The Accommodator

Last therapy session I burst out crying after discussing the things I described in my last post, and my therapist got all sappy with me and said “I appreciate so much that you trust me enough to really cry in front of me.” And the look on her face was so sappy and hopeful and grateful it scared me a little.

This therapist has made it very clear to me that she likes me and she’s very excited to be treating me. I guess in her eyes I’m a “dream” patient because I’m similar to her in a lot of ways. I’m not a blubbering idiot. I’m “trying” to get better (at least for a little while…ahh, I am fickle). I have similar religious beliefs (or lack of religious beliefs I guess would be more accurate). And she “specializes” in trauma, which apparently I’ve had a lot of in my life (who hasn’t), and more specifically her specialty is in date rape trauma, which I have also experienced (lucky me).

She has made it very clear to me on several occasions how much she enjoys treating me, even to the extent of saying that she thinks I would benefit from DBT, but then saying she, for selfish reasons, wanted to keep treating me. (As stated in another post, we have set the goal for DBT after I don’t have the stress of managing my department in place of my manager to deal with). Now, all the while she has been very clear that her desire to maintain treatment before giving me up to DBT is completely selfish, and she was being direct with me. That said, she left it up to me about when to start DBT, which I completely respect.

My problem is, I have had this problem in the past. I think I have this innate ability to tell therapists exactly what they want to hear. And when they discover I am reasonable (yes, albeit in my logical brain, not the emotional one), they become my friend more than my therapist, and they trust that I can handle things better than I can, and so I end up in cycle after cycle of pointless therapy sessions where I tell them what they want to hear, and they get their ego stroked and are so happy that they have an “easy” patient.

I don’t want to do this, telling my therapist what she wants to hear, but it is like an addiction. I feel ashamed of all these problems that I have coping, so I minimize them, and I leave things out that are the most shameful. And, if I am in a decent mood at the time of therapy, then I completely forget the worst of the symptoms I’m experiencing. Then they think I am coping better than I am, and I keep going through this everlasting cycle of hating life and not getting anywhere.

I’m completely honest in my first session because I haven’t developed any kind of relationship or sense of expectations with the therapist. But after a few sessions, I know exactly what they want, so I give them what they want. Not because I am consciously trying to manipulate them, but because I care so deeply (embarrassingly so) about what people think of me. So I modify myself to fit others’ needs so that they will like me and accept me instead of tending to my own.

Perhaps that’s why I have kept writing this blog. Strangers have no expectations of me, so I can be candid and not minimize my experiences.

Ahh, the vicious cycle continues. And it will forever continue until I can break this habit. I am a master of disguise who has a very high tolerance for pain. I live with it everyday, and I feel it to my very core. But people around me who are not in on it wouldn’t know it because I will never show them. I hide, and I blend in. And I am alone in my pain because of it. Except here.