Hi T,

Thank you for looking so genuinely sad for me as I talked about what happened last year. It really helped me to feel like you finally saw me and understood my experience. Thank you for also apologising so genuinely again. I needed to hear it and it really helped. I really appreciate that you agreed with some of my experiences of it all too. You agreed that the way you were reacting and responding to me had gone too far and had not helped me at all. You agreed that I've fought as hard as I could every step of the way since then to try to repair the relationship.

You seem to think I'm holding onto it and not letting it go, not allowing space for forgiveness. The thing is, some of the thnigs you said and did, they hurt me so deeply. I need you to continue to be patient, to hear me, and to help me to understand what happened and why. I need you to hear about my experience. There are things I still haven't said about it and I still need to say it all. Tomorrow I'd like to tell you how I felt when you compared me to my mother and said I wouldn't be a good mother in the way she wasn't a good mother to me. I'd also like to talk about how I felt when you ignored my apology for how badly the session gone, when you instead opened the door and started talking to your next client. I mentioned it last week, and although you acknowledged that it would have been good if you'd replied to me then, you also seem to think that it always upsets me to know anything about you dealing with other clients. You seemed to think that's why it was so hard for me. It's never been like that for me, you don't seem to believe that.

So yes, I'll be talking about this stuff all over it again, but no, it's not because I'm just hanging onto it forever. I just need to tell you my experience. I'd like to tell you that the reason I was so upset about the ending to the bad session was because 1) you ignored my apology completely and didn't even look at me 2) that happened after I'd just told you for the first time in four years that I thought I wasn't going to return at all and that I'd never expected to end like that (I really thought that was the end and you didn't even look at me, let alone say goodbye), and finally 3) because I had to walk from the middle of your office past you in the doorway (immediately after you'd ignored my apology and me altogether) while you were talking to another client. At the time I was looking as awful as I'd ever looked in front of someone else and for that reason alone, I was upset about seeing you talking to another client like that. Yes, I was aware we'd run over time, but I'm a long term client and I'd never felt that distressed in front of another person in my life and I thought that was the last time I'd ever see you.

I still need you to hear all of this stuff. So PLEASE don't suddenly change on me again and start doing things that aren't helpful for me, like demanding I take control. Don't you realise we work together and than in my own time I do take control and talk to you about what I need, as long as you don't force me? Please don't try to tell me I need to move on from this and let it go before I've finished talking about it. None of this is said to blame you. I've fully accepted that I contributed to it all, even though I wasn't aware at the time that I was doing anything wrong. I've acknowledged my part in it. I'm saying it because I need you to hear how badly each of these things hurt me. They've changed the way I feel about myself. There are so, so many things like those examples and so little time. I still don't know how to do this in 50 minute time slots each week...and I don't want you to get sick of me and give up on me. Obviously although I keep talking about it, I'm still only going over the things that hurt me the most.

I really do wish that I mattered to you beyond my 50 minute time slot, which you've carefully stated is all our contract is for. Just keep trying in the time I'm with you, please? That's the most I can ask for. So please do that. I'm worried that you'll return to the same pattern as last year. Being gentle with me for one session and then suddenly pushing too hard despite how distressed I have been over the situation, or suddenly distancing yourself from me. Just please, if I matter to you within only 50 minutes each week, then please spend that time really trying to do the right thing by me. I'm nervous about tomorrow. I'll be trying too, just in case you wondered.

You know when you told me if we were in a lifeboat together and a wave hit that you wouldn't be thinking about me, you'd be looking after yourself? I'd be thinking about you, you realise that don't you? Sometimes this relationship isn't very fair.