As some of you know, quite a few months ago I struggled with crippling transference with the first therapist I saw, left therapy because of it, took up with another therapist, and now I’m back into a similar pattern with my current therapist (though not nearly as bad). The therapeutic caring and empathy triggered deep longings for the kind, nurturing caregiver I never had growing up. Unfortunately the longing turned into dependency, and I currently live session to session, obsess over my therapist, and allow the relationship to take on unhealthy proportions in my mind. Worst is the post-therapy swings when a bad or disconnected session destroys my week. Just the thought or a picture of my therapist comforts me when I’m struggling, but the harshness of feeling like a “job”, or “just a client”, or “one of many” to my therapist when I’m actually in or leaving therapy causes me a lot of emotional distress.

Last week, my session felt really awkward and distant. Also, my therapist doesn’t normally schedule back to back clients, but this time I saw someone leaving, and someone coming, and also overheard a few kind sentiments she said to each of them. It triggered really strong feelings that what my therapist and I have isn’t special, that she says kind things to everyone that she may or may not mean… basically insecurity, or reality depending on how you look at it. I sat outside in an empty park after my session and cried alone.

I drove home after, with the resolve that I wasn’t going to keep doing this to myself. I’m going on two years of therapy, and feel worse than when I started much of time… despite being on antidepressants that I wasn’t taking before. I have a lot to be grateful for, work hard in therapy, but I’m tired of allowing my relationship with my therapist to cause me even more pain. I decided that I either needed to quit therapy for good, or take control of my thoughts and feelings. What I ended up doing was cut back on a lot of my dependent behaviors this week, like looking at my therapists website all the time, re-reading kind emails she’s sent me, keeping the hope that she’ll send me a random email which she has only done a few times, re-reading books she’s loaned me, and going out of my way to drive by her office. Also… the biggie… curbing the conversations I have with her in my head. Finally, FINALLY by allowing myself to have some mental space from her, I’ve been able to function better. I’m not sure if I just got lucky this week, or if making a real effort to stop obsessing made me feel that much better. The hard part is that thinking about my therapist feels so good most of the time, but also leads to disappointment when reality hits. I think curbing what normally feels good, made me feel overall better. I’m not sure if this makes sense. My session this week was productive and connected, but it didn’t feel so engrossing.

Not sure if anyone else has experienced this, or if I’m suppressing instead of allowing things to flow naturally… but it definitely made for an easier week.