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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 73 to 97 of 116. Go back in thread:
Posted by Twinleaf on March 13, 2014, at 20:07:23
In reply to Re: He's not dying, posted by Dinah Seeks Support on March 13, 2014, at 19:59:10
Yes, exactly. You need and deserve to know all those things, so that you can carry the sense of having been cared about with you without any doubts. After a while, you might let him know what you need and want from him.
Posted by baseball55 on March 13, 2014, at 20:59:58
In reply to Re: He's not dying » Dinah Seeks Support, posted by Twinleaf on March 13, 2014, at 20:07:23
I don't mean to be critical Dinah and I understand the frustration and anger and abandonment you feel, but you have to consider that maybe he is physically and mentally unable to deal with patients right now Maybe he just needs to take care of himself right now and limit his interactions to friends and family who will take care of him and make no emotional demands.
You seem so angry and hurt and this is understandable. But ask yourself how you would feel if he were seriously ill or disabled or suffering. Do you want to be the sort of person who attends only to her own feelings and doesn't consider his suffering?
If this happened to me (and I know one day it will and it will be hard and painful), I would try to tell myself that he needs to take care of himself right now and cannot take care of me. I hope I can be this selfless.
The therapeutic relationship is fraught. It's a real relationship, filled with trust and caring and genuine love. But it's not the same as a real personal relationship, because it's one-sided and circumscribed by therapeutic boundaries.
See if you can let go of the anger and hurt and imagine caring for him in his time of need by sending loving-kindness his way.
Posted by Dinah Seeks Support on March 13, 2014, at 21:40:11
In reply to Re: He's not dying, posted by baseball55 on March 13, 2014, at 20:59:58
Posted by Twinleaf on March 13, 2014, at 21:41:10
In reply to Re: He's not dying, posted by baseball55 on March 13, 2014, at 20:59:58
You do make very good points, and they do express the most constructive way to go, but, although Dinah is utilizing Babble as a safe place to express her hurt and shock, she has also been caring during this time, sending him a note expressing her love, concern and prayers for him. She seems most of all to want to retain a sense of his caring while trying to find out what happened. I do think that a more personal, caring message, from him or someone close to him, would have helped a lot- helped him, too.
Posted by sleepygirl2 on March 13, 2014, at 21:51:04
In reply to And that's it for me, guys. Bye. (nm), posted by Dinah Seeks Support on March 13, 2014, at 21:40:11
((((Dinah))))
I'm sorry he's gone missing like this. It sucks.
I'd have an awful hard time too. :-(
It's not a lie, of course, the relationship, but it's weird not to communicate a bit more.
sleepysid.
Posted by Twinleaf on March 13, 2014, at 21:52:28
In reply to And that's it for me, guys. Bye. (nm), posted by Dinah Seeks Support on March 13, 2014, at 21:40:11
Posted by Phillipa on March 13, 2014, at 22:11:36
In reply to Re: He's not dying, posted by baseball55 on March 13, 2014, at 20:59:58
Baseball I agree with you. If you were sick or ill the guilt alone must be hard for a caring therapist and knowing he's unable to do what many of his patients might want. Phillipa
Posted by SLS on March 13, 2014, at 22:42:21
In reply to And that's it for me, guys. Bye. (nm), posted by Dinah Seeks Support on March 13, 2014, at 21:40:11
Hi, Dinah Seeks Support.
No need to respond.
Most of this is written out of ignorance, but with good intentions.
I can empathize with and relate to you to some degree, but not nearly as much as would be necessary for me to fully appreciate how disorienting this must be for you. I have never had psychodynamic or psychoanalytic therapies such that I should become attached to and enmeshed with the therapist. I guess what I am trying to say is that I really don't know how to make you feel better. I want to. Maybe you have to come to feel better on your own. I don't know.
I think that people here are giving you good advice and unconditional support. Is there anything that would soothe you except to reconnect with your therapist? I wonder if your therapist gave you the tools that would help you get through this situation. It would be a paradox of sorts. Would he be proud of you should you begin to use what he taught you? I don't know.
How very disorienting. The world must not seem real.
Try to manage your anxiety if you can. It will help prevent derealization.
- Scott
Posted by Willful on March 13, 2014, at 23:33:52
In reply to Re: He's not dying, posted by baseball55 on March 13, 2014, at 20:59:58
I have to disagree with you baseball55,
No matter how sick her T is, Dinah has the right also to take care of herself-- which involves expressing and working with the complexity and painfulness of many of her reactions. While it's great to send someone loving kindness-- and Dinah was saying many times that she did, too-- she was also saying that she had many other reactions, of needing to hear from him, of needing to feel that for these many years his caring had been real, that she mattered-- and that he was aware-- as a way of being there with her-- that it would be devastating for her that he needed suddenly to abandon her.
