Living As All of Me

[sanmagic7]

it sure can be a wearing experience, hannah1, to find a new T.  my present T, when i told her i've had therapist trauma, asked me what i needed from a T.  i laid out a whole list, then asked 'can you do that?', and she said, 'yes, i can.'  and we've gotten on swimmingly since then.  but that's been the exception.  usually, i've had some red flags from the first or second session that i put in a 'wait and see' box, and every time (except for the very first one, when i had no knowledge or experience) those flags were correct, and i ended the relationship.  the very first one was the damaging one cuz i wasn't able to recognize red flags at the time, and it was disastrous.

but you know.  8 weeks is a fair trial.  more than fair, actually.  we usually know sooner, and you already had signals talking to you about her.  i hope this next one, who sounds like someone i could relate to, turns out really well for you.  therapy is difficult enough w/o the added whatevers that go into finding someone to have therapy with.  best to you.  love and hugs

[HannahOne]

Dollyvee thank you so much for sharing your experience. It helps to know I'm not the only one who struggles to find a good fit. SM7, thank you for sharing too. It's a challenge. I am searching for something, someone. Someone who will help me search for me. And feeling a bit hopeless that anyone will find me. Wondering if and how I could just find myself, on my own.

I haven't gotten out of bed. So here I am being accountable LOL. It's three hours past when I should have gotten up. So I'm going to get up now before I lose the day. I was supposed to work out, shower, eat, go to art therapy, stop by the grocery store, and pack for my city studio.

I will work out and shower then eat and leave the house. Even if I only lift weights for 10-15 minutes that's enough.

I am feeling very alone, lost, invisible. I want a therapist to help reverse that. The idea that I am held in someone's mind helps me. Of course the therapist only may think of me once between appointments, I know that, but other parts of me like the imaginary projection that someone is holding me in mind. I wish I could hold All of Me in mind. Hold myself together. Sometimes it feels like a kind of failure to need therapy. I just come back to, if I had a mother this wouldn't be a problem. Who knows if that's true.

TW physical abuse. I am having a lot of memories come up, nothing horribly distressing, I find it interesting that these pieces are coming to me. I remember playing hide and seek with my mother in the mall. I was probably four or so. I hid in the middle of a circular clothes rack. I Was so thrilled and it was very intense, I was so interested in it, I was waiting at top level excitement for her to find me. I heard her calling me and waited.... I don't recall how I was found, I think I came out eventually. And she lifted me off the ground with one hand and spanked me with the other. I guess that could be distressing I'll go put a trigger warning. Anyway the point is not the spanking, it's that I was hiding. And she wasn't happy to find me. I'm sure she was, she was scared, and her adrenaline got the best of her. I get it. But as a child, I was crushed, confused, it was like gas pedal and brake at the same time. I wanted her to be delighted to find me, I thought we would both laugh and she might hug me, in my fantasy she would have picked me up and spun me around. That's not how it went. Disorientation, confusion, terror, shame. Hopelessness. We cannot connect. I am alone.

It led me to think about how I'm still so often hiding. Hiding behind words, names, hiding in bed, hiding in the deep freezer at work, hiding in the bathroom. go all the way to therapy and then realize I'm hiding, I'm talking but it's not connected, I'm not looking at their face.

When I have a good therapeutic relationship, I feel like someone is seeing me. I hide less, and I hide less from myself.

I want to be found. I want to find me, All of Me. I want to be delighted and not furious with what I find, even if at times I feel terror, where am I, where am I? and fear what has happened to me.

I also enjoy the game, I think, in the sense that I hide because I want to be found. In the memory, I wasn't hiding in fear, I was hiding for the joy of the reconnection. I wonder how much of that could still be true? Or how much of the hiding now is out of fear? In the memory I hid from her because I thought it would be fun, I liked the experience of being searched for. Maybe that's a way I experienced care, since she was so often unaware of my existence. I came up with a way to get her to focus on me, to seek me. I liked that feeling of her calling for me and I was also so excited for her to find me.

In what ways do I still do this? are parts of me hiding and enjoying my search? I think that's one thing I enjoy about therapy that keeps me coming back, if the therapist is trying to see me, trying to find me, calling to me with their clothes or face, as opposed to the kind of therapist who wants to think about my and find the right tool to fix me.

And if I were to find myself, be found, how could I be delighted? Can I give myself this delight? On being found, I would want me to be thrilled to hug me and connect with me, hooray, all is righted! This is a feeling I sometimes get when the therapist understands, associates to something that expresses my dilemma.

Lying in bed is not looking for myself. Hiding in bed is hiding from my responsibilities, from my goals, my hopes, from the world and myself. Getting out of bed is seeking someone who will look for me. Even if the one looking for me is me. I have to be willing to enjoy this dance of hide and seek and not hate myself for it, not be enraged at myself, not think that if only I would stop hiding I would get on with my shopping. The hide and seek IS the dance, is the love and connection.

Part of me thinks connection is just glomming on permanently. But I can't skip to the end and the hug, the hiding is somehow important. Is my dance disorganized, unhealthy? It's not push and pull, it's hide and seek. Frank does it, it's approach and retreat. It's pendulated attachment. I pass his room and he runs to his box. I say I see you there! but don't stare like a locked in predator, I look side eye, look away. He pokes his nose out. Pulls back. Hops one hop out, pulls back. Now he often just runs over when I pass by because he feels so safe. I don't feel so safe. With myself and the world. So I do a lot of hide and seek and a lot of approach and retreat. When I do find myself, I want to be sure it's with delight and not reprimand, "where were you, why do you do this, we had work to do, you're such a problem..." No. I want to say "I FOUND you! Hooray!" and then let myself run off again. 

I need to ponder this more, but not today.

I am hoping to go find myself on the yoga mat. I go.