My T and I have an agreement that we text at the beginning and end of the day. She finishes her day at a set time but doesn't just suddenly disappear at that time. In her words: "I will never just leave without saying bye".

My session is on a Wednesday evening. Last Tuesday night she disappeared without saying bye, and I really struggled. The next morning she explained that she'd written a reply but her phone hadn't sent it, but I was already spiralling. I don't know what the feelings were- abandoned? Unsafe? Angry? She worked hard to make it better, but I just pushed her further and further away. By the time my session time came round, I had to drink to feel able to go. Needless to say, it was a really pointless and very painful session.

Last week was a really difficult week for me anyway (my partner of 7 years moved to a country 24 hours away from me on Saturday) and it was so hard not to have the session I needed with T. I've had a really rocky week with T, pushing her away and being quite angry with her. Yesterday and today things have finally settled with T and it felt like we'd finally recovered and I was really looking forward to seeing her tomorrow. Until... this evening she disappeared without replying or saying bye.

Arghhhhhhhh!! I am trying to choose to respond differently from last time, to save myself a week of misery. I tried to let go of the panic that something bad had happened to her or her daughter. I pushed away the assumption that she's changed her mind about me and decided to leave me. I made up three reasonable explanations for why she might have disappeared (e.g her battery died, she didn't get my message, she fell asleep early).

An hour after we should have said bye, while I was working on feeling different, she texted me to say sorry, her daughter was ill and that's why she hadn't been able to text. I basically replied that I'm so sorry her daughter is ill but go away and leave me now. I feel the same spiralling in my head. Rationally, I totally understand. But I feel so triggered by her daughter being ill and so ? so what? I can't bear the thought of another awful session tomorrow, instead of the session I was looking forward to and needed. I can't handle the week of regret that follows. I so want to handle this differently. But how?