Do not retreat into yourself! Bad mistake; I did that and lost a good 20+ years of my life.

When I started therapy the second time with my therapist, 1996-2005 I made one rule for myself; I could not do the fetal curl-up in any way, shape or form; not emotionally, physically, intellectually, spiritually, in no way. I had to stay "open"/unclenched. I pictured therapy with my T as the sea and I was either a minesweep or ice breaker, my #1 goal was to keep the shipping lanes open (communication :-) I had to go out and T had to be let in, no matter what the cost, what the pain, what happened.

You hurt, sister, your T didn't call back but you don't know why yet. You have to hang on to that; he didn't call back on account of he doesn't see you; he didn't call back on account of you're invisible; he didn't call back because of his reasons, that have nothing to do with you. You hurt and are having a hard time but you will not die this time anymore than you have in your previous, equally hard times. You have us and we're here. You have more of yourself than you've ever had before and your Self is formidable; fearfully and wonderfully made (sorry, I just really like the wording of that Bible verse :-)

You're not invisible here, we're reading you in dark black type, not invisible ink like we all had as children; not lemon juice you have to "heat" to see the writing :-) Your parents aren't here anymore, your T is nothing like your parents were. You've had XX number of years learning to "wait" and you can wait until your T calls you (or call him back and demand to know what's with not calling you back! Express some concern in your message that he said he would check 4x a day and call back; has something happened to him, is he all right?).

Sometimes we work on being invisible and then it's not other people's fault that we are? I kept a low profile so my stepmother wouldn't notice me because whenever she did notice me it was usually negatively? So I wanted to be invisible.

One day I went to my T session and she had her office in a large business complex and there were huge cranes working on a couple of the buildings' roofs and I had to "drive around" the parking lot, out of my usual path, to get to my T's building. It made me horribly anxious and that made no sense. I got to the session and was early and sat thinking about the anxiety and what that could possibly be about and realized that since I was driving outside my "usual" route, I was vulnerable/spotable because I wasn't "supposed" to be there! I was flushed from hiding/the "usual" where I was safe because no one would notice me, I'd "blend in" since it's what I did over and over.

Sometimes we have to do things that uncover us and that's scary but the scariness is of our own making because we've worked hard to be "safe" all this time from situations and people who don't "exist" anymore. You're not invisible reaching out to your T, calling him, taking a chance on him. That's what hurts so bad. If you were invisible you'd be "safe" but you're not safe, you're vulnerable to hurt. Unfortunately, :-) that's a good thing.