Quote:
Originally Posted by FeelTheBurn
Well, I can't improve on what has been said, only echo it. Even a few minutes of his voice could be a potent reminder that you won't be on your own forever, and that you are cared about. Knowing that, if you're bonded with your T, that little bit of contact can really put calm in your heart when nothing else can. And can you imagine reporting to him when he returns, "Yeah, I was dead miserable, at the end of my rope, but no, even though you said I should, I didn't call you because I'm not worth it." Imagine the side-eye your T would give you at that!  Get out of your own way, and reach out for some healing.
And, if you do talk to your T, maybe he could recommend a respected colleague for you to use as a sounding board in the meantime, if the pressure gets to be too much. Not for therapy per se, but just as a sympathetic ear. Doesn't mean you'd have to use it, but it might be helpful at crunch time.
And, for the teeny tiny bit that it may be worth, you have much value to me, Mastodon, and I would wager I'm not alone here. A portion of those 772 hugs you've given have been given to me, and I have appreciated every one of them. So, on behalf of the other hug-ees, this one's for you:  |
That is worth a
lot, FTB. Thank you so much. And, good grief, he would give me not so much a side-eye as a stare over the rim of his glasses... which means that yeah, he probably would prefer it if I contacted him.
I struggle a lot with whether T actually cares about me or not. I keep saying that I am convinced he doesn't, but deep down I hope that he does, a little. And if he does, he won't mind that I contact him. But if he doesn't? Gah.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stopdog
If you think hearing the therapist would help and the therapist said to call, then why not at least try giving yourself a shot at it? I mean, it seems you want to have some contact with him and he has offered. I would think it might be useful to try it before rejecting it.
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I do think it would help, and he did. I suppose it's pretty unreasonable to set up all these barriers to contacting him. (Well, there is one barrier, which is that I need to find some uninterrupted time to do so, which is hard when H is on holiday, because I get very little alone time. But that's not an unsurmountable problem, it's just another barrier I set up.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by feralkittymom
Apt 
There's another way to think about this. You may be doing your T a huge favor by calling.
I was always loathe to call outside of sessions. After toughing out a serious situation, I told my T what had happened. He told me that I needed to call him for his benefit, if not for my own. That the nature of his work was to think about his clients outside the hour. That the biggest stress was learning to make that thinking productive, rather than stressful. That, at times, such stress couldn't be eliminated, but it could be managed. And one of the ways to manage it was to get the client to the place where they would reach out as needed. That knowing the client would reach out relieved him of the need to be concerned.
And you are so worth it. Maybe you can't believe it, but don't forget it. |
Thank you, feralkittymom. This made me almost tear up. And it makes sense that a T who is concerned about a client would like to know that that client would in fact let him know if she was desperate. But then I'm back to the question of "does he actually care"... and also, yeah, I can't quite believe what you said there at the end.
Again, thank you to all who answered. You have given me much to consider, in a good way.