I'm getting frustrated. Every week T says how great I'm doing but I don't feel any better. She says therapy is not fun, that it is hard and painful, and that she thinks in time I will feel better. But th problem is that I don't know what the problem is! She thinks it's about my mother. I know I came up with that "I want Mommy" thought, but she wanted me to do the collage to get in touch with feelings about losing my Mom. Doing the collage was okay, but it just made me feel bad and I couldn't talk about it. She gave me the magazine pictures and words to use. I got "into" it because I like art. What had an effect on me was that I chose the phrase "it hurts" and "break the silence." I don't know what hurts, though.

Before we did the collage, when I first came in, I had trouble getting calmed down. We did a lot of deep breathing and that helped. I'm not used to doing that in therapy. I closed my eyes though it wasn't official IFS work. I told her about transference, wanting to be "inside" her and some other stuff, but she didn't seem to want to discuss it. I don't know. I suppose if I would have said more, but it seemed like it was time to do the collage. I mentioned about wanting to cross boundaries in therapy, but I didn't feel like I had to mention about wanting to go past her house. I don't feel like I want to do that now.

I told her I felt disappointed when I left. I thought something "big" was going to happen, but it didn't. She said something about it could be little things. Also that I can't tie everything up into a neat package. Oh, that was when I said I thought my problem was about not separating from my mother as a child, not about not grieving for her as an adult. She said it could be both.

I just felt crummy after I left. I emailed her that "it hurts" but I don't know what, and that I think it's stupid to talk about my mother since she died so long ago. I said I didn't feel good. She emailed back that she doesn't think it's stupid since our parents are who we learn from, mostly. She didn't use those words. So, I emailed her again but said she didn't have to answer me this time. I said I wanted to read the "letters I wrote to my Mom and that she wrote back (what I imagined she'd write)" that I did with a past T, some years ago. But I still think it's about the baby stuff more than missing my Mom as an adult.

I wrote about the baby part still screaming and crying, but I didn't think she wanted to hear that part. About how she's right that it's about my mother, and that I'm so frustrated because I don't know what hurts and what's wrong with me. Also, that Bt would probably say that I'm manipulating her with these emails, and that I hope she doesn't take the "privilege" away from me.

She wants me to feel something in the session but I don't see how that's going to happen. So, I'm going to have to accept that therapy is slow, and I can't tie up my life into a neat package.