I"m not saying that a therapist can write personal notes to 20 patients when she or he is very sick-- but there can be a thoughtful and caring communication to those few, or one, who have put so much into the relationship.
And I don't think that Dinah is being selfish in this. I guess that's what you seem to be implying ( to me anyway). She does have the right to be angry and hurt, and disappointed-- and even to reject the relationship for a time. I hope she finds her way back to remembering the good things---for her sake- because they could be sustaining-- but I understand greatly why it's difficult if not almost impossible to find them right away.
We need to accept the complexity of her (and our) feelings, and the primal sense of abandonment that some people particularly feel devastating-- leaving only the loved person's absence.
I 'm sure you were trying to point the way to something that could bring some relief-- but also no one can put a time-limit on someone else's working through of feelings of grief and loss.
Posted by Twinleaf on March 14, 2014, at 10:12:04
In reply to My therapist on extended leave, posted by Dinah Seeks Support on March 7, 2014, at 20:23:20
Dinah, I do hope you will continue posting about this, or any other, situation. There is a lot of caring and support for you here, because of how much you have given to others over the years.
Posted by Dr. Bob on March 14, 2014, at 15:16:41
In reply to Re: He's not dying » baseball55, posted by Willful on March 13, 2014, at 23:33:52
> Dinah is utilizing Babble as a safe place to express her hurt and shock
>
> Twinleaf> Dinah has the right also to take care of herself-- which involves expressing and working with the complexity and painfulness of many of her reactions. ... she was also saying ... that it would be devastating for her that he needed suddenly to abandon her.
>
> She does have the right to be angry and hurt, and disappointed-- and even to reject the relationship for a time.
>
> We need to accept the complexity of her (and our) feelings, and the primal sense of abandonment that some people particularly feel devastating-- leaving only the loved person's absence.
>
> WillfulThanks, I found that a helpful way of seeing what's going on. Maybe the Support that Dinah Seeks, right now, anyway, is understanding and empathy, not what might feel like "excuses" for her T's behavior. I'm going to respond to an earlier post, but I'll start a different thread for that.
Bob
Posted by sleepygirl2 on March 14, 2014, at 20:36:54
In reply to Re: Support is what Dinah Seeks, posted by Dr. Bob on March 14, 2014, at 15:16:41
> > Dinah is utilizing Babble as a safe place to express her hurt and shock
> >
> > Twinleaf
>
> > Dinah has the right also to take care of herself-- which involves expressing and working with the complexity and painfulness of many of her reactions. ... she was also saying ... that it would be devastating for her that he needed suddenly to abandon her.
> >
> > She does have the right to be angry and hurt, and disappointed-- and even to reject the relationship for a time.
> >
> > We need to accept the complexity of her (and our) feelings, and the primal sense of abandonment that some people particularly feel devastating-- leaving only the loved person's absence.
> >
> > Willful
>
> Thanks, I found that a helpful way of seeing what's going on. Maybe the Support that Dinah Seeks, right now, anyway, is understanding and empathy, not what might feel like "excuses" for her T's behavior. I'm going to respond to an earlier post, but I'll start a different thread for that.
>
> BobSeriously, this is not a good time to rationalize things.
Dinah knows how to rationalize.
We're all dependent to some extent, of course we can see our t's as separate people, but we attach, so we feel attached. When anyone is important to you, and they disappear without explanation, you'll miss them dearly.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 16, 2014, at 16:35:16
In reply to Re: Support is what Dinah Seeks » Dr. Bob, posted by sleepygirl2 on March 14, 2014, at 20:36:54
So I didn't follow all of this...
But I got to thinking... Remembering... Around the time of hurricane Katrina. How things fell apart for a lot of people. How you held things together really well. Better than your therapist, even, ha. Better than most people. How you do that on the boards sometimes, too. Hold things together. Find your calm. In the storm.
I think I have that tendency sometimes, too. I think. I see a little bit of that in me. I wonder if it comes from living in a state of almost chronic alarm most of the time. People might think that we don't have good coping skills because of living a lot of our lives in crisis... But then when something external sends other people into that same state of physiological arousal the person who is used to it functions best.
I don't know if that makes sense. Or whether it is true or not. But it helps me think about the lab... Helps me feel better about it. I was totally focused. for 2 hours. Until I realised I needed to do calculations on something I forgot to write down (thought that was what the pre-lab was for) and that I needed to double the scale on the x axis which would have made the numbers align... oddly... with the little squares on the graph paper and i mentally gave up on the math. That's a pretty good first effort. It... Won't get any harder than that, actually.
