Therapy was painful and weird today. I spent most of my session playing with the seashells on the table beside her couch. About 40 or 50 seashells sit in a little clump on the table. They are all very small, but a few are a dome-like and maybe an inch in diameter. I placed the prettiest of the big ones on top of the tiniest seashell and continued to move the big clump around a bit. After a while I moved the prettiest shell, with the tiniest shell beneath it, off to the side. I pushed the rest of the seashells away in little groups or on their own. Next, I removed the prettiest of the big ones from atop the tiniest seashell I left them alone and moved the other shells around for a while. When I decided to move only the prettiest shell back to the clump, I moved the rest of the seashells back slowly. I began moving the prettiest shell from the clump back to the littlest shell and then back to the clump and then back to the littlest and back to the clump over and over and over until tears were streaming down my face. Then I stunned myself by flicking the tiniest shell across the room. I went to pick it up and apologized for being so aggressive. In hindsight, I think I intended to flick the prettiest shell across the room.

In case this is unclear, T is going on her maternity leave in about a month and we have been going in and out of silent ruptures every couple of weeks since she told me. This one was triggered by having a trial session with my interim T yesterday. It just made everything very real. It is really not so much of a rupture, but more of a deep, silencing sadness. The shells were the only way I could communicate what was happening in my mind. T definitely understood what was happening as she watched me, but I am not sure she was able to understand my deep pain without my words. I am still unsure of how to speak about it.

Throughout this whole process I have had so many emotions and reactions and I have learned a lot and I have really bonded with my T. I really needed this because my T is a total stonewall - very rigid in her psychodynamic orientation and boundaries. I really respect her boundaries but I have a hard time with the unbreakable psychodynamic orientation. I fully understand the reason for the blank slate therapist, but it makes it difficult for me to feel safe and heard. Finding out T was pregnant helped to humanize her which allowed me to trust her not just as a therapist but as a safe human to be around. Observing her change, both physically and mentally, has been a unique and bonding experience for me. I have not only grown into a secure attachment to her, but also to babyT. It completely changed my therapy and I have made exponential progress since.

So after this entire pregnancy that she that she has put me, and her other clients through (I feel this fantasy solidarity with them and I think that is the reason I didn't individualize myself in the seashells), I feel most upset about the lack of pay off the the looming uncertainty. After all this is done, T's pregnancy will have managed to disrupt 10 months of my life. After being a complete blank slate for 9 months of therapy, she imposed (however unintentionally) her very personal life on my personal life and (however unintentionally) it created a very secure bond and now it is being abruptly taken away. How very selfish. It really hurts. She gets to take 4 months off from her clients to bond with babyT and when we all come back in June we get another heaping load of transference and a deflated seashell of a therapist.

As upsetting, angering, confusing (etc) as the whole situation has been, I am very excited for T to have her baby. I am genuinely happy for her and I think she will be a great mommy but I worry about who my T will be when she returns. Without the tiniest seashell, will she still be the prettiest of the seashells? Or will she return as a rock?