intimacy is danger

spring break was only a couple weeks ago – though it feels like months and months. because of break, I missed a week of therapy. so in the two weeks between seeing kate, I thought often of emailing her. I wondered if I had a reason to, what I would say, how she would respond, what it would mean for our relationship. I never really thought about it at length, but it crossed my mind often.

my solution was simply that I had too many things I wanted to talk to her about – so I made a list. I hadn’t made a list since I was working with katie – who welcomed my lists. when I was finally back in kate’s office, I didn’t tell her right away that I had a list. but it was clear that I had a lot of negative things to talk about. instead, she asked early in the session if it would be okay if we focused a bit on building up the positive in my life. I was hesitant – and she knew it – but I agreed. near the end of the session, I pulled out my list. but she told me we didn’t have time – unless there was something quick. so I insisted. in retrospect, I probably should have let it go. she wasn’t completely with me, and I didn’t get my answers on that topic in that limited amount of space.

because she had a conferance in the coming week, we had to skip another week of therapy. I wasn’t happy about that. first she didn’t let me get to my list, then she denied me the ability to see her for another two weeks.

I’ve thought – again – often of the possibility of emailing her. I always decide I have no real reason, and therefore it’s not much worth thinking about. so instead, I’ve thought a lot about our relationship. it helps that one of my classes is so very, very focused on the therapy relationship in these weeks.

one of the books our class was reading made an argument that therapy cannot be successful without dependence. the problem is that american culture values independence far too highly, and the therapist who devalues dependence will push against it from the client, and therefore the real change won’t happen.

I’ve been thinking about the argument for a few days. it adds to a question in my therapy with kate that I’ve been pondering for months: why do I hold her at a distance? it took several weeks for her to find a way for me to let her “in.” and from there, I insisted on only little steps toward letting her “in.” recognizing many of the ways that I had depended on katie, I avoided them with kate. (I’m sorry, this whole “katie” and “kate” thing is going to be horribly confusing for you – especially if I have a typo!) for instance, since I saw katie within such a small college community, I knew a whole lot about her life. I lived literally close enough to see her playing with her kids in her yard from my window. I walked by her house daily. knowing so much about her life, and just knowing that I was near her, helped me feel close to her. I also knew it was strange, and those were things I never told her or anyone else. by the end, things were clearly funky between me and katie in regards to boundaries. over the years, I had pushed and manipulated the boundaries until they were far to fluid in the end. although, in the end, the fluid boundaries appeared quite clearly rational, which is why katie allowed them. but I fear even now that they weren’t rational.

and, of course, I have the feeling of being let down – that even though my relationship with katie ended simply because it had to – I graduated – I still feel like she abandoned me. katie knew this could happen, so she did her best to make me feel empowered, so that I would always know that I was ultimately the one who got up and walked away the last time – when I was ready. she wanted me to have the memory not of her turning her back on me, but of me making the decision.

I still feel abandoned, in some sense. that all of that dependence on her got me nowhere but hurt and alone.

I don’t want to recreate that. I know I need – and want – a new therapist. but at the same time, there’s no other katie, and I’m not ready for anything like katie yet. I’m not sure if mistakes were made with katie. either way, ending things with katie – whether or not it was time and we were ready – was painful. I’m not ready yet to get so close to someone else.

for the first few months, I didn’t want to hear anything about kate’s life. I knew she had two young children, but I didn’t want to know anything about them. early on, she mentioned one day that her own son’s name was Andrew. I was a little taken back by her spontaneous information. I wasn’t sure if I wanted the information – if I would cherish it as I would have with katie – or if I preferred to not know her son’s name.

after several months, I did ask kate about her kids. I did enjoy when she offered information about herself. I was aware by then – and told her as much – that by allowing her to tell me about herself, I was letting her in. sounds backwards, doesn’t it? you would think that it would mean that SHE is letting ME in by sharing about herself.

I have tricks and manipulations about boundaries. Dr. Bartel pointed that out to me a year ago, and I hated hearing it from her. I hated that she had found me out. I hated more that I didn’t understand how to change. she pointed out that I had no boundaries through writing. I would share almost anything that I had written with a number of people. katie knew this too, but she didn’t take up this fight with me as Dr. Bartel did. I was taking a one-on-one class, a very personal one on feminist theology, with Dr. Bartel, and she came up with several rules about how and how much I could disclose through writing. with katie, it was clear that I could not be emotional in the moment with her. I rarely cried with her. I could talk about emotions and emotional times. even better, I could share what I had written while being emotional. but I couldn’t handle it in the room with her.

aware that I only pretend of halfway let people in by sharing my writing, I’ve avoided sharing my writing with kate. instead, I have brought in my art. but art is just another way of pretending to let people in. I can show you what I drew while I was upset, tell you what I drew first and what I felt when I made this section, but I’m not going to create art like that in the session, much less share those emotions directly with you.

