Hi Anita

I think I am ready to post again.

Iv e had two instances in my young adult life (17 and 22) whereby I have felt strong sexual attraction but only realised it when I was in the dark with these men. The signs were there well before I experience the attraction so strongly. As well there was an established communication with these men once I felt attraction.

Speaking to my therapist about it, it seems like it’s because I am not in touch with my feelings at all and so only recognise attraction once I feel completely relaxed? I’m unsure…

Looking back the sexual attraction has come after curiosity the first guy I found very attractive physically and the second guy I found very emotionally compelling. He spoke and something about the way he spoke to me was so intriguing, surprising and attractive.

I guess I feel sad because of how disconnected I feel from my sexuality. Through dating I have realised I have huge barriers to face when dating men as I am prone to being very angry with them. Which is strange because surely I should be making my best efforts to attract them not to push and test. What gives?

Am I just perpetually traumatised by men. Or do i think I’m attracted to them and not actually So?

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by afeels.

Dear Anita,

Sexuality is a sensitive topic for me and the reasons for why I am questioning my sexuality has not been because of my therapist at all but because of my dating experiences with men  and trust issues and wondering why everything is so hard. In the future I would like to bring up my issues with sexuality myself if I am talking to you. I hope this is okay with you. I do not feel any feelings of infatuation with my therapist. When I said I was ‘mildly amused’ it was because her suggestion was so unexpected and so not what I meant when I emailed her that I needed short term strategies.

In regards to lack of connection. If I’m being frank, I see therapy and my therapist as being a highly intellectualised middle class bubble. I feel my class differences and cultural differences heavily when I am in conversation with my therapist as she is obviously had a very different upbringing to mine. I feel therapy in general to be a highly intellectualised exercise and I don’t know if this helps me and hence I do not know if my therapist can help me. Does it help constantly going on about the past with a mere stranger who I have no feelings of  connection with? What’s the point? I feel like I should at least see my therapist as a friend, as someone somewhat relatable or at least understood by.

I will admit, I did think at one point maybe I thrive on getting people to chase me, and push people away once I start feeling close. The difference though between my therapy experience and my past experiences of making people chasing me, is that my therapists suggestion of seeing me twice a week was a surprise and not one that I had any feelings associated with. I started getting feelings for my male friend once I pushed him away and he started chasing. I did not feel this way at all with my therapist and am rather just thinking about whether two sessions will help my mental wellbeing or make me worse.

Hi Anita,

The last session we had we didn’t discuss the lack of connection. The session prior was the session whereby we discussed me feeling disconnected. She allowed me to rant about it and didn’t seem to take it personally and told me to not apologise, and I expressed how certain things she does such as emailing me a response on the date/ time of our session, rather than spontaneously ticked me off. She did ask what she could do instead, and I replied with I don’t know. Because truly I don’t. All I could tell her was that she was highly boundaried and clinical and even though I acknowledge therapy has to have boundaries talking to her still felt too clinical for me. I joked that we should try bean bags in her office so that things feel more natural as the building is undergoing new interior design changes. We then ran out of time.

As I say last session we didn’t discuss lack of connection, though I expressed lack of hope in the process. She did say that she will try her hardest to reply to my emails as soon as she can, which was an acknowledgment of my frustrations at her email style. She didn’t bring up me talking to her was like talking to a wall during the session. I wonder if her suggestion to increase sessions is an attempt to help me trust and help the connection?

Although I do take your point that therapy shouldn’t be mysterious and I do feel her sessions are overwhelmingly mysterious, meta, and this is quite an issue.

Hi  Anita

I have been thinking on and off for two days about whether I should accept my therapists offer with two sessions per week.

I just don’t know.

On the one hand I can see that my oversharing with friends might have been a symptom of me needing more assistance as feelings were spilling out too much.

However I take your point about correcting distorted thoughts. I believe that initially she did help to point out distorted thoughts, and this helped me with the first phase of the process, for example I now have better boundaries with people who were abusive and do not just mindlessly rely on co-dependent habits, though it is still hard.

