Hi Rainbow,

Many, many hugs to you, my friend. . .

I know you're at a hard stage in your therapy, and I want to support you as you go through it. I've known you for a long time, and I care about you very much!

First of all, I'm sorry that your session left you feeling frustrated, angry, and sad. I understand how hard it is to leave the session feeling all of those negative feelings, yet not being able to express them via email to your t. It's awfully hard not to email when feelings are intense! I'm working on the same thing. Sometimes I fail, and sometimes I manage to get myself through the week with coping skills until I see my t again. You have done really well in managing tough feelings between sessions. I'm glad you are posting here. Hopefully, that might make it a bit easier for you to wait. At least you know that we are hearing how you feel.

BP made a good point. The session was actually good AND bad, meaning that some things went well and felt good for you, but some things didn't go well, and you felt bad. This is normal. Both you and I have a problem with getting so upset over the things that go badly/wrong/not the way we want them to, that we then can ONLY see what went wrong, and we can ONLY feel the bad feelings. But this is our problem with "black and white thinking."

We need to open our minds to the whole situation that unfolded, not just the parts that upset us. Also, it's often our interpretation of an event that makes us feel either good or bad. BP's post showed me that. So even though your session upset you alot, also force yourself to see what went right, and then let yourself feel good about it. Since you struggle so much with sad and painful feelings, allow yourself to see and feel the good. You deserve to feel good about what IS right in your therapy and in your life!

Another thing you might reconsider is whether or not your t cares about you, just because she doesn't want to hear every detail of your life. Does that really mean she doesn't care? You have friends that you care about, but are you always interested in hearing every single detail of their life? When you think about it, it's not even possible to hear and know everything there is to know about someone.

I think your t cares about you very, very much! But she realizes that when you start telling her all the details about your week, you can get on a roll. Then, the two of you don't have enough time to pinpoint the most important aspects, and focus on them during the session. 90 minutes isn't enough time to cover everything. I think your t is just trying to help you filter out the less important things from the more things that merit attention in the session. It's not that she isn't interested in your life, or that it's not all important. But the therapy hour is limited.

I also see your t enforcing the email limit, not to push you away, but to also encourage you to bring the "hard stuff" to your therapy session. Isn't it true that sometimes when you need to tell her the more difficult, embarrasing, or scary things, that you do it in email? I think she would much rather have you not email, and instead, bring up those tough topics in the session face to face-- instead of emailing the tough topics and then filling the therapy hour with the less important, more mundane issues instead. I could be wrong, but it's something for you to think about.

In thinking about the way your mom treated you compared to the experiences you have with others you have looked to as mother figures, it's understandable that you keep feeling disappointed. You were used to getting a great deal of attention from your mom. Since you lived together, she had the time to listen to all of the specifics of your day, and all of your feelings you wanted to share. It must hurt not to have that much concentrated attention and care today! It can make you feel lonely, like nobody loves or cares enough about who you are and how you feel. I get that, I really do.

I'm so sorry that it hasn't worked for you to try to replicate the relationship you had with your mom with someone else now that she is gone. Our situations are somewhat different. I never had what you did with your mom. But the effects are similar: you miss what you had and lost, and I miss what I never had. Either way, it creates an emotional hole and a painful need. I don't know that there is any way around this pain, which is like grief! We both need to grieve that loss, and then learn other ways to fill those painful emotional needs.

I think it's important for us to realize, though, that even though our t's can't be everything we want them to be, they CAN and DO help fill some of those unmet needs. I'm sure that even when you stop therapy, you will remember many of the things your t said and did, and they will live on in your mind and heart. In that way, a part of her WILL always be with you (as she said, you will have "internalized" her). And, who knows, maybe she will still allow occasional contact, such as an email or phone call once or twice a year. It may not be goodbye completely or forever.

I would encourage you to keep doing the visualizations of being a baby in your mom's womb, whether it's in session or when you are at home. If you can practice this, and bring up the associated warm feelings you recall from feeling so cared about, it will soothe you. If you can internalize the feeling of comfort by remembering how much she cared about you, it's a way that she can also be "with you," even though she has passed away.

There's so much more I could say, and I hope I don't sound dogmatic or like I'm "the expert" who is telling you what to do. Far from it!! But I relate so much to your struggles, really understand how hard this is for you, and hope that by writing all of this, it will help BOTH of us in our journey toward being more healed and more whole.

Hang in there, Rainbow! I think you've made great strides, even though you still struggle with transference feelings. Some of those feelings might stay with us, even after therapy is over. It might be one thing we have to just radically accept, and find ways to soothe ourselves when those needy feelings hit. But we can learn ways to meet our needs, and other people can help do it too. There just can't be ONE PERSON who can be everything to us. We know that, we just need to keep working with the feelings.

I know it has been hard for you to access feelings about losing your mom. But I would encourage to you discuss this subject with your t, and together decide whether this might be a topic you should work on more during your time together. To the extent that you can work through those feelings of loss from the past, it might make those painful needy feelings to have a mom in the present lessen.

Warm thoughts always,
Peaches