Posted by Dinah on July 23, 2004, at 8:23:01
In reply to Re: more rollercoaster, posted by tabitha on July 23, 2004, at 1:33:23
> My T tells me I need to have boundaries against stuff like this and not let it in to hurt me.
IMHO, or perhaps in my own experience, the only way to not let stuff hurt me is to not give a d*mn. If I don't have any emotional attachment whatsoever to a person or to a group, it's easy to not let things hurt me. It's easy to look at someone like MW as if she were some sort of interesting science experiment. If you care at all about someone you're giving them the power to hurt you. That's part of (in my experience anyway) the risks and rewards of caring.
How does your therapist propose both keeping yourself emotionally open and vulnerable to someone (which to me is the key to caring) while still not letting their unkind words hurt you?
I also think it's probably true that many of us try to do the right or socially accepted thing, and do let our authentic selves and our authentic feelings suffer for it. The little Tabitha (or Dinah) inside. Is that a good thing? I'm not sure. Part of me says of course it's a good thing. It's realistic, it's pragmatic. A part of me says it's a betrayal of my own self.
I've spent most of my life learning to emotionally divorce those things that cause me pain. It's only through therapy that I've learned to be open emotionally, to take chances, to *let* people hurt me and to repair those hurts to develop deeper and more meaningful relationships as opposed to the more superficial relationships you have when I *don't* let others hurt me, when I leave the boundaries up. To listen to my vulnerable side more, and to set aside extreme rationality. Is that a good thing? At the moment, I'm leaning towards thinking I was safer and happier before therapy.
My therapist's "new way of thinking or being" is the polar opposite of your therapist's "new way". :) If this is the case, there has to be value judgements in there somewhere. That different therapists believe different things or have different priorities. If that is the case, then my therapist's viewpoint has just as much chance of being valid as your therapist's viewpoint. And if *that* is the case, your viewpoint is just as valid as your therapist's. In which case you need to decide what's best for you, what has worked better for you in your life, and what you want to see your future interactions to look like (given the imperfect nature of human relationships as a whole).
I'm struggling with this myself right now, as I think my therapist's point of view may be feel good cr*p due to his rather optimistic view of human nature.
poster:Dinah
thread:368465
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040723/msgs/369306.html