Yesterday's therapy sucked

so one would think that the therapy one pays for would be affirming and make one feel better. yesterday's did not. i suppose that's ok because maybe it's just poking at stuff i need to look at, but don't want to. the bulk of it centered around my relationship with karen - which left me feeling misunderstood and judged. i guess that's a common occurrence. i think it's just hard because it'd be nice to be able to go somewhere and have someone "get it". it's not that i think that everything in my relationship with karen is a-ok - there are problems. i get it. but i also think that it's not wrong for me to want to be of support to her AND have a relationship with my girlfriend. i hate the idea that there are only certain types of relationships that make it ok to be a caregiver. i.e. a parent for a child, a child for an aging parent, a spouse of an ill spouse... why not for "chosen family" as well? blah.

anyway. i think overall it's a good process to look at why it is i do get so defensive around the karen thing. the feeling misunderstood and isolated thing is probably the key here. and then possibly the self-questioning of my decisions made more defensive by other people's questions... i don't know. it feels very mixed up in me now.

this morning i was thinking about kim and her relationship to her mom and how we repeat our relationships. i think kim is playing this whole thing out with me in the same ways she does with her mom. she is excuses her mom and feels sorry for her, but at the same time not getting what she needs and feeling bad about it. i see her do that with me. she feels sorry for me and says she knows that i'm doing what i can, but then also isn't getting what she needs. and so she feels like she is giving up what she needs, but is excusing it, but still feels bad because she isn't getting what she needs and feels like she isn't respecting herself. and somehow it seems like there's an either/or of respecting her own needs and understanding/accepting what she's getting. if that makes any sense. i don't like being someone's mother figure working out person.