Wishes

This is Britney, writing for Lilly in response to all the posts. Lilly is 5.5, and she wants to make sure her point gets across, so asked me to word it for her.

Lilly is sad.
Lilly says that she used to be scared to ask for things she wanted because she would be told she was greedy and ungrateful. But she learned that it's okay to ask for things she wants.

Delilah also, in the last two years since meeting our husband has only asked for like 5 things. Because she doesn't feel like she deserves to be given anything, so she only asks when it's really really really important to her.

Lilly (and Delilah) both say that it's their opinion that you should talk to the T about how Robin is feeling. That Robin wants to know the T cares about her, and in her mind getting a birthday card from the T. It's important that the T knows how everyone feels, or she can't help you. T isn't a mind reader.

Britney


Delilah: The T is not a mind reader. The T cannot know what you feel or think. The T is there to help you, but cannot do this if she does not know where you are at the moment. Yes, there are boundaries. But part of therapy is to help us establish appropriate boundaries. There is nothing wrong with a small gift, such as a card. We are not friends with the teachers of our outside children, but when in elementary school the teachers were given small Christmas gifts out of gratitude for all they do. Office acquaintances... Office workers do "secret Santa" all of the time. We interned in an office last semester, we are not friends with the person we interned under, but we were friendly with them, and purchased a very small gift as a token of appreciation and thanks for their time and training.

I agree that there is a difference in caring, and taking care of. We take care of our outside children, our husband takes care of us. We care for our friends. We care for friendly acquaintances.

I believe it is important for Robin to feel safe, and it is important that she realizes the T cares about her, and about your system as a whole. Your T needs to know this, and it is my opinion that your T needs to know how Robin is feeling and what she is thinking. Then it can be up to the T to act in a way that she feels is appropriate. If Lilly were feeling this way, I would make sure one of us communicated this to our T. Your little Robin needs to know the T cares, it is an important step in learning to trust.

Delilah

Hi TheGangsAllHere,

Thanks for your elaborate answer! I think it helps. Your T sounds like a good T.

About coping with that sense of urgency... that's almost impossible for us! I'm impressed that you are able to handle it. I don't think we tend to believe that there will come a time that it is possible to tell - maybe because sometimes we lose the information or it "doesn't matter anymore". I think your texting system sounds good.

How come you wait a couple of days if it has to do with him? I tend to do that, too... Kind of like I want to weigh my words or something... Not sure why.

I also struggle with being seen as "greedy and demanding". That's like the worst thing someone could say to me.

TheGangsAllHere wrote: I don't ever want to go back to that horrible feeling I had with my old T of completely depending on someone and feeling like I don't have any ability to cope, or worse, that I'm not supposed to use any of those abilities or else he wasn't REALLY repairing and reparenting me. I don't have that with this T--he's glad if I can handle things on my own, but not so that he doesn't have to deal with it--he's glad because he doesn't want me to stay upset. And if I can't manage because it's about him and I need his input to restore the connection, then I can contact him. I don't have to meet a need of his to help me by being and staying dependent on him.

Yes, it is easy to fall into depending on someone - being like "this is reparenting". But this new T relationship sounds a lot healthier. Again, thank you for explaining!

TheGangsAllHere wrote:Isn't this the same T who didn't seem to understand about littles and about communication within a system? If so, I'm really impressed, because it seems as if she has really been trying to learn a lot about how to treat this.

I guess it didn't feel safe to have Robin talk to her right then about what she wanted? Maybe you could talk to her and relay it to the T? Or just bring up that it seems scary and try to sort out what the issue is.

I don't know the answer to your first question. Maybe she is? She has definitely learned and changed a lot over time.

Robin has never directly talked to her, or directly fronted in therapy. She does see and listen at times. But T is still a bit...pushy... about wanting to ask Robin a lot of questions, and I don't want her to do that. So, maybe that's why we are still cautious. Robin does send her emails at times and T always expresses to me that she really likes those emails. This time she wrote about her wishes, or well, about how we (in the system) told her that she can get a gift from us but not from T, and how that made her remember that she doesn't matter. And then she wrote that she was confused because now T said that she COULD give Robin a gift.

Today, T addressed the email. She said Robin could look around in the "kid corner" she has in her office and pick something she would like as a present. This brought up A LOT of fear. It would feel like we are taking something away from her, and what if we pick the wrong thing? Something that she doesn't actually want to give away? And should we pick out something that is more expensive or something that really isn't? How can we tell what is appropriate? What is she going to think? Will she hate us? What if there's nothing that Robin likes? And I also think it's not really about the gift, but more about being thought of - having someone mindfully pick something out for you that is appropriate. I'll have to think about it more.

