STUCK

Hey everyone,

Have been seeing a new T since 4 months.
She has 25+ years of experience and I also like her and the way she works.

However, I am running into a problem that I also had with a former therapist.

My current therapist is trying to establish a safe relationship between us two, where I feel safe to show my emotions, especially anger. My problems include detaching and focusing on the needs of the other instead of my own.

Each and every session, she asks me various times: What is your feeling towards me? She does this especially when I feel blank, because she supposes that the blankness is my way to suppress negative feelings towards others that I expect will lead to trouble, in this case my feelings towards her. This makes sense to me, I hope I've explained it clearly for anyone who's reading this, too.

However, every time, I have such tremendous difficulty feeling what I feel. I am almost incessantly unsure of my own emotions, because they often seem non-existent or very slight. It also gives me anxiety when she asks this question, because I am afraid that I will, again, not know what I feel. I am scared that she will at some point say that I am not working hard, or that I am blocking the process.

I also have the feeling that I am misunderstanding something, because sometimes I find I have assumptions about 'assignments/questions' (in whatever context) that lead me to think the 'answer' has to be between certain parameters that I later find I made up myself, whereas to others it appears much more logical that the 'answer' lies in a different direction, or within much wider parameters, for instance. The problem is that right now, I don't know which parameters I made up. I hope this sounds familiar to anyone, but I find it difficult to explain.

The difficulty for me is: I don't know what I feel, and I want to get help to find out how I can actually feel my emotions at such a moment. But another problem is learned helplessness - that I lean on others for lots of decisions. Do you understand my problem? On the one hand, I have to find out myself how to feel things, but I don't know how to feel them because I usually feel nothing; and on the other, I can't really ask for more guidance, because then I'm perpetuating learned helplessness.
She tries to help me by telling me to pay attention to my body: I have found, after my initial scepticism, that anxiety and anger actually are related to certain feelings in my throat, chest, etc. So I try to pay attention to my body when she asks 'what is your feeling towards me?', but that still often leads nowhere.

Long post, my main concern is: have others had such difficulty 'accessing' their own emotions, and does anybody have help for me as to how I can feel my emotions when she asks me that question?

I'm worried that I'm blocking my own process, but not sure how that's happening exactly. I feel like I'm running into a wall. I'd really appreciate any of your insights.

To give a more elaborate example:

It often happens that I'm assuming that she will have a judgment about me. For instance, she invites me to talk about my feelings about X. Then I talk about those feelings, and I suddenly feel uncomfortable, often numb/zoned out/anxious. Then she asks: 'What is the feeling towards me?' Then I would often say: I'm afraid you will judge me negatively for what I said about X. She: And what is the feeling behind the fear?
She means: how would you feel about me if I would first invite you to talk about X, and subsequently judge you for what you say about it? [I initially never understood this, but we've talked this through, and now I understand].

Problem is: when she asks: 'What is the feeling behind the fear?' I always start making these mental steps: 'OK, so if she invites me to talk, and subsequently judges me for what I say, I would probably feel angry or irritated, because it's not fair.'
But I never manage to just directly feel those feelings of irritation, I always have to very consciously think about the situation and my assumptions about her, to try to re-awaken my feelings towards her. Even then they're still often very vague, plus I think that she means I should go directly to the feeling.

I'm so stuck with this every time.

(there are real-life situations where I do feel my emotions (far) more clearly, also anger, but in plenty of situations I also experience a delayed emotional response, when a triggering conversation has already passed and only then it dawns on me what happened and how I feel about it)

Another, clearer example maybe:

I'm scared I'm moving too slowly. It occurred to me that I could suggest to skip the session after next, to give myself some time to process things. However, I realised that in reality, I am afraid that she is feeling annoyed by my slow progress. So, in such a situation, she would ask me: And what is your feeling towards me?
And then logically, I think, it should be some form of anger: it wouldn't be fair for a therapist to feel annoyed at a client's slow progress (supposing that it's slow).
But what I really think and how I really feel about it is: it would be understandable if she would be annoyed, and only human. Plus, if she at least wouldn't express this annoyance towards me, what would be the problem? Of course it's too bad for me if she feels annoyed, but not something that I can or would be angry about.

So perhaps, somewhere in me, there would be anger or whatever other emotion about this, but I can't feel it. I only feel the emotions that attack me (sadness, frustration at myself), and not the emotions that 'attack' others (anger). And I think that she makes sense somewhere, that in reality I do have the latter, but I am very confused.

My former therapist would probably say all I do is analyse, and I am aware of that, but honestly I don't know how else to deal with this. The former T has been annoyed about this, but I've never noticed any sign of annoyance in my current T.