I sort of imagining your therapist pulling things back together in a little time... Seeing sense. Or something. Anyway... Not sure if I'm up to speed on things... Or making an awful lot of sense... But I wouldn't be terribly surprised if this storm, too, comes to pass.
Posted by baseball55 on March 16, 2014, at 20:28:05
In reply to And that's it for me, guys. Bye. (nm), posted by Dinah Seeks Support on March 13, 2014, at 21:40:11
I'm sorry Dinah. Did my post drive you away? I certainly hope not. I did not mean to be hurtful. When you write about your T, I can't seem to help applying it to myself and my relationship with my T, whom, I have said many times on this board, I love and feel deeply attached to. He's in his mid-70s and I think a lot about how I would handle the kind of situation you are in. The call or letter one day that he is curbing his practice for personal, health reasons.
It terrifies me and I try to imagine how I can handle it, how I can come to peace with it.So I think I just project my own imagined responses to you.
Posted by vwoolf on March 17, 2014, at 1:22:55
In reply to My therapist on extended leave, posted by Dinah Seeks Support on March 7, 2014, at 20:23:20
Dear Dinah, I don't often come to the boards any more and have only just seen your message about your therapist. I just wanted to say that I think it is intolerable that you are not being allowed to know what has become of him.
You quite clearly have a strong relationship with him. A real relationship that has lasted twenty years. I am sure it is real for him too.
I think you have a right to know, no matter how terrible the news may be. You have a right to mourn if necessary.
I would insist with the agency if I were you, press them to give you enough details. Boundaries are supposed to be there to protect the patient, not to hurt them. Trust in the relationship you know you had with him.
When people go missing, the most terrible thing for the families is that they can't grieve. They need to know what has happened, they need the 'bones' to bury.
Posted by 10derheart on March 17, 2014, at 16:45:48
In reply to My therapist on extended leave, posted by Dinah Seeks Support on March 7, 2014, at 20:23:20
I sent you an email.
I don't know what to say here.
I'm praying for you.
Posted by Dinah on March 20, 2014, at 17:43:34
In reply to Re: And that's it for me, guys. Bye. » Dinah Seeks Support, posted by baseball55 on March 16, 2014, at 20:28:05
I was feeling pretty fragile. I probably still am. I don't know really....
I understand that my issue might be triggering for a lot of people here. It's the worst nightmare. I certainly have fussed at my therapist often for what other people's therapists have done. So I really do understand.
Every therapy dyad is different. And what's "true" in your therapy relationship isn't necessarily true for others. Our boundaries weren't either better or worse than with your therapist. They were just different. Partly because of the years involved, partly because of the nature of the work (which largely involved fear of abandonment), and partly because we lived through Katrina as comrades as well as therapist/client.
What is reasonable for your response and his actions is not necessarily the same as is reasonable for my response and my therapist's actions.
I'm not entirely sure why you thought, that day, that I was primarily angry with him. I was furious with the therapist who called me in to her office merely to tell me that he actually had abandoned me, she would curl up and die if it happened to her, and that he was never coming back. I'd have been way happier if she had never contacted me after telling me he wasn't dying.
Also, to some extent the anger I felt towards my therapist was protective. You might find, if you are ever in this situation, that anger feels less horrible than terror.
Posted by Dinah on March 20, 2014, at 17:44:20
In reply to Re: My therapist on extended leave » Dinah Seeks Support, posted by 10derheart on March 17, 2014, at 16:45:48
Thanks, 10der.
Posted by Dinah on March 20, 2014, at 18:01:13
In reply to Re: My therapist on extended leave, posted by vwoolf on March 17, 2014, at 1:22:55
You're right. The not knowing is horrible. And even worse since that stupid therapist told me that he was never coming back. I at least held hope that one day I'd hear some sort of reason. I do appreciate her telling me he wasn't dying, and her tone implied it's nothing like that.
If you have any idea of how I can find out, please tell me. He worked alone. His phone is now disconnected (causing another evening of sobs). The stupid therapist with the agency he referred to let me know that she found out what's wrong with him from the grapevine. There's a whole grapevine out there, with people who don't give a darn about him, who know what's going on. But a client cant' find out because it's "confidential".
And there's no point trying to communicate at all with her or anyone else from there. I'm identified as the crazy client now. Nothing I say will break through their complacency.
I've googled, and will continue to google. I've found several things it *isn't*.
