Lainie: Lost in a relationship

Lainie entered counseling wanting help for herself and her relationship. In her first session, she offered a litany of complaints and concerns about herself– too sensitive, low sex drive, overly needy and demanding, and too unsure of herself.

It turns out that most of these comments and concerns came directly from her boyfriend, Paul, who she has been dating for eight months. Lainie wanted desperately to feel close to Paul, but found instead that she often felt let down or hurt by his criticisms of her character.

She had begun to wonder if there was something really wrong with her.

Lainie says she hasn’t been able to keep a steady relationship yet; her eight months with Paul is the longest relationship she’s had. She is also worried that a break up is coming if she doesn’t do something. She confesses that she has heard these complaints before from boyfriends.

Lainie says that her friends are giving her a hard time about her relationship. Her friends have pointed out that she has lost touch with her own interests and is taking on all of Paul’s interests and tastes. Although she disagrees with her friends in conversation, inwardly she wonders if they are right. She feels as though she doesn’t have a safe place to take her concerns.

Lainie wants badly to feel closer to Paul. She admits that she has a bad habit of keeping feelings and complaints to herself, only to find that they boil over later in big conflicts.  She wants to stop this cycle and wants to know how to boost her self-confidence and keep better control of her feelings so she isn’t so needy.

Ghosts in Lainie’s past

In her appointments, Lainie did not seem to be any of the things she described herself as in her first session. Her feelings and reactions seemed proportionate to the stresses in her life. As the therapy progressed, Lainie felt more comfortable sharing about her past and her family.

Lainie told me that she was sexually abused by a family friend as a child. She also reported that her parents fought frequently and loudly at home and she often felt caught in the middle of their conflicts. Lainie said she would switch between being a peacekeeper between her parents and isolating herself to avoid the worst of the fights. She often felt stuck, even frozen, by the weight of everyone else’s feelings. In fact, she got really good at submerging her own feelings and reactions. She learned to “get along” with others by disappearing her self.

Lainie reclaims her voice

Over time, Lainie began to understand how these early experiences impacts her current experience of conflict and intimacy. She learned how she has silenced her feelings in an attempt at survival.

While this form of emotional triage served her well in childhood, she knows now that she needs to wrap up this unfinished business so she does not keep finding herself in unsatisfying, conflicted relationships. Lainie learned to share her feelings and reactions honestly, a bit at a time.

This caused some tension in her relationship at first, but there were fewer outbursts and big fights overall.

Through talk therapy and EMDR, we explored Lainie’s feelings and reactions to the trauma in her upbringing.

She was able to sort through her feelings in the safety of a relationship that would not judge or prohibit her from “going there.” We explored the shame, fear and anger she had been holding since childhood.

Lainie asks for more

When Lainie first came into therapy, she saw her sensitivity and her feelings as a liability.  We redefined her feelings and intuition as valuable and powerful sources of information.  Over time, she used this information to guide her decisions and to speak her mind.

With time, Lainie became more adept at being in touch her own wants and needs.  She began sharing more of herself in her relationship with Paul.  She stopped taking on the labels he applied to her and began to push back.  Eventually, she decided to end the relationship.

At first, Lainie was devastated.  She felt that her changing had ended the relationship.  It went against all her old methods and reasoning about submerging herself to preserve and protect relationships.  But, with encouragement and time, she found that it was easier to grow her self-esteem without receiving frequent messages about how needy, sensitive and unreasonable she was.

It wasn’t long before Lainie found someone special.  Her newfound sense of worthiness and self-respect helped her attract a partner who was respectful of her feelings and interests.

 

 

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**This narrative does not reflect the treatment of an actual client.  It is a composite portrait of some of my clients and the concerns that emerge in therapy.  It represents what kind of change can happen in therapy and what the process can look like.