This feeling seems to really get to the heart of most of what you wrote about. I get that feeling, as I often experience it in relation to some kind of disappointment in my relationship with my therapist. I felt it this weekend when I got an email from my therapist about cancelling some of our upcoming appointments. I felt it when I emailed her last week with some feelings not unlike the ones you describe and didn't hear back for what felt like ages (she didn't respond directly to the feelings either, BTW, but said that she'd like to discuss them in our session this week).

It feels awful. And for me at least, it's the source of a lot of difficult ruminating about what I do and don't mean to my therapist, what she is and isn't feeling, etc. File this under the category of easier said than done, but I *know* deep down that that ruminating is only preventing me from being able to connect with my therapist in the ways that she is offering. I don't think she'll ever be able to offer everything that I want or need. I've yet to really come to terms with that, but I keep trying to figure out what I *can* get from the relationship. But when I feel those sick feelings, all of my well-reasoned ideas fly out the window.

I think I'm trying to come to the conclusion that maybe it can be both: maybe the relationship can be real *and* clinical/businesslike. I know those things sound mutually exclusive, but I can't really believe that my therapist can just turn her caring on and off. I trust myself enough (I think) that I would be able to know if all of her expressions of kindness and caring (direct or not) were manufactured. But I also know (though I'm loathe to *really* admit it to myself sometimes) that at the end of the day, being a therapist is her job. It might also be her calling, but it's how she pays the bills and it's necessary for her to operate from a business mode too.

I don't know, peaches. I hear in your struggles so much of what I'm going through too. I want to be able to reach out and offer a hand, and I hope that what I write doesn't sound disingenuous. It's written from a place of not really knowing, but wanting to try to figure it out anyway.