Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreamy01
If anyone is sensitive about endings/termination with a T, please read with caution.
Just realised the title makes it sound worse than it probably is - but last night I felt just that - griefstricken.
It struck me that I will have to say goodbye to T at some point. I know I'm feeling better at least in some parts of my life. I'm starting to internalise her and feel her calming, grounding influence. The focus is beginning to shift to the present moment and to some extent the future with the realisation that all of life is happening now and nothing else can be controlled or changed.
Our work isn't over but something has shifted and the finite nature of the relationship is causing me a lot of pain.
I know this has to do with my joy over seeing her earlier in the week. It is too dangerous to feel that happy and close to someone because it's going to end.
I went to bed sobbing last night. It went beyond sadness - it was a deep inner pain.
What makes it worse is that earlier this week I was talking to T about saying goodbye to my former T and how I had survived it. I told current T that if anything happened (i.e she had to go away again) it would feel horrible but I'd survive. I told her that I used to cry a lot at night with former T dreading the ending.
Now I'm worried that made sound blase and like I don't need to be seeing her.
The pain and grief I felt last night were comparable to the grief I felt over Former T, if not worse. I felt heartbroken  I started to crave the earlier sessions with my T, the times she commented on my body language more, the times I cried more, the times I sat with her in the different room. I want to go back to those times and do it all over again. I don't want to move on.
Even worse is this terrible sense that I am entering a stage of realising the termination will happen. I'm not denying it or covering it up or pretending it's going to be months/years away - it WILL happen. I've reached a point in my healing where I'm beginning to accept that fact. It happened with former T and now it's happening with current T. I recognise the pattern. It's as if I start grieving for the ending before we even talk about it.
But the pain is so bad that bringing it up with current T is not an option. I don't feel ready to even go there. I can't tell her how I'm feeling. I'm too scared of feeling the pain with her.
Instead I'm looking for any reason to avoid it, anything else to talk about. I'm sure I'll find a reason but I can't avoid it forever.
I'm so sad. |
This makes me sad too. Because it was me several years ago when I realized that one day, I would be finished with therapy. One day I would no longer see my therapist.
I talked to him - a lot - about it. At the time, the single most important thing we developed was a plan of ending. It would occur if and only if we both agreed that it was time. If I didn't, then no way was it over. It helped a tremendous amount.
After we spent a little time on this, two very important issues surfaced. One was pretty obvious - the fear of abandonment and dependence. The second was far more insidious and something I still work on to this day.
That if something good happened, something bad was bound to happen as a result. In my head I thought I never got to have, or keep, anything good. It would be taken from me somehow or something catastrophic would happen.
This is not the case. At all. I get to keep good stuff. The relationship between good and bad is not causal.
Yes, life changes things, the good may morph into something else, but it's still there, still recognizable. Bad doesn't erase good. We get to keep it. Bad is bad, good is good. They exist separate from each other.
I would caution against having something being too painful to talk about with your therapist. This idea is keeping you from reassurance, hope, and release from that pain.
When we suffer, we also get to share it. We can divest of some of the burden that we carry.