The irony was that if someone had just given me minimal information, I wouldn't even be looking. It's like a celebrity wedding. The best way to avoid a mob scene is to release wedding photos. I don't want or need to know details about his personal life. It may seem like I want to know the gory details, and it's hard for me to explain the difference. What I need to know is about what happened and will happen between us. Something more than "extended medical leave" "probably longer than four months" and just the vaguest hint that it might be never.
But his phone is disconnected. No one who knows him will say anything to the crazy patient. Short of contacting his wife, which will probably have the same result anyway, or hiring a private investigator, I'm at a loss.
Posted by Dinah on March 20, 2014, at 18:05:43
In reply to Dinah?, posted by alexandra_k on March 16, 2014, at 16:35:16
It depends on the type of emergency, I think. I fall apart in medical emergencies.
But yes, I did handle Katrina better than he did. But our experience in Katrina makes this even more incomprehensible. Even then, with the whole world in chaos, he never just cut me off. He might have said he couldn't handle me right now. He might have run away. But he never just disappeared. He made an effort at least to not disappear.
I know in my heart that my therapist would never do this.
Yet he did.
Posted by Dinah on March 20, 2014, at 18:08:23
In reply to Re: Support is what Dinah Seeks » Dr. Bob, posted by sleepygirl2 on March 14, 2014, at 20:36:54
Rationalizing isn't always bad. I've made up at least one scenario that makes sense to me. If I never hear anything else, I'll have to cling to that one.
I feel very detached. At least in the daytime. He almost seems like someone I used to know long ago. Perhaps. Maybe he was a dream.
But whenever I wake up, I still breathe pain.
Posted by Dinah on March 20, 2014, at 18:10:12
In reply to Re: My therapist on extended leave » Dinah Seeks Support, posted by Twinleaf on March 14, 2014, at 10:12:04
((( Twinleaf )))
Thank you. I have tried.
I hope you understand that there is a lot of caring and support here for you as well, because of how much you've given to others through the years.
Posted by Dinah on March 20, 2014, at 18:14:14
In reply to Re: He's not dying » baseball55, posted by Willful on March 13, 2014, at 23:33:52
> We need to accept the complexity of her (and our) feelings, and the primal sense of abandonment that some people particularly feel devastating-- leaving only the loved person's absence.
Willful, you have absolutely nailed it. Although I wasn't well enough to post, this resonated so much and I felt so perfectly understood that I cried.
Posted by Dinah on March 20, 2014, at 18:30:14
In reply to Re: And that's it for me, guys. Bye. » Dinah Seeks Support, posted by SLS on March 13, 2014, at 22:42:21
The best way I can explain it is this. You're maybe almost ready to go away to college. Then you come home after a brief absence (I had to cancel my last session) to find out that your dearly loved mother has left you a note on the kitchen table saying that something is terribly wrong with her, and she's going away and doesn't know when she'll be back.
It doesn't even matter that I had one foot out the door, metaphorically. It's terrifying. I'm terrified for him, I'm terrified for me. And I'm angry he left an impersonal note that left me thinking he might be dying. Other people - people who know him only casually - know where he is, but they won't tell me. I'm left wondering if I missed something. Was something going on that I didn't notice because I was arriving late and missing sessions?
His phone is disconnected, and that one slim hope I had that he would one day return has been dashed. That one slim connection. As long as the phone message was there, I knew he hadn't totally disappeared. He was expecting to return.
Tools. Well, despite his feelings about Babble lately, he'd probably be happy that I reached out here. He always knew I was sometimes quite unkind to him here, and he was just glad I had somewhere to process my feelings.
It occurred to me earlier today that he'd likely tell me that story about the farmer.
http://www.rainbowbody.com/newarticles/farmerson.htm
Then I'd metaphorically put my hands on my hips and tell him that's awfully *convenient* for him. And that abandoning me can never be rationalized that way. That it was good for me to see him as long as he needed the income stream, but now "may be". And he'd likely laugh and acknowledge that it could look like that. And then tell the same story next time.
I miss him. I literally can't believe I'll never see him again. I literally can't believe our twenty years of fighting to relationship can end like this.
Posted by Dinah on March 20, 2014, at 18:38:20
In reply to Re: And that's it for me, guys. Bye. » SLS, posted by Dinah on March 20, 2014, at 18:30:14
Incidentally, I hope no one tries to get me to see how the farmer story applies. I thought it was a cop-out when he used it to excuse his own actions. But it was him doing it, and it was so like him that I couldn't help but find it endearing.
There is nothing that could offset the loss of trust that abandonment by my therapist of twenty years has caused. I don't want to extend myself to anyone ever. If my therapist, who would never in a million billion years, did this, then how could I trust anyone in the entire world. Except maybe my husband and a couple of dogs.
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