I don't know if this is concrete thinking, but whatever it is, sometimes it's so frustrating. I know my brain did it originally to protect me, but it doesn't help much now. I was wondering if anyone else experiences this or struggles with this. I do both.

When I am not around someone for a length of time, they cease to exist for me. I don't miss them and I don't think about them, don't even remember them if it is longer than my brain can deal with. If I have a long relationship with them and it's deep, I will remember them longer than otherwise, but I still am very disconnected.

I see this even in my children. I have a deep, and daily, relationship with my children thankfully. But when they go away for a few days or a week, it's as if they don't exist too. And they are my children. My children, on their own, have realized I do this and they make a huge effort to have daily contact with me so I will have a connection with them. I guess it's not as if they don't exist. I still know they exist to a degree I think (at least with my children). But I have no emotional connection with them. With other people though, they can completely disappear from my brain while they are gone, whether or not I want them to.

It's the same with T. It makes it very hard with T, because if I don't see her or have a connection with her frequently enough, I can't see that she is still who she says she is or who I know intellectually for her to be. She becomes unsafe to me and that causes a shut down in my brain. I either can't stay present or I can't talk. I can be okay while not with T or not talking to T, but when I see her again, I have to basically start over.

It's not as bad as it used to be, I guess, but it's harder now in some ways. In the beginning, I didn't have enough trust in her to be affected by it. And I didn't talk about anything really so it was okay. I have finally gotten to the point where a lot of the time, T feels safe overall. She has been as consistent as she can be. We've had ups and downs, of course. Every time we've had a down, my brain went on automatic backing up to keep safe and we've had to start again in the sense of safety and trust. But through time, it has gotten some better. My brain processes a little bit quicker to see that she is still T. She's learned what triggers my thinking that she is not safe. I've learned that while she sometimes says or does something, overall, she's still the same T.

The problem is that now I do trust her to a degree and I do talk with her about stuff. And so the time outside of therapy and going back to therapy each time makes that harder.

My T has a lot of contact with me generally, which has helped this immensely while we work through it. But it's still such a struggle. If I do not have contact with T for a period of time, I seem to be unable to see that she is still T, even after all these years. She sometimes becomes the abusers in my life, or at the very least, she becomes too distant for me to believe she is still safe. While this happens with everyone, it seems to affect me more with T because my healing and our work depends on me feeling safe and connected enough to communicate.

If I haven't had a frequently enough connection with T throughout the week, we have found that it takes nearly the whole session for my brain to see that she is still T (depending on the length of time). It's frustrating for me. I'm sure it must be for T as well. We always have to spend at least 10-15 minutes reconnecting in the beginning of the session. This is often because I am not present when I get there and it takes me a while to come inside my brain to know where I am. But when we end up taking 3/4 of the time we have set aside for therapy, it really makes it hard to delve into anything. And if we took 3/4 of the session to realize T is still T, that sometimes puts us at a deficit for the next session. There are times we end up spending the entire session just lightly talking about nothing (and I know it's important to do that too) just so I can see that T is still T. This can also be completely negated if my brain disconnects before I have contact with her again.

It took several years for me to trust my therapist enough to talk out loud. It took several years for me to stop the denial of what goes on for me and to see that she is somewhat safe. I don't find anyone safe to the degree that perhaps "normal" people do. It takes a long time for me to see that people are who they say they are and my wall and defenses are sky high 99.9% of the time. I wish it weren't so, but if I'm honest to myself, it's very so. I can talk about superficial things to the point where people think they know me when they don't know anything about me. Everything to keep the body safe, I think. With T, it really hinders the process of healing at times.

I don't know that I'm explaining this very well. T said that it is understandable that I struggle with it. She said that because my environment was so unsafe, it made my brain compartmentalize things to an extreme to feel safe.

I get upset with myself sometimes about it because I think after all this time, my brain should be able to hold onto the fact that she is who she is and is still safe, but I can't seem to do it for any length of time.

I'm old! This is going to take too long if I can't find a solution around it.

Do any of you guys struggle with this or similar?