Morning session with Dr. S (T):
I drove to session and arrived right on time. On the drive, I kept thinking that I wanted to open with telling you to pick the topics and not to push it back on me. I didn’t want to talk about last night, about Wife, about the relationship, about the email and last session, or about how little I thought the point of living was.

Down the stairs, push the button, and into the waiting room. You came right out to get me and said come on back. We got into your office and sat down. I’m not sure if at any point, I asked you how you were. I remember starting with not saying really anything. There was a pause and silence, then I said, so much and so little. I didn’t know where to begin.

Talked about MC and what went on there. I didn’t tell you a historical account of the session. I told you summary of the session. We talked about this for a while. I told you that I thought the guy would be fine for us. I told you that we’ll see him again next Friday and then not until Oct 13 (Friday) if I don’t have surgery on 10/10. I told you how we tried to tell him what brought us into see him and how Wife described it as a hiccup in the relationship. She had gone on to explain how we both were feeling like the other person was about to leave the relationship. I corrected that I didn’t have that feeling until much more recently. I then said that I thought we needed to give more history, more context into what all could be going on with us. I told you that we back tracked to the Daughter events but gave a big overview, I told him about basically having a nervous breakdown. He wanted to know what that was like, I told him crying at my work all day every day, not sleeping. Wife piped in saying not functioning. He said depression, maybe said deep depression. He asked if I was still depressed. I said if he’d asked last week I’d said yes, but not this week and how we did a med adjustment. I told him about you, seeing you 2 x week, doing deep work, attachment stuff. He said good or something like that. I told him about the weight loss, gender alignment, starting Testosterone. So just in general the large number of changes for me. Wife brought up how things were going really good after my surgery and then you went on vacation. I got very embarrassed/ashamed of my lack in handling your vacation. I couldn’t look at him. I curled into myself some and then I said separation anxiety. I told you that this didn’t feel good for me. I told you about how it seemed like Wife listed off everything that I was doing to become me as if they were problems. I wrote about this in yesterday’s entry. I told you that it felt like there was nothing I could do because anything I said was received by Wife in such a way to feed the narratives currently going through her head.

Then I brought up wanting to/needing to talk about last session and the email. I told you I was uncomfortable about what I wanted to talk about. I started off by saying how this therapy type is a journey and takes time. I told you that I was worried about us not having a contingency plan in case something happened to you. You acknowledged that we don’t. We both agreed that it is not in your plans to leave and we commented on how at our age we know that life happens. I stated that most of my losses have come from life happening. So, yeah, life happens. What will happen to me? (What will happen to me, mommy?) I feel a world of things around this need some of them are neutral and accepting, others are shameful and embarrassing (selfish).

You wanted to know what I was thinking or what it would look like. I said that if you died, that things would be different. I said that I don’t have the same issues when someone dies. Sure, I’d miss you, I’ll miss you regardless of why things end; however, with death I don’t take it personal. Though, I’d still want to say goodbye. This might just be your office, this might be allowed to visit your resting place. I didn’t tell you that in session. I just moved right onto the other situations. I said that it is hard because it’s not like we can have a massive flowchart that says if this then that... you commented that we could have something like an advance directive that gives general intention of things. I said (started crying) that if something was to happen to you and you couldn’t physically continue to see me that I would want something but I’d want to respect your space; your autonomy. You asked if I knew what I wanted, I said that I did. That I wanted one more time to see you to say goodbye. You said that you would want that too. As we talked further, I got the impression that you and I didn’t have the same image in mind when I said physically unable to continue. I did mean in the literal, physically unable to continue like from a serious injury or stroke; coma. I want to respect your wishes to possibly not be seen by me (or really many people) in that state. At the same time, I’m not sure saying goodbye to your office would be enough. You talked about possibly having someone work through things with me. Yeah, depending on where we are, maybe.