Hi Britney and Lily and Delilah,
Thank you for writing to me and Robin!
As you can read above, we managed to share some of how she feels! It does help to read about how it's okay to give and receive small gifts from people.
I'm still afraid to talk to T about it, but I could ask Robin to write T again - when and if she is up for it.

Robin says hi!

- S (the usual poster)

Could Robin ask the T to help her pick a gift. It might help Robin to come out without the fear of being interrogated and if the T is helping pick whatever gets picked has to be OK for her to have.

This is what I was thinking of from a couple of months ago:

fireheart wrote:I want to share the progress we make with internal communication with T - but she doesn't seem to know how to respond and... it makes me feel very ashamed for sharing. Last session she asked: "Is this important?" and it made me feel SO ashamed. I don't know what I want from her in those moments, but it's not that. I guess I just want her to be supportive? I want to share it because it's important to me and it's a treatment goal... But I told her about a new little who wrote in our journal and she looked at me as if I was crazy.

It just sounds like your T has become more knowledgeable since then about the importance of internal communication and also about the needs of littles.

fireheart wrote:About coping with that sense of urgency... that's almost impossible for us! I'm impressed that you are able to handle it. I don't think we tend to believe that there will come a time that it is possible to tell - maybe because sometimes we lose the information or it "doesn't matter anymore". I think your texting system sounds good.

How come you wait a couple of days if it has to do with him? I tend to do that, too... Kind of like I want to weigh my words or something... Not sure why.

I guess there are different kinds of urgency--one kind is when parts want to tell him about upsetting things from the past (when I'm not actually in a session) and as those come up in my mind, I get more and more worked up and upset. Those are the times that I have to try to step back and let them know about going slowly--and I can write some of it down in the moment if that feels helpful.

Those aren't things that I would contact my T about outside of a session--anything that feels important we can write down and bring it in to him. If it feels really important for him to know it before I see him, then I can email it to him. I did that this week with a lot of what I wrote in this thread, and when I saw him today, he asked if I wanted feedback from him about it.

The other kind of urgency is when there's a disruption in the connection with him--usually because of something he did or said in a session. I don't want to contact him right away, because I need time to process it and to understand exactly why I'm upset. I think contacting him right away would be too dependent because it's just like an unfocused reaching out for comfort.

There's also an element of not wanting to need to contact him--a protector saying "f*ck him, he's an idiot for doing/saying such-and-such--you're better off without him, and stupid to think that he can fix this." That is fading as the trust gets stronger, and as he has reassured me that it's fine to let him know if I'm feeling upset and disconnected.

NyxX wrote:Could Robin ask the T to help her pick a gift. It might help Robin to come out without the fear of being interrogated and if the T is helping pick whatever gets picked has to be OK for her to have.

That's a good idea, thanks!
But I don't want Robin to have a gift from the T like that. A card would already be a LOT. It feels too weird and icky and greedy to have to pick something out (we'd have to express that we would want something). Nope. And I don't even want us to have more toys. It feels like T just wants to get rid of her toys because she is going to retire in some years.
I want us to stay far away from all Ts. I don't believe grown-ups will ever care about us, and if they do, it is for the wrong reasons. In this case I think the T wants to use it to gain Robin's trust.

- T

Managed to talk about this with T.

I said that I thought giving a gift for a birthday is probably inappropriate, and also, I think that all parts would like a gift (for all of us), not just Robin.

She said she wouldn't know what to get us if it has to be one gift, because we're all so very different...

I explained that it would be a gift to celebrate our progress in therapy, not a birthday gift. Something like a stone to remind us of the small amount of trust that we have been able to build. (Trusting that she will show up for appointments and that she will likely come back from Holidays).

She said that giving a birthday gift to adults in therapy is unusual, but that she always gives kids she works with birthday gifts. She says it is often very important for kids and it shows them that they are important.
(That is exactly what Robin wanted!)
So she says it's my decision.

I don't know. I know that I often feel like things are inappropriate or weird and then they end up being super important for a part. So, maybe I should say yes?
I really don't know...

fireheart wrote:I don't know. I know that I often feel like things are inappropriate or weird and then they end up being super important for a part. So, maybe I should say yes?
I really don't know...

Journal about it or talk internally--what you're worried about, why it feels weird and inappropriate to you, go over the importance of it with Robin and any other littles.

You can imagine Robin getting the gift and see how it feels. There's no rush.