Here's a realization that came out as I wrote this two days ago. Read it all the way to the end and you'll get the connection:

The Pain of Termination

When I was a young boy and was ill or scraped a knee, my mother would sit on the edge of my bed and sing to me. The song was about hope for a better future, a better life. She’s been dead forty years as of this January 10th. I was 20 at the time. I’m 60 now, so I’ve lived two additional lifetimes since then. I am more than 10 years older than she was when she died. She sang in a soft, melodic, sad voice, and it was just for me. (I just broke down and cried as I wrote that.) … and it was just for me. It was so sweet. It was the embodiment of love. She was telling me that I will be alright. There is hope, there is love, you will feel better soon. I remember feeling the chilled sweat of a fever, but knew I would be better soon, because my mother loved me. She stroked my forehead, and sang to me. I have no idea if she sang that to any of my three siblings (I should ask them one day), but during those pained, shivering moments she was there just for me.

I have no recollection of her singing to me when my feelings were hurt or I felt sad. Physical pain and illness merited the song, but emotional pain somehow never received the same solace. It was as if it didn’t require the same degree of care to heal. So emotional pain found its own way to heal. Something hurt my feelings, made me “feel bad”, and didn’t get the same caring and love as physical maladies. I suppose I could have intentionally injured myself to garner that special attention, but I didn’t go in that direction. The route I took was to “cure” my emotional pain by converting it to anger. “I feel bad. Why don’t you care? I hate you! I hate you!! How do you like that?! There, now maybe you feel just as bad as I do!” I didn’t say those things, but that is where I believe my mind went. “Emotional pain isn’t worthy of your love? Then I will hurt your feelings. I will show you how I feel.” But that anger didn’t have the kind of impact that I intended. Instead of my mother reeling from pain and sympathy, she struck out at me for being so angry and rude. Because she couldn’t read my mind, she couldn’t possibly understand that I felt hurt. She didn’t know why I was so angry. It must have seemed to her that I was striking out for “no good reason”. That I was being irrational. And I was being irrational. I didn’t learn how to express my hurt feelings in a way that would gain others’ sympathy. “You should know that I feel bad,” I am guessing was the undercurrent of my mind. “Why can’t you see my pain?” I barely knew why I felt hurt, and didn’t know how to say things like, “You’re making fun of me, and that hurts my feelings.” Even now I don’t express those feelings well. My first reaction is still to translate pain to anger, and anger to angry words. And it still does not gain me any sympathy. Quite the opposite.

I have been under the impression that my psychotherapy would end when it felt right for me to end it. It seems like a natural progression: I started therapy when I felt the need for it, and I should end it when I feel somehow completed, finished, no longer need or want it. Now I’m facing a kind of forced termination of therapy. My therapist has decided she can not help me any more than she has, so she has set a termination date about six months after she first brought up the subject. She set the date almost three months after bringing up the “t” word. I didn’t have any say in the matter. Now that we’re less than two months away from the finale, I don’t feel at all ready. I feel that the decision was taken away from me. I feel “dumped”, like she has finally, after all these years of therapy, grown tired of me. “There’s still so much to talk about,” I argue with her and with myself. “I know this can’t go on forever, but I’m not ready. You can’t leave me like this. I have more I need to know. I need to know more about myself, and I need to know more about you. I know I’ve missed some very important points you’ve tried to make. Make the points again. I’ll listen more intently this time. I need more time!”

That’s where I stand today. She acknowledges my pain, that’s true. She let’s me know that she is very aware how difficult this is for me. She’s almost like my mother, who knew me so well, but never well enough. If I had some more time with her, I could be a better man. I might be able to understand love more, if only I could be the one to decide when it’s over. Not yet. Not before I say so. I don’t know how much longer, but I know that this is too soon. Don’t die so soon. Stay with me. I’ll be good. I can help you get better. I can be there for you. I can love you better than I ever have, better than anyone. You’ll see. You can love me better too. You’ll get to see more of me, you’ll get to see I’m better than you think I am. It’ll be good for both of us. You’ll see. It’s too soon. I’m dying inside and you don’t want to stay longer and help me. Tell me I’ll be OK. Tell me you’ll be there for me if I need you. I’ll be there for you if you need me. I would have been there for you if you told me you were sick and wanted me to be there for you like you were always there to make me better when I was sick. Don’t leave me like this. NO! NOT YET!! I’m not ready. You don’t understand the emotional pain I feel. If I hurt my physical body you’ll know. But I hide my pain from you, so you don’t see the pain, so you don’t know it. So you’re ready to leave me, but I’m not ready to leave you. I AM NOT READY!!!!! Don’t you dare. You’re not ready either. You weren’t ready. You were too young, too unfinished with your life. I wasn’t ready for you to go. I still needed you. You still needed me. I still need you!!!!