peaches - something that may help you...

one time I wanted my therapist the email with me. I asked her. she told me "let me think about it" for weeks after that I worried and worried and thought whats there to think about every one emails.

then one day I got the nerve up to ask the therapist again. she was quiet for a few moments and then said "

why do you want me to email you? lately Ive gotten so many requests for emailing and dont understand it. is this a fad or what with clients LOL"

I laughed and said maybe. I want email option with you because I need you, the others inside need you, I want to be able to write to you any time. Sometimes I have problems in the night and need you. and yea I want to email with you cause every one else is doing it too. LOL"

she thanked me for being honest and told me - no emailing. she had taken my question on that previos day and talked it over with the staff and suppervisor. the outcome was emailing has no guarentee for confidentiality. she explained the privacy laws we now have in the USA. if we used emil anything can happen.. the email host yahoo, aol, g.mail... they could have a glitch where her emails to me and my emials to her could end up in the inbox of any and all people that have emails that contain any variation of our emial addresses.. she illustrated this.

say my emial is abcedf@ yahoo.com
and hers is ghijkl@ aol.com

I write an email. the computers read the addresses and send my email off to her at ghijkl@ yahoo.com and accidentally send my email to her to lkjihg@ yahoo, kljihg@ yahoo.com and so on.

on top of that email servers are known for accidentally sending peoples emails off to others on their contact list.. what if my emial to her goes off to my mother and other relatives friends and co workers.. was I comfortable having everyone on my email contact list recieving an email containing the things we talk about?

I told her heck no LOL

then she told me I am an adult and need to be treated like an adult..at first I got highly offended and told her yea at the moment Im an adult and want to be treated like an adult.

She said she was sorry she didnt mean it in the mental sense. everyone feels like a child at some point regardless of having DID or not. Im talking in the physical sense..

look at you. you are in an adult body. regardless of which mind set a person over 18 is, physically they are in an adult body.

because you have an adult body I have to treat you like an adult. all adults regardless of mindset love having contact with those they like, they like getting on the phone and talking, meeting and doing things together, writing to each other.

but the defining thing between children and adults is adults know how to do things for their self and are capable of doing things for their self. adults know how to use things they like and feel comfortable with at times when they are alone and have a problem. its called self nurturing. here right now lets make a list of things you can do when you cant have me. we can include all kinds of things even things that will help when you feel like a child or the child parts of you are out. and each therapy session we will add one more thing to this list..

(that self nurturing list is now in the 500 items long range. for a long time we would end my sesssions with writing something I could do that night and through out that week when missing and wanting my therapist.)

During that conversation my therapist also told me even though we cant email each other because of confidentiality laws conflict with the vary nature of what emailing is we could still write to each other.

she pulled out a note book and wrote me a note. then told me throughout the week read her note when ever I need her and want to email her. and write back to her in this notebook. this notebook was our "emailing" account and space.

we have gone through many paper and spiral bound notebooks "emailing".

she now has a notebook for all her clients and a "emailing" notebook on the stand and an "email inbox" we clients write our "emails" and drop them in the box. she also has her clients design a small inbox of their own not using their names. we all know which box we made on that shelf. then she does her "emailing" back to us by writing something (not every time mind you shes a busy lady) and puts her emails to us in our inbox on her shelf.

when we go in to her room we check our emails and email her back.

Sometimes during my sessions I check my "email inbox" and sometimes i dont. its not manditory.

sometimes I write my "email" back to her right then sometimes I write it at home and later bring it in and drop it in.

this morning she told me this emailing with the therapist is taking the office by storm. and if this keeps up theres talk at the staff meetings of converting a small room into a "post office" where we can write and receive emails complete with little tiny post office like lockers for out inboxes each of us would sign out a post office box and recieve the matching key. only the therapist that belongs with that client would have the keys to each of her clients inboxes so she can send emails and make new keys at a small price of a dollar or so should the client loose their key.

I told her I love that idea. I dont know if they actually plan to take this emailing between therapists and clients that far but it would be so cool if they did.

so all said and done thats how my therapist and I resolved this emailing issue and my being an adult so have to be treated like one. just an idea ..that may work for you and your therapist.