Quote:
Originally Posted by ruh roh
I'm glad you decided to keep your appointment. If it's your agreement that she'll reply if you ask (and it doesn't sound like you asked her to reply) I can't see anything in this where she abandoned you. The text that you shared here takes effort to try to decipher, so if your Sunday text was in a similar vein, I can see why she would have seen it as venting without need for a reply.
I do think that a good therapist tries to give us what we ask for. We can't get upset if they follow protocol we've set up. Also, as you point out, there was some transferring of your relationship hurt. In a way, her non-response to your non-request has been a good experience?
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I agree with this a lot, and just wanted to add something related to the idea of expectations. Yesterday, in fact, my T and I had a conversation about the ways in which she has let me down (the thing is, many times I keep my anger to myself, and then it bubbles up when I hit my limit and then she gets caught off guard... which is what happened). Anyways, she made a comment that stuck with me. She said she knows I want her to read my mind... but she can't. It's just a fact. It'll never happen. We all want people to read our minds and tend to our needs without being prompted. She said she feels the same way in life. We're all human. And then she said, sjkero, you just need to ask for what you need. It's as simple as that.
My point is your T is human just like the rest of us, and may not have interpreted your text as indirectly asking for her support. Just this past weekend I felt really depressed, and a part of me was angry my T didn't sense that... from where she was... telepathically... lol. I literally was upset. Now, it's funny but when you're upset you don't think logically. And then, in my anger and fear of abandonment, I decided to send her a quick text. I said, "Please let me know you're there. I just need to know that." And she wrote back, "I'm here, sjkero." And for some reason it was all I needed. And I had asked for it. I feel proud of that.
Sorry, that was wordier than it needed to be. Hope my little story helped.