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sunrise · 05:18 PM

At my session last week, I had been thinking I would tell T I wanted to take a 7 week break. We see each other every two weeks so it would only be skipping a couple of sessions. I have been so exhausted lately from not getting enough sleep due to all the work for my new grad program that I felt like therapy was one thing I could cross off my list during this intense period until summer term was over. Plus, it didn't seem worth it to go to therapy when I was so tired and didn't have the mental energy to work on stuff. When I don't get enough sleep for extended periods, I start to get depressed, my ability to function goes down, and I need to conserve energy.

When I came in and sat on the couch, T looked at me, and instead of sitting on the other couch across from me, he took his swivel chair and sat right opposite me, so very close, almost knee to knee. When I first started therapy, he always sat like that, but after a number of months, he moved to the couch, and then he seemed so far away, and I missed him. Now when he sat close to me, it was kind of hard, because I am not used to it. He has not done this for a couple of years. I felt torn--I wanted to draw back from him and have our usual space but also wanted to draw closer to him and let him take care of me.

We talked about my fatigue and also the recent work I have been doing in school on Death. It's been very intense and triggering for me, as some of the hospital work has brought up a lot about my Dad, who was recently in the hospital and will probably die within 6 months.

Each time my Dad has some crisis, we wonder, is it the end? He can decide to die at any time, if the going gets too tough for him or he loses what is left of his will to live. He has made hospice arrangements for when he makes that decision to die. I cried about this and several times told T I didn't want to talk about certain things because they were too painful. At times I just wanted to sob. I am inches away from totally losing it over my Dad.

At one point I told T that I just wanted to be able to manage my feelings about my father. That sounds so cold, but sometimes it is just too much, and the feelings come up inappropriately. I can’t be walking around crying during my duties. (I had this problem several years ago during the worst of my marriage break-up.) It’s really hard for me to hold the sadness in when it arises and wait until I can escape and can go off and feel sad or cry without others around. T said I really needed to be sad and cry, and that holding it back was making it more difficult to get through the day. He suggested I try to schedule time to cry into my days. Maybe if I provided myself enough time to be sad, I wouldn’t have it escaping at inappropriate times. (I was too embarrassed to tell him about the death simulation we did at school last week and how after it was over I went in the bathroom and sobbed.) I told him I felt abnormally sad, that others in my family weren’t as overtly sad as I was. We can all be there together and experience the same thing, and I am the only one from my family with tears streaming down my face, barely able to remain present. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I be like them?

I am sure they are sad too, but they handle it so much better. T said things about my father and our relationship and when parents die, blah blah, and listening to him just made an even bigger sadness come on me, like a huge wave inside, and I felt in a struggle to stop being sad, to stop crying, and it was too much and I didn’t want it right then, so I asked T to stop saying those things. Sometimes we don’t want our feelings reflected back at us because it makes us feel them even more strongly.

T suggested that I was so strongly affected because of my relationship with my father, and he thought it would be helpful to me in my grieving if we explored that. That made me feel better, that T thought I was reacting in an atypical way too, and he could help with that. It gave me some hope.

When we were scheduling my next appointment, even though I felt more rested that day (I had slept 6 hours the night before!), I knew I should take a break from therapy because of my fatigue. But before I could say this, T asked if I could come in next week. I looked startled, I’m sure. T said if I wait two weeks, it will be harder to work on my sadness about my father, it will give me more time to stuff the feelings away. It will be easier for him to help me if we do this work sooner rather than later, and it will be easier for us to stay connected too. So I agreed, in spite of myself, but wondered, how could I come to therapy intending to take a break and leave with an appointment scheduled a week sooner than usual?

We usually have 90 minute sessions every other week but if going weekly, I should really only do 50 minutes because of the cost. T only had a 50 minute session open on the day I could see him but immediately he said he would call one of his clients to try to make a longer space for me and I wasn't thinking clearly so didn't veto this. Before I knew it he called a female client (he said she often canceled appointments) and she answered and he said he was calling to confirm their appointment next week and she said oh she couldn’t make it. He ended the call and said well there is a 90 minute slot for you and sat back, quite pleased with himself. Since he had gone to all this trouble, I felt I couldn’t say we should only do a 50 minute session. Plus, I was kind of charmed he had done this for me. (It showed how much he cared?). As he penciled in my name on the schedule, he said that he was writing in “grief work” next to my name so he wouldn’t forget. Great.

(He’s never done this either, as far as I know.)

So here I am now with a 90 minute "grief work" session scheduled in only a week, when my intent was to take a 7 week break. T was uncharacteristically assertive about when my next session should be—usually he lets me decide. I wonder too if this is tied to why he sat so close to me. Did he somehow sense I was needier than usual and so sat closer--to provide a stronger presence? I also wonder if doing "grief work" with T will help make what is happening with my father any easier for me? It seems like it could make things worse by stirring everything up.

I'm kind of apprehensive about next week. What are we going to do? I feel some dread, and a bit like "I don't want to do this."