On Having Need
him/her for anything; reassurance, understanding, support, I think I am being overbearing and demanding. The very act of walking through the door of the office and being seen feels like asking for more than anyone should ever be asked to give. Indeed, I am supposed to go in there and figure out what the therapist needs and start supporting and taking care of him! Paradoxically if the therapist cannot return a rare phone call, or cannot be as supportive as I need him/her to be, I feel rejected and abandoned. So, I find myself in one of those double binds so common to survivors. If the therapist is supportive, etc. I feel bad and evil. If he is not supportive I feel bad and evil. This is all because I am not supposed to have any needs.
What can happen, is that I get so worried about being needy, that I become needy!! By skirting around what I really want to say or ask for, those who are working with me have to guess at what I am really trying to ask or say. They can end up feeling manipulated, or like they are being forced to play some strange kind of game. Though this is not my intent, especially if they do not know me very well, my "halftalk," as I call it, can create the very drain I am trying so hard not to inflict on others.
It's another trust issue. In order to heal, I have to trust before trust is really there to be able to learn to trust! I have to risk from the very foundation of my being. I wear the lessons of the past like a second skin. To begin removing this skin leaves me feeling touch tender and naked once again. I often feel like I am metaphorically standing in the middle of a busy freeway daring the cars not to hit me. That's how vulnerable I feel as I try and shed the beliefs that have ruled me from the day I was born. I hate it when I am told I am comfortable living within the boundaries placed on me from the past. But, it is true. I have only known what I was so methodically programmed to believe.
Learning new ways is filled with as much pain and anxiety as the original abuse. As I discover and then
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