I was so hurt on the times when I turned up and my therapist didn't. It used to feel like I wasn't important enough, so I'd been forgotten. I think that when you have a big reaction to something like that, it means that it's hit on something that is really important to address. For me, it wasn't just about my relationship with my therapist, but how I felt in the world in general, as if I wasn't good enough. Although it was so hard for me to talk about those feelings, working though it each time was one of the things that helped me the most in therapy.

Now, some years after those early times when there were scheduling mix-ups, it really doesn't feel anywhere near as awful when my therapist or anyone else mixes things up in that way. I really have a strong sense of it not being about me and I realise just how negative I was being when my first reaction was always to make it about my own personal failings. What I gained by working through it in therapy is something that spills over into all sorts of other things in a helpful way as well.

My therapist doesn't remember things in the same way I do for one thing. My whole week was about surviving to that day. But she didn't remember me as someone she saw on a particular time and day. Occasionally, she'd written my name down on the wrong day. Once, I remember her reminding me that she'd forgotten the arrangement, she had not forgotten me. She was always very sorry and very apologetic, but her forgetting really wasn't about me.

It's completely okay to be upset and annoyed if someone does something like not showing up to an appointment, but it doesn't always have to be the way it is now, something that causes so much suffering and pain. I hope that you feel a bit better after your next appointment. In terms of the abandonment fears, I think it just takes time. Time with someone who is as reliable and supportive as possible.