I have hesitated replying, because your situation sounds somewhat like mine was, and I can tell you what the underlying feeling was, underneath the anger and rage -- Abandoned and rejected and bad and it's all my fault and there's nothing I can do and nobody who can help and . . .AWFUL

But it took me 50+ years to "get in touch" with my feelings, and what the last therapist diagnosed as dissociated parts. The anger/rage "acted out" a little in one session, almost 6 years after I started therapy with the last therapist. And she shamed/disapproved of me. And something crumpled inside, and the anger/rage didn't/wouldn't show up in therapy after that, and the rational me "approved" of that because of the way the therapist had handled things. We went on with "therapy" for several months and didn't get much of anywhere and eventually the therapist terminated because she "didn't have the emotional resources" to continue.

AND THEN, eventually, I got to what was underneath all that - first, by feeling distressed and unbearably AWFUL that the therapist had failed and disappointed what I expected of an expert long-term therapy (I was counting on her, and "therapy"). And then rejected me. Abandoned and rejected and bad and it's all my fault and there's nothing I can do and nobody who can help and . . .AWFUL. And then, about 6 months later, a feeling like that but associated with my family appeared in my consciousness one day and I was in-the-bed depressed for several days and in bad shape for a month and still not doing so great for several more months.

Seems like that would indicate it's a pretty bad "feeling" -- a pretty bad situation internally. And, yes, it felt like that. And so, it makes sense that if I was feeling that as a 5-year-old, say, and had no help or recourse, that I -- or my nervous system -- shut that down, numbed it out, etc.

But getting it "back" is and was no panacea. When I felt like that I lucked out that I had this forum to vent on, and a support group that I had been in about a year, although at the time I had no idea that THEY could and would accept me, as therapists had not. But they have.

Perhaps your therapist will and can accept all of you -- and "be with" you in the midst of recovering the abandonment feelings, if in fact you have anything like me. And then help you to integrate it and overcome it and move forward into life.

It seems to me now like there was "good reason" I "resisted" all those years in largely useless therapy -- despite me intellectually trying to "do the work" and etc., etc. My friendship with support group members continues to grow. Which, in my 70s is a relatively new experience for me. I had had friends in elementary school but then a traumatic incident in my family when I was 13 shut things down, and I hadn't had any close friends, except for my late husband, in my adult life.

So, based on my experience I think there is hope, but in no way is it easy or a straight line. And it really, really needs a therapist who knows what they are doing and can handle what comes up in the client and most importantly IN THEMSELVES. If something in you isn't sure that your therapist can handle it, then it will resist becoming known, perhaps -- as I said -- for good reason, unfortunately. I "pushed" myself to try to get in touch with and accept my feelings, and maybe something in me felt or suspected my last therapist couldn't handle it, but the rational me couldn't know that, because that information or intuition was in the part of me that had been numbed out. Or at least that's the best I can do in trying to explain it.

Your situation may be and probably is different in some to many to all respects from mine - but maybe my story will provide a little perspective or possibility. My 2 cents, for what it is worth. Or not.

All of this is very familiar to me. Will try to write more later.

What you describe is very familiar for me too. What can I say?

You are dissociating, you are experiencing a split between the mind and body. You are not feeling safe with your T and you don't trust her. That's most probably not specific to her but very likely applies also to all other people in the world. You write that you focus on her. That's quite understandable and normal if you don't feel safe because if the environment is not safe then you have to be vigilant.

You have seen this T for four months. Honestly, four months is nothing. Based on my own experience and based on what here today wrote, these things take years. It's impossible to force you feel safer and start trusting because those things are not under conscious control. These processes are very long and the only thing a T can really do, is just to keep being patiently present, not giving up hope and constantly trying to make the environment safer for you, so your true self can start to emerge. It can take years, for some people it can take their whole life.

Your T is suggesting that there might be anger behind it. I don't know what is her reasons for suggesting it, and I did not get a feeling of anger currently from your post, rather a desperation of trying hard to do what you're supposed to and still not knowing what to do. But, it is possible that there is anger behind it and it is possible that if you finally find this anger, it won't be pretty. As here today wrote, not all therapists can take it, but unfortunately, in order to be helpful to you, she has to be able to take it. And the problem really is that no one really knows how the dissociated feeling can start to come out.

I myself had a huge amount of anger and rage hidden and dissociated in me. Initially I knew nothing about it but gradually started to come out. I was the angriest, meanest and most difficult patient for my T for long time - months, actually even few years (and this process still continues to some extent). I have acted out a lot and I myself have been really surprised by the creativity my rageful part has shown in order to find a way to somehow give a blow to my therapist. I have been extremely lucky that I stumbled upon a T who is very patient, not intimidated, able to keep necessary boundaries, able to loosen boundaries when necessary and who understands this process I'm going through (probably not totally consciously) and who thinks I have to go it through in order to find my emotions and my true self.

