Oh I do feel rejected for sure when T doesn't reply to some emails I send :-) It is not fun one bit either. And it makes me seriously doubt myself for trusting T.

But the thing I am learning is that the relationship I have with T is not about each day and the issues that come up... it is not about the single emails I send when things are bad or my vents... it is not even about his good responses when they come or his lack of responses. There is a much bigger picture that T can see because he has 1) been through his own trauma healing and knows what it is like to be "me" and to be a client. 2) has 20+ yrs of being a T and had had many other people he helped through trauma healing. What I have to trust is 1) my own ability to know whether or not my T is actually helping me to heal and become healthier and 2) that my T can get me to where I need to go in the long run and will try his very best to not allow me to come to harm along the way.

It is so wonderful because I am finally picking up things he says in session that tell me he is feeling that protective nature towards me. And I have NEVER EVER in my life FELT like someone was actually trying to protect ME!!!! Every single person I knew who was in a role of authority was first protecting themselves. I get that. But when you are a child, you need to be protected. I didn't get that.

I finally can trust that my T can do both - protect himself and teach me how to protect myself. This is so HUGE that I can't even describe it.

If you can trust yourself enough to know if the therapy you are in feels like you are gaining from it - then you can start trusting your T's process. My recomendations is to be totally honest with your T the whole time. If you feel rejected because you don't get a response and you feel you needed one, let T know. Talk it out. Give T the chance to show you the reasons they have behind their actions. They are not out to trick us. It is very scary to ask these questions - oh how I know!!! YIKES!!!
But it is only when we ask those questions that we allow T to see our response.

Keep in mind that the relationship we have with our Ts is about transference - and that is for a reason. So all those pangs we have when we are on edge waiting for responses or when we are confused about things said or whatever, all of that can be used within the context of the theraputic relationship to bring light to our triggers and issues we need to address.

For example, when T was silent and did not respond to some of my first trauma context emails, I would spend hours in agony. I had to work very hard to allow myself to feel that pain and then dig into it to see why I felt the way I did and what it reminded me of. In my case, whenever I told my parents or teachers about abuse, the common response was silence and dismissal. The other response was for them to call me a liar or tell me I "have such an active imagination!" ..... urrrrrr!! So when I hit that silence, my defense system automatically said "T is not responding because he does not believe me or because he thinks it is OK that things happened to me. He does not want to help me so he is silent. He enjoys listening to me suffer while he takes no action to help. I am invisible to him. He is too busy for me."

NONE of those things were true at all. But T could not just tell me that those things were not true. T had to show me that he did care and that I did matter. That is where his training and experience as a T and as a survivor came into play. He did not change the way he responded to me or my emails. He just did his T thing and I am finally being able to actually rest inside my skin a bit and feel that he really is there and that he does care deeply for me... and that he is kinda like a good dad who is teaching me how to ride a bike (how to process trauma responses and PTSD stuff on my own in a healthy way). On days like yesterday, I may feel that the hand is not behind me ready to catch me if I fall... but I actually felt that safety net all day yesterday. He knew what to say and when to say it. He was paying attention to make sure I didn't fall. But he allowed me the space to do the work.

So again... allow your T to be the T. And us clients and survivors can do our job to work as hard as we can at just trying to heal up. But always try extra hard to be honest with T.

Hugs!!!!!