A long night...
Apr. 14th, 2004 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayI'm back from an exhausting 2.5 hour couples session tonight with patgreene.. .it was supposed to go 1:20.
I'm supposed to work on not caretaking, only looking inside my boundaries... on having fun, getting enough sleep, and asking people how they are feeling instead of extrapolating from their actions. Pat is supposed to work on giving me space to feel my emotions and not telling me what they are... and do her self-care.
If she's emotional and angry or crying, that feels threatening, and I'm then quiet and unresponsive. So as not to provide further provocation... in childhood, strong emotions nearby were a prelude to getting physically beaten. She often jumps in if I don't give a verbal answer... if she asks me, I stay silent, then she'll say "I think you are feeling [emotion]."
Time went quickly... I was on the spot for most of the time. The therapist does not like my assuming responsibility for managing others' emotions. And she was not pleased that I don't feel that I can say no... that I need to go to great lengths to try to satisfy any reasonable request by others. Much of our work is going to be on defining boundaries...
patgreene.. .it was supposed to go 1:20.I'm supposed to work on not caretaking, only looking inside my boundaries... on having fun, getting enough sleep, and asking people how they are feeling instead of extrapolating from their actions. Pat is supposed to work on giving me space to feel my emotions and not telling me what they are... and do her self-care.
If she's emotional and angry or crying, that feels threatening, and I'm then quiet and unresponsive. So as not to provide further provocation... in childhood, strong emotions nearby were a prelude to getting physically beaten. She often jumps in if I don't give a verbal answer... if she asks me, I stay silent, then she'll say "I think you are feeling [emotion]."
Time went quickly... I was on the spot for most of the time. The therapist does not like my assuming responsibility for managing others' emotions. And she was not pleased that I don't feel that I can say no... that I need to go to great lengths to try to satisfy any reasonable request by others. Much of our work is going to be on defining boundaries...
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Date: 2004-04-15 07:07 pm (UTC)Right. Having experienced tons of rejection myself in life, on personal levels, it is very hard to consider inflicting that on others. Unless there's a core personal-safety issue.
One reason that I have dated so few people is that I'm afraid of having to ever tell someone "no" if it isn't quite working out...
if you find yourself automatically 'guessing' at what I'm feeling.... you are welcome to catch yourself and ask me
Actually, the feeling-inference process only gets used much in-person... I don't know your responses and mannerisms and body language well enough yet to make more than the crudest guesses at your internal emotional state. And online... not even that.
Heh. Maybe that's one reason why I only seem to be capable of LDRs... I have to take the other person at their face value.