Quote:
Originally Posted by Petra5ed
If your T let you depend on her by keeping up this kind of email contact, that would be her letting you down, not showing she cares. For you to grow you will need to walk through pain, it won't be easy. She's your therapist, and she's there to comfort you, but she cant shield you from reality, she cant coddle you. Your desires are normal for someone with the issues you say you have, I have the same issue actually. I've felt so desperate to talk to my T it made me suicidal when I didn't get an email response for a couple days. I think this is something you need to discuss and examine with her in session. Why do you feel this way? Is this not your issue? Is this not what's causing you pain? I'm sorry about the stupid rhetorical questions, :P I'm talking to myself here as well. If your therapist did just give in and email you back all the time you'd never have to look at this issue. But you cant be truly secure and happy if you don't know how to ground yourself. Also, if you really have a crisis you should call. Not in the middle of the night of course though.
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Hi Petra5ed,
Yes, part of what made it so hard for me to accept was that my t changed her boundaries after a long time of me getting used to having email support. It felt like intentional deprivation of something I had come to rely on as an important part of my therapy.
My t apologized for changing her boundaries like that. She told me she wishes she had set better limits on email at the beginning. She knows it has been hard for me to adjust to not having any more contact outside of session.
I agree I need to examine the underlying issues about WHY emailing was such a big deal to me, WHY stopping it has felt so devastating, etc. The more I think about it, the more I believe that my t not wanting to reply to me (or not doing so promptly) . It triggered alot of old stuff from my childhood, such as getting in trouble for calling my mom so much at work because I missed her, or being sent to bed with a promise that she would come tuck me in, and then waiting and waiting for what felt like endless amounts of time before she actually did. (I can recall one time when, by the time she showed up to tuck me in, I was in tears thinking that she didn't love me or want to tuck me in.)
Of course, I know my t is not my mom, but I think the whole situation of reaching out via email and then not getting a response is a huge trigger for the underlying stuff from my childhood that I really need to work on and resolve in my t sessions.