I've had more anger towards my T in the past month than in the past 7+ years of therapy combined. I'm angry at her for allowing me to wonder, for over 4 years, if we might try being friends one day, after therapy is over. It angers me enormously that she has denied making statements that I am 90% sure she made, without even trying to come up with an alternate statement she might have made, or just saying she doesn't remember having made such a statement. It makes me doubt my sense of reality. I have started to mistrust her. But then again, I do trust that her motives are in my best interest. She and I have talked about this at some length, and I have concluded that there is no possible reason for her to do or say anything with malicious intent. She has the integrity of a diamond. She works very hard to get me to think about my thoughts, what is under the surface, what is the origin of specific feelings, why are these feelings so all-pervasive, what are these feelings trying to accomplish, etc. etc.? She tries to teach me, in her own way, to be my own therapist.

What have I come up with? Why have I been so agitated by her as of late? Here goes.

In the 7+ years I have been in therapy with her, she has told me many times that I take abstract ideas and insist on turning them into concrete concepts and scenarios. I speak mostly in a cognitive mode, and not from my emotions. Early in therapy she said that although I talk to her about my anger, and the problems my anger causes in my relationships, I have never shown her anything but my caring side. I did not "demonstrate" my anger to her. I was always calm and in control of my emotions in front of her.

Now she is trying none too subtly, to treat me in ways that people in the "real" world treat people. She is probing my mind to see how I handle frustration, interpersonal relationships, anger. She catches me when I try to avoid uncomfortable subjects. Because I have told her how I have dumped friendships and potential friendships when they annoy me, she is intentionally annoying me, I believe. She "takes the steering wheel" as my wife likes to call it, by taking control of a conversation and not allowing me to take it back. That frustrates and sometimes angers me. Sometimes I see a little smile break through on her lovely face, which she quickly squelches. I believe that means what she is doing is working the way she wants it to work. In a nutshell, she is trying to get me to see her as a real person with flaws, annoying qualities, occasional harsh attitudes. She is trying, I think, to remove herself from the pedestal I have held her on for all these years, to get me to understand that what I have in my life is better than any relationship I might possibly have with her after therapy is complete. The fantasy I have of walking off into the sunset with her is just that, a fantasy. Nothing real about it. Why would a friendship with her be any better than any other friendship I've had? Because she understands me better, because I am "special" to her, more than I am to anyone else, because "it will be better with her"? All nonsensical dreams.

What could be more caring than what she is doing towards getting me to take more interest in myself, my wife and kids, my relationships with other people, and to feel better about who I am and what I do? My wife has a very long history of putting up with my crap (and there's been lots of it), of caring for me and about me, of being there for me far more than my T ever could be. What my T is attempting to do, I believe, is take my focus off her and put it back where it belongs: with my life, my wife, my family. Why have I had such strong feelings for her? The old textbook reasons of "she is attentive, talks only about me, does not argue with me, helps me to understand myself". Yes, all very alluring reasons. All make sense. But it ends there, in that little room where we have our sessions. Outside of that room, my life is mine and her life is hers. She doesn't want me to have her as a crutch to lean on when things at home are difficult and the road is rough. She wants me to be strong enough to handle things without her, to be independent of her, to not say to myself, "I can always rely on my T." If for no other reason, that is why she doesn't want to allow me to have hope that we might be friends one day. If I thought we might be friends, I could let my life go to hell because "I will have her to lift me up." I still want her, but the longing is easing up. For now.