(((sawe))) Thanks for going!!

Thanks for everyone's support! I really felt it and it helped so much

Several things about tonight's session...

One:
Why are some of our T's so inept at things like email !? lol I forwarded the email to her (that I had sent to the wrong address) and added some, including that I was no longer feeling that way and how I was feeling, etc.
So, she only read that part, the top part, and didn't scroll down to the forwarded email Which I didn't find out until the end of the session .
So, I told her I would include "Scroll Down" when needed

Also:
When we compared notes about that last session, she said that she was not attacking me (which I knew on one of the levels that I experienced the session), that she felt the session was a goner very early on and that it was one of those sessions that I wanted something from her but couldn't say. That I came to the session that way and needing her to be a certain way, and if she wasn't, Look Out. lol

She very sincerely apologized for seeming to be attacking when talking about my mood falling apart and my desire to move, and that was really nice. I wasn't looking for an apology but it was nice anyway.
She included in that apology her talking too much and her regret about that, but explained more later. She said that when she noticed me becoming unresponsive, she wanted to find a way to divert us, to salvage the session.

She reminded me that it was me who was exploring how the really good mood I was in slipped away and became distress, and that we noted the distress was less intense and of shorter duration. Oh yeah.. forgot that.. And that when we were exploring how the mood change happened, I mentioned that I was prepared for it and had reasoned logically that no really high mood lasts forever and so it was going to come down some and that was normal. When it began to go too far down, I said I tried to fight it. She asked me how I did that. THAT is what first set me off because I heard it as something I had to prove, as if she was doubting me. (Yes, next time, deal with it right then and ask if she is doubting me.) I couldn't say how I fought the mood to keep it from slipping too far and that felt like failure to me and I think where the shame began. (Yes, next time, it is okay to say "Gee, I don't know".) So that is where I started to be unresponsive and she jumped in and tried and tried to salvage the session by finding something concrete to use to change course.

She also said that when I said I wanted to talk about something else, she didn't keep talking. She was (finallyyy!!) quiet for a few minutes. Then she asked if I wanted to say how I was feeling toward her. To which I said "Not going there", and then I said "I'm just going to go now."
Oh. Yeah... again. I do recall it being exactly that way.
She said she felt I had left her.

I don't even know if this is all making sense.

Anyway, where we ended up was exploring how all this was related to her being gone a week. There was that I was afraid to respond in the moment not only because it was so late in the session but because she was going to be gone for a week. But there is also the possibility that, not liking that she was going to be gone, I deserted her first.

(Which reminds me of my friend's story about her 2-year-old daughter who years ago stood with her tiny hands on her tiny hips after being scolded, and warned: "You don't be nice to ME--I don't be nice to YOU!!")

I have still, after all this time, worries that when my therapist goes to visit her one and only toddler aged granddaughter, she will decide to stay there. Not come back, come back and retire then go, etc. That being away would make her realize that she doesn't really want to be around those therapy people, she wants to be near her family.
So we explored that (does she seem like that kind of mother, who would move to live near her daughter's family? do I know anyone who did that? did I have a wish that my parent's had done that - instead of packing up one morning with no notice and moving 1,000 miles away.) She assured me that she would not just disappear. (I also had a T who just disappeared, no warning). And that barring sudden death she would have a way in an emergency situation to contact me to tell me what is going on.
(Just PRAY it isn't email! lol)

That's how we ended up at the possibility of me rejecting her, deserting her first, pushing her away, feeling threatened, feeling very angry. There was the concreteness of what she was saying to me about the mood and about moving, and the other scenario of her going to be away and my feelings about that.

It was a really really good session, very hard but connecting. And one where I felt lighter when I left. The slight headache and the tension in the shoulders I'd carried all day are.. gone.

This is a book. If you read, thanks!!