is going on but to be very honest, I am feeling GONZO confused so part of why I am writing is to try and sort through what is going on and understand.
A disclaimer before I go on, which is that I am angry and in a way that doesn’t lend itself to being particularly fair to the other person. So I want to say up front, and center, that BN was very patient with me, very encouraging about me allowing myself to just express my anger and amazingly non-defensive. If I had been talking to me on the crisis line, I probably would have ended the call as being too abusive, but he thanked me (!) for my honesty. Continue Reading
Time to Run: The Power of the Amygdala
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)
It’s not really about my mom
Don’t want to leave everyone in suspense but between my schedule and the fact that I am in the midst of trying to understand what is going on inside of me, this will be brief (ok, admittedly, brief is a relative concept with me :)). While BN recognized that, of course, it hurt that my mother ignored my birthday, I was incredibly clear about the situation and completely understood what was going on. He pretty much nodded and uh-huhed his way through the beginning of the session. He told me later that he had not said a thing or offered any insight because I didn’t need any. That I was handling the hurt from my mom better now than in the past and that it would get better in the future. That maybe I was struggling to find compassion for her and maybe that would come easier in the future, maybe it wouldn’t but it was ok either way. Continue Reading
It’s still no, but still helpful
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
The Whole Story of the No
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
Is a body REALLY necessary?
I had a difficult session with BN yesterday and left not feeling too great. Through no fault of his, or mine for that matter, I realize when I can manage some objectivity, just the subject matter that came up. I’m writing about it here to try and sort through some of what happened and what it is I am feeling and fearing.
If you have been reading my recent posts, you know I have been dealing with a lot of medical issues as of late. Continue Reading>
Happy 1st Birthday Tales
It has been a very long, sucky, painful day, full of misunderstandings and hurts, some caused by me, to my regret and some inflicted on me. (Yay!! While I was working on this, someone did an amazing thing and was vulnerable and we’re repairing it. Great now I’m going to short out my keyboard!) So I am more grateful than I can say to come here to my blog to celebrate a very happy milestone for me, and hopefully for some of you. 🙂 Tales of a Boundary Ninja is one year old today. This is my first blog and I was both excited and terrified putting up those first posts, not quite believing anyone would actually want to read what I had to say. Continue Reading
Memorable Quotes
Had another very intense session with BN today who remains, thank heaven, completely unflappable. I’m starting to feel this insane impulse to just keep stepping up my behavior to find the breaking point; then I realize, I just don’t know where I would go. 🙂 Life just keeps throwing curve balls recently, and I guess I can take some comfort in the fact that I seem to react consistently, with shame. I joke, but I have been very triggered as of late, so that many feelings from when I am young have surfaced. I have recently experienced some difficulties that when viewed through an adult lens, I can clearly see are not my fault and even have nothing to do with me. I’m just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Continue Reading
The Paradox of Shame – Part II
Greetings, gentle readers, thank you for your patience in waiting for the followup. 🙂 This is the second half of a post started in The Paradox of Shame – Part I.
The level of shame and embarrassment surrounding finding out about BN’s relationship with this author was almost indescribable and I found it extremely difficult to actually GO to the appointment. I basically managed by refusing to think about it that morning. Every time I started to think about what it would be like or imagine what I would say or BN would reply, I would just shut it down in order to stop myself from being overwhelmed to a point of not being able to function. And I kept focusing on my breathing and slowing it down. It helps that I’m the best terrified driver in the world. Being in therapy for so long, has given me plenty of opportunities to practice. 🙂 Continue Reading
The Paradox of Shame – Part I
Shame has been a constant theme throughout my healing, but I have found it to be really dominant as I have begun to risk more and live more fully. When I was recovering, I finally realized how ruled I was by fear. Fear was all about me, imprinted on a cellular level; present in the air I breathed. When I finally realized how permeated by fear I was, I was scared to stop being scared! I can still get scared, but fear is not the omnipresent backdrop of my life anymore. Being less afraid has led to being able to risk more. As I risk more, I find myself reacting with shame when I run into new difficulties. Happily, this has led to my discovery that BN is also a first class shame buster.
The true purpose of shame is to keep us safe from violating the taboos and rules of our “tribe.” For so many human generations, our very survival depended on our ability to be accepted by and attended to by a group of people. We are a social animal, who thrives by being with others. Our needs cannot be met without relationship. We cannot know ourselves outside of relationship. Failure to conform to the mores of a group could result in being driven forth so that an individual did not threaten the well-being of the group; but being driven forth was often the equivalent of a death sentence. So our need to “fit in” is extremely strong and other people’s disapproval can affect us deeply. Which is why a sense of shame is such a powerful motivator to control our behavior as it is literally experienced as a matter of life or death. Continue Reading
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