rumination

Mar 07, 2008 - 08:18 AM PST

When I was in high school, was as I as obsessive as kids in high school are today? I mean, no specifics, because of coonfidentiality and all of that, but, I have a client that has talked about the same thing for the past 5 weeks, at least. And it's not something like rape, or incest, or abuse, or neglect, or drugs, or anything like that which I would be able to work on with the client. No, it's a relationship that the client wants but the person wants to be with someone else, then broke up, got back together, broke up, got with my client, broke up, got with someone else.
If that doesn't show that the other person has a compulsive need to be in a relationship, I don't know what would. But my client won't accept it. My client ruminates... talks about the situation incessantly. Perseverates. Can not bring themself to mention anything else in a session unless it is brought up by me. Today was interesting though. My client was willing to do anything for the other person and gave examples of taking a bullet for the person. Finally I asked if my client was willing to to put the other person's happiness first. Yes. Which means, accepting the new relationship as existing.

I'm a mental health counseling intern. I don't know what I'm doing. But I am trying.

When I was in high school, I was in "love" with this one boy. Oh my, how much I wanted him to like me back. He liked me first, but I was embarassed and pretended not to like him because of what other people would think. Then I liked him and he didn't like me anymore. But he was my best friend. I knew about all of his relationships and I knew how far he went in each. For some reason, people always tell me about their sex lives. And then I found out that one girl planned to break his heart when another girl, my other best friend of the time, wanted to date him and he liked her back. He managed to switch girlfriends in a matter of a day. He also dated a few other friends of mine, but never me.
Another guy provided me with a laugh. I think he was the person that taught me that people will tell you one thing but do something completely different. His girlfriend was obsessing over how much she wanted to sleep with him and he did not want to have sex. He was struggling with this. He used me as a sounding board for what he could tell her to "just say 'no'" to sex. And then on Monday, he was beaming and embarassed because he had given in and he and she had been at it like bunnies all weekend. Nothing to do with the post topic, but I think he was the first of many to tell me all about his sex life. This continued to when someone paid him for sex and other endeavors while he was dating her best friend.