Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000167 EndHTML:0000004989 StartFragment:0000000454 EndFragment:0000004973 I am in a very, very bad crisis here. I am so desperate that I can't see no way out or any reason to go on at all.
Two weeks ago I terminated a 18 year long psychotherapy. The first 10 years were intensive, two times a week, the last 8 years were follow-up, two times a year.
We did solve many problems and conflicts which minimized or eliminated some very bad symptoms. But my hardest conflict through all these years was that I couldn't stop though I wanted to. I tried many times, but turned back in despair and anxiety every time. I never managed to work seriously with this conflict though my therapist tried very hard to get me to that point where I was able to. He had somehow become a too big part of my conflict. I knew that he was not part of it, but I couldn't separate him from it no matter how hard I tried. So it got stuck, and for years I didn't touch the issue during the sessions. My therapist stopped the intensive therapy because, as he said, he or the therapy was a hindrance for me to solve that problem. That of course triggered a bad crisis, and we agreed a follow-up twice a year. During the past 5-8 years I have felt as if I was dead inside. I didn't discuss that or any other serious problem with my therapist. There was no therapy any more. The follow-up contact had become a sheet anchor to prevent the enevitable final loss. I was not fully aware of that for many years because I had turned ”dead” inside. Now I see it and feel it to the bone.
When I returned from a six weeks holiday about two weeks ago my therapist called me to tell me that he stopped working now and that he would give me one final goodby-session. I had three days. It didn't trigger any feelings, so I thought maybe I had somehow solved the problem about stopping. I came at the appointed time. So did he, but he asked me to wait further 10 minutes because he had to talk to someone. We were both polite and and kind during whole session. He could not of course start talking about unsolved problems, especially not the ”cannot-stop-problem”, because I was out of reach in that matter. I had drowned it for years. Five minutes before normal time he said it was time to stop. So I had half an hour goodby-session. When I got home, an ominous restlessness and emptyness emerged. Tha following day hell broke lose. I had awakened. Hello life. Hello reality. The first terror was not that it was over, but the fact that the final goodby was me sitting there calmly and apparently happy suppressing the terrible truth. And that he only gave us half an hour which he probably did because there was not really much to say. No looking at the therapy to discuss what we had solved and what we had not solved in the therapy. No discussion about my future goals. Only this silent, polite superficial chat.
I wrote him a letter to ask for one more session, since I now lived the consequence and felt really bad about this hasty goodby-session. One week later I got the answer: No. There was no possibility of one more session because he had stopped at work. The really tragi-comic is that a few days before I got his letter I had finally succeeded in separating him from my major conflict. After a 5 days long threatening struggle it just came to me, like a sudden insight, and I felt a great relief though the burden of my conflict was still there. But it was all mine now. He was out of it, and I felt an intense gratitude towards him and saw for the first time for years the whole therapy as a good thing. Now I could say goodby honestly and alive. And then I could let go and be left with the grief only. His rejection has now shattered my new treasure. I am back where I was before my struggle, distorted with terror and deep distrust in myself. The picture of the last session has glued to my minds eye. I woke up too late for us to solve my lifelong destructing problem. But what is killing me is the fact that I woke up too late to get the chance to say goodby in mutual understanding and honesty. It would have been better if he had not given me a goodby-session at all.
Now I do not need to hear this or that about what my therapist might have done wrong. I am struggling to find back to the good picture of him. This is crucial. Because if I don't I have destroyed the therapy, and then I am lost.