is this normal when you start ict? any tips would be appreciated.

[arpy1]

ok, here goes...

i started (really, just barely started) inner child work in therapy this last week or so. frankly, all i have done so far is write down all my memories of early childhood and acknowledged the fact that  i don't feel anything about them.       

it took months for me to start to trust my T this much.  i have told her i need her to go really slowly and she is doing. and i have twigged that she spends a lot of time keeping me cool, just generally talking to wind me down or to keep me wound down. she is very aware of how every session i had with my first T would leave me totally traumatised. so she is very careful not to do that.

ok. so.   it has taken a lot, and has only been in the last week or so, that i have been able to acknowledge that i really do need to address my early years, even if it means taking focus off what i thought i was in therapy for, i.e abuse suffered as adult. it was a big and scary step even  to get to this point because it involves the other person i have in my head (the one i call the screaming sobbing woman) and allowing her out. i have spent decades keeping her locked down.

anyway, i did it, and now, well, i just feel blank. most of the time. the rest of the time i am up and down like a yo-yo, angry one minute, weepy the next, but about things that are totally unrelated to my childhood.but these little episodes last no more than half an hour tops, then, back to this horrible grey blankness. like a blanket drops onto my head and everything goes muffled. this is dissociation according to my T. but i am not in control of it. it comes and goes without warning. 

i feel very out of control and i really hate it. i can't  settle down, somehow, i can't cope with reading, watching tv, all the things i usually use to distract myself with. i am all over the place.

what i  am supposed to be feeling at this point? why do i feel so blank and yet simultaneously so volatile? i am very confused here and would be grateful if anyone who's done this stuff would drop me a few tips? i can't give up now i've started but i feel so lost.

thanks for listening to this lot.

[Trees]

Hi arpy1, how brave you are with this inner child work.  My own experience is that it can be quite overwhelming at times, though ultimately rewarding to grieve out some of the buried pain.

I hope you can keep your exploration going at a slow enough pace so that you can avoid being too overwhelmed.  Sometimes it is tempting to try to do it all at once and get it over with, but my own experience is that rushing into so much old stuff all at once can be just too much to cope with.

So I hope you can take good care of yourself along the way.  All the best to you on this heroic journey of yours!   

[arpy1]

thanks, Trees that's kind.   i wish i did feel brave. 

[woodsgnome]

Something I feel compelled to point out...you said: "i wish i did feel brave."

You don't need to wish or feel it to be truly brave. It doesn't come with a sign or horns blaring. The brave person rarely sees what they're really accomplishing. Because it's hard. In everything I've seen you post about your IC work, the bravery is obvious.

I haven't done any IC work specifically labeled as such, but I've also gone through 9 T's and a lot of it touched on what is known as IC. One reason for the 9 T's is because I often bailed when it got too rough. That's not very brave and I'm not especially proud I couldn't handle it.

It's natural to wonder why it seems so hard. Must it be like this? Who knows. All I know as an observer is I admire what I've seen so far...you'll make it through. Like Trees indicated and your T appears to agree to...keep it slow..the common saying is "slow and easy" but we know that's usually not how this goes. How can it? We're stepping over a lot of hurt that still stings.

Keep on...  

[arpy1]

thank you so much for that affirming post, woodsgnome. i guess you're right, if you feel brave then you probably don't need to dredge up courage.

i suppose i am just wishing for it to go quicker than it can. to stop the fear/pain/panic/lostness/whatever it is that feels so bad. but that ain't gonna happen is it?  i hate slow. i hate not being in control. i hate not knowing exactly  what is going on and exactly  what is going to happen next. i hate it. i hate being caught out, shown up, shown to be not in control....   (sorry, ranting there)... but i guess that's exactly what this is all about isn't it? better get used to it.. sigh..  oh god, i'm scared. 

sorry.  rant over. thanks again for your kindness. you are wise, i love that. 

[Dutch Uncle]

You hate slow huh? You like to take the hurdles fast, Oi?

"And it's arpy1 in lane 8... And off they go!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1QjMCPJn5A

(You can't win them all, can you )

[arpy1]

    ok ok, i get the message......   but, but....   no fair!!

[Dutch Uncle]

How are you now arpy1, a few days down the road?

What did your T say about the pre-session work you did?

[arpy1]

hey, thank you for asking. i have been pretty bad in my mind this last few days, that's why i have been quiet. just very low, very sad, guess my mood has really taken a nosedive after all that memory stuff.
um, therapy was ok. she said that what i had written about my early years sounded as if i was writing about someone else, not a surprise, as that was how it felt anyway. we started talking about mistaken beliefs and stuff, very gently. it was ok.

till she started on at me about picking up the pottery again becos it would be good therapy (which i know it would, i am most at peace when i am working with clay), no matter that i have absolutely no money and stuff, she got all enthused and said she'd try and help me find a workshop and that i could even share one with her husband who wanted to do glass and she would start looking round for us.... i freaked out on the way home and thought, what have i done, just what i always do, get carried away by someone else's enthusiasm and let them lead my along by the nose. i am so not ready to face trying to do something big like getting a studio yet. 

