Hi Symbiosis,

Yes, I think alot about my t's retirement. It always strikes a ton of fear in my heart -- it always has. No, my t has not given me a timeframe, but she says she has no definite plan yet. She did reassure me that she would know "months and months" in advance.

Hi Sannah,

We did talk about it, but i feel distant from her now. We had been starting to do some pretty deep intense work with "child parts" before her mom died. And now I feel like i don't want to go back to that deep work with her because it takes so much trust and willingness to be that vulnerable with her, and i just feel like if she's not in it for the long haul anymore, then i don't want to "go there," you know?

I'm not blaming her. It has to be really, really hard to lose her mom, and she's at an age where she can retire now and get Social Security. I can't blame her for thinking about wanting to make that change in her life soon. But at the same time, this is my life we're splaying open and trying to piece back together. It has taken much longer than i expected it would to heal. I've been with my t for 10 years now and was really hoping i'd be done before she retired. But it's not looking like that's going to happen now. So I'm going to lose her while i'm still healing and, honestly, i don't know if i can start with a new therapist when she goes. It has taken literally "years" just to get to the place where i can truly trust my t enough to get into the nitty gritty deep stuff. So i just feel "pre-abandoned" already knowing that my t is thinking seriously about retiring soon. I guess a part of me thinks that if she's not going to be able to stick with me until i'm done, then i want to button up all the unresolved trauma pain and just stuff it back down and forget about it, including any child parts i have. I don't know if i can keep moving forward when i feel like our time is getting short.