Judy2

i'm on a yoga retreat this weekend (my first one ever) and so far, it is a surprisingly positive experience.

...................................................................................

i need to get this off my chest and hope it won't be used against me by anyone. i have been teaching three sisters French for a couple of weeks, since they switched schools and need to keep up with their peers. i have an undergrad degree in English with French as a secondary subject. the girls' dad pays me cash after the French lessons and is sending me heart emojis all the time. (that combo makes me feel like a prostitute.) more hearts and kisses than i have ever received from any lover. he praises me a lot, touched my back twice when showing me out, but other than that, he hasn't acted inappropriate. he insists on paying for lessons that we had to cancel, and i am hesitant to accept that because usually, no one has ever offered to do that, let alone this amount. he also pays more than any other parents have ever paid me before for tutoring their children. i feel a bit overwhelmed and don't know how to communicate with him. my goal was to hand in a document for my tax report in September (since i also have other students and would like to advertise my private tutoring services more officially), but his response was "don't be like that" and i felt too shy to be more persistent. what do i do? do i just start writing official invoices and present them to him via email, and he'll have to accept that? he's so fond of me for some reason and voluntarily upped the amount he pays me a couple weeks in, so if he thinks i'm so important, he should handle the fact that i want to do this the right way? i think it's just so strange he voluntarily sends me more money all the time.

@Emerald Thank you for taking the time to respond in such detail:) yes, i mostly say something along these lines concerning the payment. the hearts and touching are probably a little over the line for me and definitely feel weird. but i am a little scared or hesitant to communicate that, too.

@Schizophonia you mean this thread? i think it was a spontaneous emotional decision. i had carried this situation on my own for a little while and thought i shouldn't talk to anyone about it, and then when the most recent interaction on WhatsApp happened and i was stuck on a bus with nothing else to do, i thought i would just come here and, as i said, "get it off my chest". sometimes i find it easier to speak to a third person rather than directly talking to the person who creates the outrage (or conflict or whatever). in fact, it's a bit of a pattern for me. essentially, i get to communicate without any stakes. it's like i can't bear to hold an emotion all on my own, but i'm also not ready to confront people directly. not sure if this is what you were asking?

lol my therapist also hinted at it in our last session, and i sort of laughed but was too shy to ask him explicitly if i had understood correctly.

@Schizophonia i think sometimes old men just want to make a compliment and don't realise that their style of doing that is a bit outdated and weird nowadays?

it is true that you are the one who has to do the real work, but said work also relies on your ability to change patterns with other people, and your learning to have more authentic interactions (goes for everyone, not just you). it's not all abstract stuff in your head, therapy can be a quite practical safe space to rehearse new interaction styles. .... * idk i give up. don't know how to explain what i meant. it's up to you, ultimately. in the end, i don't know what works for you and what doesn't. sorry if i wasted your time:)

idk if it is but i think it's worth questioning. what do you think are potential pros and cons of this choice you have made? could it potentially be harmful to lie to your therapist about this kind of thing? does it create more distance or more connection? could it be harmful (to your own healing journey as well as your therapist) to have this kind of unspoken influence that you bring into each session, without informing or asking them about it?

i remember having a discussion about a similar situation with another user a couple years ago. there may be some ethical considerations to take into account here - e.g., has your therapist consented to this? this is at least worth reflecting on for a little while.

okay, that makes sense.

to his last message, i didn't respond because i couldn't even think of anything to say. or i usually just respond with very short, polite messages or simply ":)", which should also get it across? i don't have his wife's contact info, we usually just say hi when i come in and that's about it. i just feel as though i'd be the one making it weird if i told him to tone things down a bit.

communication would simplify things a lot here, cause it would interrupt this ceaseless process of spinning stories in your head about what if, and what would this other person possibly/probably/likely think, and do i have to lie to preserve a sense of harmony, etc. just state what is true for you and then listen to what she says in response. for example "i don't want to hurt you" "i feel confusion" "i don't know what this is or if we are compatible" "when i think about this/us, i feel...."

@Leo Gura ok

agreed. do you have any insights into what could/what does? wisdom? experience? emotional awareness? what is the essence of mental illness and how can it be healed?

@Leo Gura not if you are on your own and have a mental illness. for some people it can be that straightforward, but definitely not for all. so if anything, we'd need centres with trained professionals to accompany psychedelic therapy sessions.

@Realms of Wonder okay, thanks for your reply.

some of you may not know this, but in some countries, public health insurance covers certain therapies....so it's essentially "free" for those who need it. in Germany, this includes CBT (and sub-forms such as DBT and schema-therapy), systemic therapy and psychoanalysis/modern versions of this. the question is, is it effective? and i think, unfortunately, in most cases the answer is no, or it's usually just to stabilise people to some extent, but they stay miserable or relapse pretty quickly. but what are our alternatives? if CBT doesn't actually resolve mental illness at its core, and idk if any of you have ever tried classic psychoanalysis but that stuff isn't necessarily great, either. what are our options here as a society to provide effective help to all who need it? is 1:1 therapy even ideal, considering there are year-long waiting lists? what therapeutic approach(es) actually, reliably help people?

i especially agree with this last section

yes, the big problem with CBT is that it mostly targets symptoms and behaviours while completely ignoring root causes which often necessitate the return of the exact same behaviours and symptoms. telling an alocoholic to "just stop drinking", telling an anorexic to "just eat and restore weight", telling a person with OCD/GAD to "just confront their fears", telling a depressed person to "just get up and do something", .... maybe there is a time and place for CBT and deliberate behavioural changes to help stabilise some patients by teaching them certain techniques (as DBT does), but stable does not mean healed, by any means. although sometimes stability (sobriety, nourishment, skills to regulate your nervous system when experiencing a strong emotional reaction, being able to stop showering for 5h/day, being able to get out of bed and clean your room) are requirements, or at the very least useful, to even have the cognitive resources to work on proper healing.

he is now asking me to send him photos from my holidays.

generally, this is one of the main functions of emotions: to quickly evaluate situations you find yourself in. but there can also be such cases when emotions are under- or overly present in the sense that they are either repressed or disproportionally triggered due to prior experiences, so they do not "fit" the severity of the present situation. a goal for a healthy human being may be to tune in with themselves enough to develop emotional regulation that is somewhat adequate to present situations, because in this way emotions can serve to help answer questions such as "is this person treating me badly?". or at least if a disproportionate emotional reaction occurs (realistically speaking, we all get triggered from time to time), it is helpful to recognise this as such. take anger, for example. some people don't get angry enough when boundaries are being violated, and feel sadness instead, blame themselves, etc. others feel overly angry. both dispositions are likely shaped by past experiences. there can be a healthy amount of anger, too, which serves the function of letting you know reliably when your boundaries are being crossed, for example, by family members.

also Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem about Mont Blanc.

i like William Wordsworth (Romantic) and William Blake (more "ancient" sounding English, metaphysical themes).

~ , ~