as soon as i got home i emailed her and said no way, becos my experience of trying to add business in with any relationship has always ended very badly and i got screwed out of quite a bit of £ by some friends i trusted the last time. to say nothing of the fact that her husband is a) asperger's (fine if i was well, i have experience with asperger's/autistic spectrum, but not at this time and b) he is a man, which after having been in bad relationship and having been sexually assaulted by a man  at church and harrassed by another at work i can't even contemplate...*, all people scare me let alone the male of the species! and c) i don't even know this guy and to share studio space there has to be a particularly good dynamic or it is a nightmare.    so,  well, it simply ain't gonna happen. 
have to admit i think she was well out of line, pressuring me, and definitely beyond her remit suggesting i work with her husband.. i really feel very uncomfortable with it. i can't imagine what she was thinking, so my trust in her, which has taken months to build, took a big knock.

so all in all i am afraid i am not doing too well. i keep trying to read posts on here and stuff but everything just triggers me, even little stuff and i can't read them and have to do something else..  sorry, for this splurge.  but thanks for caring. hope you are doing ok too, with the sister stuff.

[Dutch Uncle]

Wow. Well done for asserting your boundaries. 

She's your T. Not her husband.
Kudos.

Wishing you the best.
Thanks for sharing.   

[arpy1]

thanx and kudos back to u too, re the sister thingy. just read ur post.

[woodsgnome]

It's odd, some of the things T's come up with. Maybe they're bored and like sticking little kinks in their approach with the real live people paying them for their expertise? 

Your T perhaps got carried away with her own cleverness. I've been around a couple of those. It's okay to feel bad, but it seems like you're also doing well to question what happened. Bottom line is always you.

Writing about your child "self" as if it was someone else is a problem? Where's the right/wrong of what you wrote? Didn't she agree to go slow in the first place? It's pretty hard on a first go to navigate the minefield of childhood memories, let alone be expected to write to someone else's contrived standards. And then she wanders off to setting you up with something else altogether? Odd.      From what you wrote here, you put so much effort into this, and were invalidated by her, but NOT by those of us who support you. Okay?

Going back to what was discussed earlier on this thread, I see you as a brave explorer...this foray may have gotten you lost in the woods, but here you are, feeling bad but still wanting and hoping.

The journey still beckons. Your searching has hit on one of those step forward/couple back stumbles; so you return to the road, it was where your dreams were. It seems important to take the steps on your own. All of them--a T can suggest, but you're always in charge. Even at your lowest emotional ebb.

"Not doing well", as you said, is only a step. There may be better ones just around the corner. 

[stillhere]

Arpy1, I just read your account of your therapist, and I'm a bit shocked.  She was, as you tell the story, way out of bounds to suggest that you set up a studio with her husband.  I can understand that she might have been problem solving and truly trying to help two artists find affordable space.  But to establish any such arrangement affects her relationship with you.  It would probably mean some kind of social encounter.  Any conflict over the space would place her in the middle.  And at the very least  such an arrangement would place demands on her husband, someone you don't now know. 

I hope, for your sake, that she just "checked out" for a moment and got carried away with a possibility.

By way of comparison, my T has an admirable grasp of boundaries.  We know a few of the same people, whom she identified for me at my first visit and allowed me to decide whether the relationships posed a problem (they don't).  I'm well aware that she's someone I might have befriended, had we met under different circumstances, but the task at hand is not to be friends, let alone business partners once removed.

Despite your state of mind (you were doing IC work!), you've had the presence to handle this brilliantly.

Give yourself much credit.

[arpy1]

thanks for that WsG, i really do appreciate the support. don't really quite expect people to care when i am in a funk like i am at present. just feel like i should shake myself up and be ok, stop being a wuss. i am always surprised but really touched people seem to care and want to support.   

you're right about me putting a lot of effort into what i wrote.  i don't even think she was making a value judgment about it, just passing a remark, but maybe i was expecting a little more in the way of feedback, i don't know.

yeah, that thing with the pottery, it was odd and i feel quite weird about my T now.  it's so hard to be continually watching for people to screw me over but i just do it now without realising it. i never learned to protect myself before the last couple years, but now i am so uber-untrusting it's the total opposite to how i was trained. i remind myself of the XFiles... 'Trust No-one'. i guess i just never learnt how to do boundaries, so now i know i can/should i am throwing loads of them up at the least suspicion of a threat. not the best approach in a therapeutic relationship, but i am not sure how to fix it, especially if she keeps throwing me flankers. can't take any more damage.

you're right tho, i just have to keep going.  hope to find the way back to my path soon though, it's pretty dark in these damn woods. thanks for the loan of your candles, WsG and D/U. i owe you's

[arpy1]

Stillhere, you nailed it exactly. exactly. i wasn't wrong to feel the way i felt, was i?

i don't know if i  have the courage to actually tell her all that and ask her why she felt it was appropriate to suggest it so enthusiastically. i'm not good at face to face confrontations, but equally, like i say, i feel weird about the whole thing with her now.  maybe as you say, it was an aberration. 
besides which i really don't feel like i could start all over again with someone new...

think i may have to deal with this, really.                        oh,  :pissed:bad words bad words ...worse words .... 

or maybe i will go and find a big dark warm hole and hibernate till it all goes away???