Posted by Pfinstegg on January 8, 2006, at 10:42:07
In reply to ShortE? Tamar? LittleGirlLost? Pfinstegg?, posted by daisym on January 5, 2006, at 21:09:19
Thanks so much for thinking of, and asking about-me. I do try to read and follow all the long-term posters' experiences in therapy. I feel so glad when things go better, and can definitely empathize when the going is really hard.
For the past year, I have really been doing better in real life, but the sessions with my analyst are painful beyond belief. Having an ego state disorder, I had, at least partly, dissociated myself from the pain of my earlier experiences. I knew what had happened, but I was kind of automatically shielding myself from the suffering they had caused me as a child. Our work together has been to reconnect with those emotions, and for those ego states to begin to understand that they can have a good, new, healing experience with my analyst. It's pretty slow going! I'd have to say that right now, I know I am better- I just hurt more!
When therapy is this intense, very intense things happen between us. To give an example, one particularly bad day, I came in and lay down on the couch; before I knew it, I was lying curled up on my side, not having said a word. He said, "the amount of pain I'm feeling from you is nearly unbearable for me, so i know it's even worse for you. It feels pre-verbal, so perhaps words shouldn't be our first way of communicating right now. Can you show me with your body what it is like? I sat up, and he commented very gently on the tears streaming down my face, the high, squeaky tone of my voice (when I did manage to get a few words out), the sadness in my eyes, and the fact that I was hugging my knees and shoulders. These were all very gentle, simple phrases, but with a lot of caring in them.I am sure this was an infant ego-state, and it did feel so understood that the pain had lessened a lot by the end of the session. Of course, no-one can take away the pain of what happened so long ago, but it is so wonderful and comforting to feel truly heard and understood. This is pretty much what we have been doing, day by day, and I have felt that it's kind of a "downer" to post about it here. But maybe not- after all, there are simple, common threads running thrtough our own unique experiences.
Now that I have so much better emotional access to these ego states, he suggested that it might be a good time to have several EMDR sessions. I'm going for the first one (to a different therapist who specializes in that) next Tuesday. I am really encouraged by what people have posted here- and hope I can do the same!
Thank you for asking about me, Daisy- that was so caring and sweet of you.
poster:Pfinstegg
thread:595631
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20051229/msgs/596543.html