My life started to give me much needed and valuable freedom of choice when I finally put major emotional, cognitive, behavioural and physical boundaries in place. Previous to that I was forever delving into people’s private lives, hemorrhaging at emotional paper cuts, having concrete, rigid and inflexible ideas on everything and having anger management issues at lampposts and letterboxes.
Other People’s Boundaries: I used to think if you were my friend you would tell me everything about yourself simply because I had this uncontrollable urge to spill my guts to you. Now I choose to tell certain people certain things in a certain way and when I get that warning signal in my gut, I know it is not a good idea to share that particular story. I finally learned this from sharing a story I should have left well alone during a peer workers course I undertook for my employment.
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Can I ask why your therapist would have yelled at you and bit your head off for asking a personal question? I am I naive in thinking that any question can be asked in therapy?
Thanks
I was out of order asking the question I did. No, you cannot ask your therapist any question you want about them. I was in therapy to learn boundaries. If you think you can ask any question in any way then what is the point of paying someone to learn boundaries. She felt it was safe enough for me, and that I was mature enough to endure the consequences of my actions without me self-destructing. And she was right. We also talked about it and deconstructed it. I was taking her for granted in a lot of ways so it was a wake-up call for me.
Nina
10:03 am on
December 4th, 2011I am a psychotherapist, and I do not “yell” at my patients. If they asked a question that was too personal. I would simply redirect without any emotional outburst such as “yelling”. Yelling in a session would violate out mutual respect boundary.
holmegm
1:53 pm on
December 20th, 2011Did she *really* yell? Or did it just *feel* like yelling to you?
Or are you saying that she really yelled, but that it was essentially role playing, revealed shortly after the fact?
It felt like she yelled and I remember wondering what the receptionist would think. Was it role-playing? I don’t know and I don’t think she does either. I do know that it was all rather humiliating and I still have issues about it.
psychreader
1:52 am on
December 27th, 2011If you were wondering what the receptionist thought, then you had an objective clue that your therapist’s volume was louder than normal.
It might have been less than yelling, but your objective perception and your emotional perception told you it was “yelling.” In fact, it was traumatic for you. It still creates butterflies six months later. That’s trauma.
You have enough evidence to know that your therapist was triggered or provoked. I feel like you’re blaming yourself. You might not be entitled to every answer, but you certainly are entitled to every question.
You might love her. You might forgive her. The act might not be representative of her usual presentation. But what she did was wrong. Her actions destroyed the safety you are owed.
Fortunately your relationship is strong enough to weather the mistake.
Yes, I do have issues with that, but I have let them go as best I can. I wrote the original blog about it and she read it and didn’t like it too much. I never had adequate closure on therapy, it was just good enough and I can live with that. I’ve closed the door and moved on, same as I have with many other people in the past and no doubt there will be more to come in the future. I can emotionally regulate my thoughts and feelings enough to live with it and our relationship is not the sum total of that one session. I do look at the big picture, but it will be a long time before a day goes past when I don’t think of her, but the tangled web of transference is straightening out surprisingly easier than I ever thought.
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