However now I am feeling more emotions than ever, and the therapy process is coming closer to my core, I am unsure whether her insight is helpful anymore at guiding me through it and pointing out distorted thoughts.

I think I should try the two sessions a week and see if this will help.  It may be that the support I was getting in the beginning and was helpful is no longer enough as I get closer and closer to my main traumas and I need more guidance than one session.  It might not be her technique but the frequency for which I am supported by her.

Or it could be her technique and I will shortly find myself  unhappy with the process. If that happens I think it will be easier for me to make the decision to find a new therapist.

What do you think? Reasonable? I am still slightly nervous about being overwhelmed and perhaps two sessions a week making things go too fast, but I also feel a slight hope with this therapist that she might still be able to help me.

Dear Anita,

Sorry I didn’t make it clear, I guess my brain is still quite fuzzy from the session. I said to her that the type of practical/ short term solutions I had in mind were things such as homework regarding how to think when thoughts overwhelm me or I get into an overthinking spiral, or practical things I can do to relieve anxiety.

She then said she doesn’t give out homework due to two reasons. One, she will not prescribe homework that alters how I think/ feel. And two, there is a subjective nature of what relaxation techniques works for different people, and she also said she thinks I am intelligent/ resourceful enough to find what works for me. She briefly mentioned yoga, meditation, running etc but then asked me what I do and have found helpful.

Hope this clarifies the homework bit.

Hi Anita

Thanks for your feedback, I will try to write after my therapy session about whether I will continue  the sessions with my therapist. I’m happier with the realisation that change comes gradually.

Hi Anita,

Thanks for the tip about the post.

Im regards to getting a new therapist, I wish I could but I do not have much money, want to move out and she has agreed to a sliding scale.

Although for this amount of pain I don’t know why I continue to go… I remember a couple of months ago asking if I could go on medication and she basically told me that she didn’t think it was a good idea, even though she knows I’m having a hard time, that it would get in the way of the process. I look back at that and realise I was way better then than I am now! Hilarious how little she is aware of the amount of hurt and pain I feel.

She assumed in the session we had a good therapeutic relationship and I had to correct her and explain that actually I felt no connection to her really, it was like speaking to a wall a lot of the time. I felt bad for saying it to her but it had to be said. How could she be so unaware of what I’m going through.

Maybe it is my fault, I think I’m a person who knows how to hide well and do it in the therapy room like I did with my parents.

my therapist is young and I think just newly qualified. I don’t think she has the skills needed to guide me through the healing although she has certainly demonstrated how sucky things really are and the truth that I have been avoiding.

I think what’s stopping me from getting a new therapist is money and also I feel bad. I know it’s ridiculous but I feel guilty to just give up. I default to assuming it is me, and can’t be her. There must be something wrong with me, why can’t I shut up and go along with her non plan. I find it weirdly hilarious as I type that but it’s really what i feel.

When I say I don’t feel much of a connection with her I mean that I find her/ her approach very clinical and detached.  I know its important for therapy to be that way because boundaries are important but I tell her much more than anyone else in my life and somehow feel extremely unattached. The most I am able to feel about my therapist is annoyance/ anger when I am in moments of pain. I do not feel many positive feelings for her, such as warmth although I do think she is a very empathetic therapist.

I see people on websites talk about their therapy experiences and their issues of being too attached and I realise I do not have any of those issues. Their feelings of great fondness for their therapist, like they are the best person in their lives. I do not feel any of these things and I have seen my therapist for two years. This makes me question am I incapable of attachment or is her approach too clinical/ sanitised for me to get the benefits that others get when they feel attachment with their therapist.  I would like to feel more connection with my therapist because it actually makes me feel quite strange that I do not.

She comforts me when I am telling her how hard things have become, and affirms what I am feeling  but I don’t know if this is enough for me. I need concrete methods, I need more? I have not told her about feeling like  a gaping wound- I think I am able to describe things better in writing than verbally.