Trickle of information
Today my therapist got me to talk a little bit about my past, something I've always been reluctant to do with anyone. She kept prying until I let a little trickle of information out. The focus was on my rage and how I always try to suppress it as best I can. About my fear that if I don't contain it, don't direct it inwards at myself, that I will violently strike out at someone else.
She knew from previous conversations that I grew up in fear of my mother. I didn't dare ever show anger because in our house my mother held a dictatorship on that emotion. Only she was allowed to rage and the rest of us had to silently be on the receiving end of it. But this time I told her about an incident that happened outside the house. I'd gotten into an argument with a friend of mine that lived across the street from me when I was about 8 or 9 years old. My mother heard us yelling and screamed at me to come home. Soon as I did, she proceeded to beat the shit out of me. I don't know why, but the beating instilled in me the fear that I wasn't allowed to ever show anger, anywhere, anytime, not even away from home, not even if it was justified.
My T seemed to want to get me to place blame on my mother for abusing me, which is incredibly weird seeing as how I recently discussed this in an email with someone. I froze though and couldn't do it. Instead the voices in my head kept saying "what good will it do to blame her, it's all in the past and you can't change it now" and "you're an adult, you have to take responsibility for yourself".
I can certainly say the words that she had no right to torture me, that she should have loved, nurtured and kept me safe. But there's a giant chasm between saying the words and getting yourself to truly believe them. That's what my T is intent on doing though. She said she'll keep telling me I didn't deserve the abuse, keep pointing out my positive qualities. Keep repeating those things over and over until hopefully one day I find what she calls "the real truth". But it's a truth so opposite from what I currently believe that I don't know if I'll ever get there.
I'm going to be in therapy for a very, very, very, very long time.
4 Comments:
Those tapes that say you can't assign blame even to people who deserve it...I don't know about you, but I'm now really sure where I got mine. Here is an excerpt from an e-mail I received YESTERDAY from my mother: "I had to reach the point where I forgave my mother for all the abuse she did to me and take responsibility for my own decisions, some good and some bad. Otherwise, I would still be stuck, blaming and hating her. In essence, I had to suck it up and look forward." [Implication: you should do this too; don't blame me for your problems!] This misses the point that one can forgive an abuser, suck it up, and move forward...without the abuser! It also misses the point that one can be "stuck" from taking on responsibility for things that one is not responsible for. I will stop before I write a comment longer than your post. :)
From the psychology perpective; blaming the abuser is supposed to be cathartic. Allowing the victim to see things from a new perspective.
It's good that you are beginning to open up to your therapist. Learning to trust someone to that extent is a definite success!
Take care of yourself!
yeah look to your right next time in you're in the waiting room and wave hi. I'll be sitting next to you (for a very very very very long time.) I told my T that when he gets the boat I'm buying him he has to name it after me! the S.S. Sansanity.
I wasted several years of life mired down in “clinical depression”. Shrinks nor mind altering drugs helped. I didn’t try suicide because I thought I was such a failure that I would botch it and end up as perhaps a vegetable someone would have to care for, tending to my every need. I finally just told myself that if I had to live I better just let go of my anger and live each day as best I could, pretending it may be my last day.
You can do it!
:-)
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