I have been dealing with these processes for almost seven years now in intensive psychoanalysis and god it is slow and there's really nothing I can do to speed it up, other than just showing up and trying again no matter how hard it is. I find it possible that this is one of my life's projects.

So, you are in the very early days of your therapy work and I very much hope that you have been lucky with the T you have. The process that lies ahead is very long and difficult because it is really about finding yourself.

Hello, it’s interesting quite a few of us seem to feel this way. I wish I had a clear answer but after 4 years I still don’t really know what I feel. I don’t think I understood how stuck I was until I started trying to ‘move’ my life around and had to deal with consequences. Like trial after trial. I seem to learn something about my feelings when I make changes or different things happen. I have no idea who I am still though, what I want to do etc.

I feel like my therapist also expects more from me sometimes......like he’s waiting for me to ‘wake up’ or be angry or whatever....they are only human and they too project on to us and make mistakes. Keep going, you sound like you are well and truly on your way to healing. I don’t know if this helps any but thank you for sharing your experience 🙂

It really struck me that you describe a blankness about your emotions and that you are incessantly unsure about your feelings ... and yet you describe many emotional responses which you experience. You experience anxiety, you are scared, you feel as if you are running into a wall, you are worried, irritated, angry, sad. These are just some feelings which I was able to quickly pull out of what you have written. You don't sound blank to me. You sound like you struggle with your feelings in relation to an other (your therapist in this instance) and with articulating how you feel, but it sounds like you are feeling a whole bunch of big emotions. It is hard work and it doesn't come easy, but I think you are more emotionally fluent than you give yourself credit for.

Hello everyone,

Thank you all for replying. I'm on the one hand relieved that you recognize these issues, and on the other worried that it will also take me very long. I've thought about it and although it scares me that it may also take me decades, the best thing I can do now is to continue this therapy and try trusting my therapist and getting closer and closer to my own feelings. That doesn't mean I feel all positive about it, but it's probably better than not trying.

Here today and feileacan: I feel similar to you in the sense that I also sometimes feel an intense rage. Plus the shame to show my therapist any ugliness that may come up. I try to tell myself: if there is one person in the world I should show any ugliness to, it's my therapist, because they can handle it and help me (and, underneath the 'ugliness', there is probably hurt). But it's easier said than done. My therapist keeps asking me: what is it you would want to say to me, or do to me?, which makes me think she is open to me wanting to e.g. hit her. It makes me think she has handled ugly reactions, so that's one thing. I can imagine that if you have finally reached the point where you express yourself, and then your therapist doesn't respond well, that's really awful.

In the session today, I talked about my doubts, and about my frustration at this process. I expressed my anger towards her, which gave me some breathing space, and was relieved to find out that she was responding to me professionally/friendly, explaining to me that her job is to make me aware of it everytime that I distance myself from my feelings. That was a good experience for me, it felt more equal in the sense that I had shown her my anger (not in a ragy way, but it was still anger), so shown her myself, and she responded without judging me etc.

I've also talked with her about how other people who have all this doubt about their own emotions learn how to grow closer to them. My conclusion for now is that, when I have a vague feeling of anger (or other emotion) that I'm not even sure I'm really feeling or making up, I'm going to explore it in the session, perhaps to find out later that it wasn't anger. But at least for now I'll explore whatever it is that I have to go on. I hope that perhaps this is helpful also to other people here.

Comrademoomoo: I get what you mean, what I've discussed with my T is that most of the feelings that I feel clearly (fear, anxiety, sometimes sadness) are feelings that cover up the other feelings (e.g. anger), especially those feelings that I suspect will cause a problem in the relationship with the other. So the goal is for me to feel the 'real' feelings, instead of the other feelings (which attack me, instead of the other), that I feel to save the relationship (but which do not protect myself).

I feel relieved after this session. I hope that those of you who are also struggling with this are going to make progress. And also: if anybody at any other time wants to share their insights on what things have helped them access their emotions more directly, please feel free to post them here. Maybe we can help each other, I for one would be very grateful for ideas. I'll also post when something new seems to be helping.

I’m not sure if my experience is similar to yours or different, but I definitely have had intense feelings come up in therapy that I could not name or understand and that were incredibly uncomfortable for me. I have told my therapist that if I quit therapy, these feelings would go away and my life would be simpler. His response is that he thinks I feel these intense feelings all of the time, and hide them well, but they come out in therapy in part due to the nature of our therapy. I am kind an in control in my life outside of therapy, but in my therapy relationship I’ve been different. I suppose part of that is liberating in some way, but still uncomfortable for me. I’m definitely feeling things that I have not otherwise consciously felt. It’s all quite confusing to me and difficult too, yet I keep going back for more. It’s almost like I’m unlocking a door to another dimension.