Dear Rachel:

Regarding your second post, the therapist you saw when you were 20, the intern, vs the therapist you’ve seen for 2.5 years: reads to me that the intern felt comfortable with you and genuinely liked you and that made it possible for you to feel comfortable and safe with him. The current therapist at times didn’t feel comfortable with you and you noticed it, and she doesn’t like you like the intern did, and you noticed that too. Therefore you feel uncomfortable and unsafe with her.

Here is the evidence that you noticed she is uncomfortable with you: “Sometimes I feel I scare her with the things I’ve talked about”.

Here is the evidence that you noticed she doesn’t like you: “For a long time I didn’t think she even liked me at all”.

Here is the evidence that you feel uncomfortable with her, too uncomfortable to express more of your feelings with her, but you did feel comfortable with the intern: “I wish I felt the same sense of safety that I felt in therapy before”- there is nothing more comfortable than safety.

She says the right words, but the emotion of comfort and liking you is lacking in her tone of voice/facial expressions: “she usually says all the right things I just feel a lack of emotional connection”-we connect to people we believe like us and are comfortable with us.

Of course you’d be blocked from expressing more if you feel that she is uncomfortable with what you already expressed. To feel safe with a therapist we need to believe that the therapist feels comfortable with what we shared and with what we will share, at least we need to believe that there is a good chance that she will feel comfortable with what we share next.

Regarding your original post: the key sentence to me is what you wrote about your ex girlfriend: “(She) rewrote reality for so long that I can’t see/feel clearly anymore”- key is that you regain your clarity, that you will be able to see clearly.

Your parents “screamed, shamed and criticized (you) constantly, who rarely offered any love”- this means that the young child that you were was scared and she believed she was faulty, wrong, bad, and responsible for what was wrong in the household, which was not true to reality. She also craved love.

As an adult you had a 4.5 year relationship with a woman who also screamed at you, shamed and criticized you, just like your parents. When you pointed to her a behavior she was responsible for and which was harmful to you, she rejected reality, didn’t take responsibility for it: “(She) played the victim whenever I called her out on her behavior”, and instead she attacked you, pointing the finger of blame at you.

Because you craved love, your life “became centered around catering to her and her needs, taking care of her… being her punching bag and her scapegoat”- a person desperate for love will do anything for it. pay any price.

Naturally you “became angry”, because when punched everyone gets angry. It is a natural reaction. But then, she blamed you for getting angry, for a natural reaction to her using you as a punching bag and a scapegoat.

Most recently she was “guilt tripping (you) over text, sending gifts.. asking me to take her back and acting like nothing happened”-

-“nothing happened”-something did happen, you were significantly harmed by her for a long time.

-“guilt tripping”-you are not responsible for her mistreatment of you, neither are you responsible for feeing anger following her mistreatment of you, it is an automatic and natural feeling that follows mistreatment.

-“sending gifts”-there is only one gift you need right now and that is seeing reality clearly. And because she “rewrote reality for so long”, better keep that re-writer out of your life.

What are your thoughts about what I wrote here?

anita