Separation Anxiety

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 27, 2011

Intimate feelings should be a side-effect of relationships, not the other way around. When that intimacy becomes an end in itself, you forget, not just the other reasons why you’re spending time with someone, but the other things you need to be doing for yourself, your job, and the other people in your life. So the opposite of a strong attachment isn’t necessarily to break away, but to regain your sense of who you are and what you value the most, whether or not you’ve come down with a chronic partnership.
–Dr. Lastname

Approximately three years ago I realized my psychiatrist preferred other patients and liked other patients more than me. That realization was incredibly devastating to me. I want to deal with this reality, however, my psychiatrist keeps denying this is the reality and will not openly admit he does indeed prefer other patients. Part of me that hopes (wishes) this truly is not the reality (him preferring other patients) and I TRY to believe that what he says is the reality! However, I simply can’t believe him. I have told him I can’t believe something that I think isn’t true. Even though he has helped me immensely in many ways, and I’m extremely attached to him, I have lost trust, confidence and faith in my psychiatrist over this issue. I think he is preventing me from having the opportunity to deal with reality by denying he prefers other patients. I have a need to hear him say, “Yes I do prefer other patients and your observations/perceptions about this have been accurate.” I think if I hear him say these words I could actually work to deal with it. Since he’s obviously not prepared to say this, MY GOAL is to somehow “detach” from him, stop therapy with him and move on and forget about it.

When you do therapy right, a shrink is like a thesis advisor, helping you explore the toughest issues in your life until your work is complete.

If you lean on therapy too much, however (sometimes through no choice of your own), a shrink is a crutch, which makes deciding when and how to end therapy much more complicated. Remove the cast too early, and you still can’t walk on your own.

So, while it’s a reasonable goal for you to reduce your attachment to your psychiatrist, it’s only worth doing if you think you’ll get through it intact.

The truth is, it’s never a great idea to get attached to psychiatrists or therapists of any kind unless you think it’s really necessary; we cost a lot, the meetings don’t last long, and we’re not all that friendly, really, judging from the way we talk about one another. Most importantly, whatever you imagine you’ll eventually get from the relationship, like unconditional love or feeling like a favored child, doesn’t usually happen.

If what you think you’re getting, however, is a mental stability that you might not have otherwise, then you may be better off sticking with your shrink, regardless of feeling humiliated or rejected by not being his favorite.

As to wanting him to tell you where you really stand in his patient hit parade, ask yourself whether you’ll really be satisfied with his answer; if he tells you that you have “most favored patient” status, you’ll doubt whether he means it, and if he tells you that he likes someone else more, you may not feel so hot about that, either.

That’s the problem with most people who have unsettling doubts about someone they’re close to; they become obsessed with confirming their fears until their doubts damage the relationship and, voila, their fears are confirmed. Instead of going that route, it’s better to shut up or change the subject. Since you’ve been on that route for so long, however, that’s going to be tough.

For now, find goals for your treatment that are less dependent on how you and your psychiatrist feel about one another. Ask yourself what you’d like to change, and look at your psychiatrist as Professor Problems, whom you’ve hired to help you make that change. Judge him as you would any teacher or tradesman, not just by whether you get along but by how well he’s doing the job you hired him for.

In the end, you may manage your strong attachment more safely and effectively if, instead of stopping therapy abruptly, you focus on what you want your hired guy to do for you and confine your conversation to this topic. Make it less about how you feel about one another and more about what you want him to help you do.

If you can’t get past your fixation on his favorites, you should probably look for someone else. After all, this Professor Problems has got you thinking too much about him and you, instead of your true field of study—living life more effectively.

STATEMENT:
“My feelings for my psychiatrist are full of doubt, mistrust, and hurt, but there’s no way, after more than 3 years of trying, that I can make those feelings go away. What I can do, however, is decide whether the value of treatment is worth putting up with those feelings and, if so, start to see him as seldom as possible while using what I’ve learned from treatment to live my life.”

I can tolerate the fact that my son lives with a drug addict, but it’s hard. He’s a good-hearted kid who believes his love will eventually win her over to sobriety. Meanwhile, she never stays clean for long and always winds up stealing from him and prostituting to feed her habit. As a result, though my son works hard, they never have enough money and always wind up skipping out on the landlord or squatting. I make sure he has enough to eat, but I can’t give him anything without its winding up in her hands. He defends her when I call her a thief and a whore. My goal is to rescue him, and I’m getting nowhere.

You want to save your son from a destructive girlfriend and he wants to save her from herself and since you’re both going about it all wrong, allow me to save you a lot of trouble.

You can’t help anyone by taking responsibility for their fates or feelings; in fact, the more you push them with anger or urgency, the more they define themselves by pushing back, rather than by figuring out what they need to do for themselves. If you want to help, you’ve got to control your urges, much as you want them to control theirs.

So instead of making it your goal to save him, try to build his ability to save himself. Instead of pulling him from his girlfriend by damning her faults, respect his love and altruism while encouraging him to think about where it leads and how it conflicts with the other good things he wishes to do in this world.

If you know what it’s like to want to save someone whom it’s not in your power to save (and you do know this topic), share your awareness of how easily the saving obsession can endanger your other goals, commitments, safety and security. Tell him that you once thought that love can heal vulnerable souls, but that it doesn’t. Suggest that he will have a little more power to help her if he builds his independence, keeps his money out of her hands, and provides her with support when she’s clean.

If he objects that the only way to support her is by showing her consistent love and support, insist that you agree, excepting what he means by “love.” You believe it takes more love to do something good for someone that they won’t like than it does to give them what they want, which, if they’re addicts, is almost always bad for them.

So, instead of pulling him away from her, insist that he will do more to help her by doing the right thing himself, welcoming her when she accepts his values, and keeping his distance when she doesn’t, or can’t. In other words, setting a good example is the best way to set him straight.

STATEMENT:
“It kills me to see my son bleed himself dry for a sick, selfish, undeserving shithead of a girlfriend, but I respect his strengths and I can show him how to love someone without taking responsibility for his or her self-destructive behavior.”