(((((((((griffin))))))))))

I think that money can bring up so many issues in therapy.

When T reduced his rate for me, and told me he was the first client he had done it for, I felt grateful, but also undeserving, and a bunch of other things...worried I was taking advantage of T somehow, worried that he would get angry at me because I was "taking" too much. On and on. Luckily, it turned out that I have unlimited insurance visits, so we ended up not needing the reduced fee after all...but just that little bit of discussion and the feelings around it were WAY bigger than I expected.

It's not easy, but I try to keep the business aspect of the relationship and the "caring" aspect sort of separate in my mind. I DO pay T. And he DOES care about me. I am absolutely 100% positive about that. Your T clearly cares for you...e-mailing you twice a day after your hard session was so kind. It makes sense that you would feel super cared for and connected after that.

When I have something really hard going on - either bad parts of my story in therapy, or really hard and scary things in real life - it seems like my focus OFTEN turns to the therapy relationship and all of the "faults" I can find in it. I don't know if it's because I feel unsafe in general and therapy ends up getting kind of swept up in all of those unsafe feelings, or if it's because it's so scary to have my feelings about what's REALLY happening, that I need to find a way to distract myself with problems with T. I think it's almost always the latter. I wonder if you have some of that going on, with such a scary thing happening in your life right now??

(((((((((((((griffin)))))))))))))) I will be thinking of you tomorrow. I hope you can find a place of safety and peace inside to get through what you need to get through.