I have this problem...
Isn't that where it all starts? "Doc, I have this problem." My problem is that I have a hard time acknowledging that a relationship isn't right for me. My relationship with my Father was bad, yet I was always searching for his approval. My relationship with my last Ex was dysfunctional and he talked down to me and he verbally abused me, but yet again I wanted it to work and his approval meant that I was okay. I had a horrible job that I hated and I stayed for years. I just got into these patterns where I was afraid to leave because I was afraid I'd be lost. Even though these relationships were bad for me, I wasn't sure who I was without them.
This brings me to my therapist. I decided that I would start therapy after my Dad died. I wanted some help walking through the mourning process. I'm trying to diminish the hurt and the pain that I know will eventually come in full force. Truth is, no one can avoid that and I need to stop trying to control every situation. I was originally supposed to start therapy the day before my Dad died. Of course, I didn't know he'd die the next day. Actually, I thought he could die at any minute and I cancelled that appointment. Then I met him that following week.
I wasn't feeling it from the get go. I didn't like that he just stared at me, like he was waiting for me to start. I didn't like that he didn't say much and let me do all the talking. I didn't like that he didn't ask me why I was coming to therapy. He didn't seem to acknowledge that it might be hard for me to talk. Truth is, it's not that hard for me to talk. I had requested a gay therapist and this guy is gay and older. I am not attracted to this man, but I have Daddy issues as it is. So I immediately felt disappointed by this person.
The logical response would be, "Well why don't you look at that? It's a possible pattern for you." And I agree, so that's why I went in for Week Two despite reservations. At this point, I thought I would give it a month and see where things go from there. In session two, I asked him if we could start out with some sort of ritual. He could ask me, "How are you?" I needed something to signifiy that we were beginning. Then he asks me why I need him to take care of me. I didn't like that. He questioned why I needed the ritual and I felt like I needed to speak up when things felt uncomfortable. I understand that he was trying to deliberately push some buttons to get something out of me. But I also felt like I saw too many wires. I saw the mechanics and the technique and I immediately started shutting down. I just started talking and while there was some good stuff that came out, I didn't feel a lot of trust there.
Yet I still went in for Session Three and I held on because 1) I said I'd do four sessions; and 2) I felt like some things did some out of it that seemed like issues I needed to look at. Plus, my bereavement counselor from the hospice care told me that I should consider sticking it out. That the therapist doesn't need to be good, but if you're getting something from it, maybe that's good. But I still don't think that I give what we talk about much thought after the session. It doesn't seem to have any lasting resonance with me. The only thing that has resonance was how uncomfortable I feel and maybe that is helpful, but I don't know.
So I had my third session with this guy and he did ask me how I was doing, which was nice. But the focus of the conversation really went towards how being gay affected so many things in my life. While this is true, he talked about how my father really rejected the gay in me. And he said something that stuck with me, but also gave me great pause. He suggested that sometimes people whose fathers are so opposed to their sons being gay are gay themselves. Then he quickly said that he wasn't inferring that my Dad was gay. But I felt pushed. I felt like he was trying to draw some conclusions that didn't feel right to me. But I talked to my bereavement counselor about it and he said that I shouldn't necessarily throw the baby out with the bathwater. Still I had doubts, but I went in for another session yesterday.
I will say that in the third session I cried. But even those tears felt manipulated a bit. I might have talked about how sad it was that my Dad didn't get the things I got. He had an emotionally distant mother and he married my Mom because he didn't want his kids to have a mother who was distant. But he didn't know how to be with a woman who was so in touch with her feelings, so the feeling of how difficult it was for him to be married to her really showed. I cried because he couldn't really open up.
So I went back to the fourth session because I had cried and I thought that maybe I was getting something out of it. We talked about how my Dad didn't want me to take dance lessons as a kid. I asked when I was seven if I could have lessons and they told me that they couldn't afford them. Then the next year my brother started playing soccer and they always seemed to have money for his sports. Even at seven, I understood that my Dad didn't want me to have dance lessons because I was gay. Then it seemed like the gay thing came up a lot. And that seemed to be the reason that my father rejected me. I don't think that's the whole story. I think my Dad had issues because I was so like my mother and so emotional and if he didn't know how to handle how emotional she was how could he expect to be good with me. Yes, the gay thing is mixed in with that, but it just seemed too easy. And it started to make me feel like being gay was the problem. And it felt like he wanted me to have this resentment of my father because of it. I don't think my Dad didn't like that I was gay, but this guy kept repeating it. He kept saying that I was deprived of something I really wanted. Well, that's true. But I don't necessarily think that being a writer is getting the silver medal. I could have been both. But there are too many "What Ifs". They are infinite and you can drive yourself mad with the "What If" dance.
I was thinking a lot earlier about whether I should stay with this guy or in therapy at all at this point. I was talking to my friend Alanna and I realized that maybe I'm not ready to talk about how shitty my Dad was. Maybe I just need to mourn his passing. And even though there were things about him that were shitty and I'm not one to sugarcoat that, it feels good not to be driven by that resentment. I spent so much of my life being driven by that resentment and we had some sort of resolution before he died. Maybe there are things that I need to go back to. But that time isn't now. I want to see how I feel in a few months. But for me, I'm enjoying not having that chip on my shoulder and even though it might not be true, I'm feeling that this therapist wants to put an even larger chip back up there.
Some good stuff has been brought up in those sessions, but I also feel like I'm being steered in a direction I don't need to go in or that I've moved past or that I might not be ready to head in yet.
And that's me knowing what's good for me. Just because someone is older, an "authority" and someone I'm paying doesn't mean they know more than I do.
I'm aware that it's good to acknowledge when someone pushes your buttons and that might be for a certain reason, but I don't think I'm there right now. I've spent a lot of my life being pushed down so that I can fight my way back up. And I'm not interested in any sort of fighting right now . I just want to be good to myself.
And that's okay.
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