I guess my brief work with tina was supposed to combat that. she pushed me pretty hard to make art in the session with her. it was so uncomfortable. but it was working – slowly.

so I don’t want to let kate in. why? I definitely don’t want to depend on her. I think there are multiple reasons. for months now, I have been experiencing that kind of extreme dependence from the disabled guy that I work for. he tells absolutely everyone in his life about me. any positive change he makes he attributes to me. he is highly protective of our time together, and will do everything in his power to not lose time with me. he misses me terribly when he does. he is highly protective of me. he notices the very slightest thing about my appearance or presence, remembers everything I say. he truly treats me like a therapist, one that he is in very deep therapy with, and it makes me very uncomfortable. it’s uncomfortable because this is NOT therapy. I care for him physically, and I help him

do any range of things from functioning out in the community to accomplishing his bigger goals in life. it’s quite a bit like friendship or coaching. it’s not therapy. therapy has boundaries – you meet once a week, in a neutral setting. I keep thinking that it would feel much less uncomfortable if I was seeing him as a therapist and he treated me in these way. I still think it’s true.

so the fact that his dependence on me makes me so uncomfortable is one reason why I don’t want to start depending on more on kate.

another is that as the years progress, I will become much closer to a colleague than a patient to kate. that’s what happened with katie. it became a mentoring relationship at the end. kate IS tied to my program – I WILL run into her professionally. I don’t want to depend on her because I want her to be able to also see me as a professional – a colleague. her opinion matters, and I want her to think that I am capable of becoming a therapist – even a good one.

I have spent years – years of not dating – building up my independence and self-sufficiency. my ability to be alone and not lonely. to handle things alone that most people think they can’t. my independence is fierce at this point, and others recognize that in me.

obviously, my fierce independence is a coping mechanism. and clearly, in many ways, it works. I value myself this way, and I have learned to be much more content with myself this way. shyness is no longer crippling as it may have been at one point, and neither is loneliness. so this coping mechanism had to come from somewhere – it must be making up for something else that I lack.

what I lack socially has always been lacking. here’s the easy psychoanalytic interpretation: does this coping by independence delve into my childhood? of course it does! I learned very, very early that I couldn’t depend on my mother or anyone else to get me out of the dangerous and confusing situation of abuse. I learned that lesson over and over and over again. my mother couldn’t save me, and neither could anyone else. depending on them didn’t work. depending on my dad was what made the abuse happen, and it took years to recognize that cycle. we were isolated – both by living in the country and by isolating ourselves from the family.

on one level, my parents taught me self-reliance, and I value that. by growing up in the country, and having parents who were perpetual entrepreneurs, I learned the vaues of self-reliance. and on the flip side, I eventually realized that the ONLY answer I had for surviving abuse was myself. I tried reaching out as a teen, and time and again, the only answer was myself.

and then there was dating. clearly, no dating relationship has lasted long or gone very well. clearly, relying on the person I was dating has never been a good option.

often, a coping mechanism develops because it works. but eventually, there comes a time when you realize that it works enough to keep you going but is far from health. my independence has made me isolated. the theme of my isolation comes up time and again in therapy over the years, and yet I continually find that I have isolated myself again.

another question that I have asked myself in these early months of therapy with kate is why cutting keeps coming up. for years now, the idea of cutting returns only once every few months – even only once a year. none of the reasons I can come up with seem satisfying. the current one fits this topic. by renewing the cutting delimma in my new relationship with kate, I’m creating a reason to rely on her. If I am somehow broken, somehow in crisis, somehow in NEED of my therapist, then it’s okay to depend on her. it’s okay to consider calling her or emailing her and taking up her time. it’s okay to cry in therapy. if I cut, tell her about it, even show her my cut, I’m letting her “in” in a very intimate way – the only intimate way I know how to create. intimacy is danger. if I can create the danger, through hurting myself, then I can also pull her in and create some intimacy.

I suddenly don’t know what else to say. I hit on something here: intimacy is danger. it goes both ways. either the only way to create intimacy is to create the danger, or intimacy is too terrifying to endure because it is dangerous.

what is the answer? what do these things mean for me and kate? how do I even bring them up to kate? what I really want to do is just show her this – show her what I have written tonight. after all, as I always tell myself, I can’t possible convey all of these things as well as I did here, when they first tumbled out of my mind.