Dear Anita,

Your words and your attitude are very calming and healing to me, thank you for your presence here.

I think some therapists believe that their most important function is to just be there and let the patient talk freely, and that the space and time they offer to do that is enough. And maybe it is so for some people. At least this is how I interpret this silence, which I find quite frustrating and disrespectful, even.

I had a therapist before who was actually quite good but didn’t speak much. It was not as extreme as the story you told about yours, but once I went to him feeling really bad. I just sat there and only said something about how awful I was feeling. I couldn’t say anything more. He didn’t say anything either, at all. He was silent during the entire session and when the time was up that was it. I felt so hurt by that, I felt that he just abandoned me there with my feelings and didn’t bother to help me work them out by speaking to me.
But he was a good therapist, because I told him about how hurt I felt by that in later sessions and he did adapt himself and started to speak more. That’s why I believe he might have thought before that I wanted him to just be silent with me or something. Maybe some people react better to that than to words, but I’m a very verbal person and I need words, words reassure me and calm me down.

Yes, my husband is a good and loving man and I am actually very lucky to have him in my life, even if I don’t always remember that. I would say that he has qualities which cannot be measured with analytical tools, like the ones that I sometimes apply to dissect his personality and intellect and to find him inadequate. Right now I am able to see that, but I am sure I will come back here on times when I will not be able to see that at all. Sometimes, when I feel good with him and think back on these spikes and torments, I wonder if he might not be just the right person for me – exactly because there is something about him which eludes the kind of analysis and measurements I try to apply. Because I have a very judgmental side and I tend to label other people, measure and compare them (and myself) too much.

I do try to understand where the initial anxiety is coming from, but it’s hard to pinpoint and map that out.
I do have some ideas but I have to stop now. Maybe I will write more about that later.

Thank you for reading.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by Midnight.