Then we came to the situation where you were too ill or injured to continue practicing – limited mobility or not enough energy. I said that I’d like the opportunity to stay in contact for a while. Here you said that there were many ways we could stay in contact. You mentioned video visits. I said that I would want to have really clear expectations. I think you nodded to this in acknowledgement of my statement. Somewhere in here you said something about it being good for us to talk about. I think more was said here before I moved onto the email but I don’t remember.

I said I was concerned about the email and thinking that you might feel like you over extended or crossed a boundary. You asked if I thought you crossed a boundary and I said, I’m not sure if I answered the question, I said that I had written something similar Monday night and that I’d share that in a little bit. You told me that there are many forms of therapy to practice and if you didn’t want this level [of interaction/connection/investment] you would have picked something else. I told you about how I was trying to remind myself the many times that you have said that you don’t offer or give more than you are willing and how you are very thoughtful about what you offer. I explained how with leaving the puzzle there at first felt like a spontaneous action, genuine and that at the next session when you told me that you’d thought it through before you offered, it took away from the previous experience. Then I said how I am using that event as an example of how thoughtful you are in your actions with me and proof that you are ok with what you said in the email. You made comment about how we can shift data/information about things around to create different views of things.

I read to you what I wrote in my journal on Monday night about always able to love you, how you won’t always be here physically in my life, and how you can be here in my heart and in me. You said we were on the same wavelength. Yeah. I said that it’s not there yet. I told you about going through the script and adding to it. You wanted to know what I added. I told you that I added the I want you, and I’m here. I said that it was more voice one and voice two not so much her voice; however, the more I said it the weaker voice 2 got.

I brought up the fact that I’m (Wife and I) going to out of town this weekend. You did this nonverbal response and I said yeah that was pretty much how I felt about it. You said something about having a response of tension. I think this lead me back to talking about relationship stuff. I don’t remember this transition though. I was talking about the talk that Wife and I had last night after MC, saying this and that about what I felt I could and couldn’t do. I kept saying that had to be some thing different in the relationship and you commented on my usage of thing instead of a different person. I said yeah, a thing because of being dead inside.

I told you how Wife made the comment about always having to be the asshole in the relationship. I retorted that she didn’t like it when I was the asshole, and followed up with the statement that was sort a joke. I said it didn’t go over well, that Wife thought it was funny but also felt like I didn’t validate her point. You asked me if I got her point, and I said yea, that she felt like she wasn’t given the benefit of good intentions with stuff. I talked about me being too… too just too…. I get hurt and people don’t want to be around me. I talked about how early in the relationship, Wife shared lots of stuff through journaling because I didn’t hide the fact that I get hurt easily, and how receiving stuff in writing where I have time to process through it is the best way for me, because then I can get hurt, go through my process and come back to it with a rational mindset. You made a positive comment about me having a process. I talked a little bit more on this then you interrupted me. You said something about not being able to attest to me being too much or people not wanting to be around me when I was hurt, that this reminded you of what I wrote in last week’s journal about being sent away that first summer of the divorce years because my parents didn’t think I could handle their fighting. I said I could handle a lot and you said yes. I said I don’t know what they were thinking sending me there. I said it wasn’t all bad, I liked the independence. I walked a lot. You asked me where. I said that I walked up the road that their house was at the end (that was ~3/4-1 mile, around a 4 mile radius area. Sometimes I’d stop and watch a baseball game. I said that I didn’t think I played softball that summer that I think I aged out of it. I told you about not making the school team my freshman year because there was a new coach that was really cute and lots of girls came out for the team. That I like playing but wasn’t very good. I didn’t have the problem the next 2 yrs and made the JV squad. I said I didn’t play my senior year because I didn’t want to play varsity and you couldn’t play JV. You asked me why I didn’t want to play varsity, I said because they pitched so fast, I was scared. I said that I also didn’t want to get cut. You said something about it being my decision to separate. Yeah, always better if I make the decisions not have them made for me. Doesn’t hurt as much. I commented about not remembering if I wrote about my uncle’s girlfriend, about having a crush on her, and wanting to take her away from him. You said I did. I shook my head at the lack of awareness of my sexuality/gender back then. I said I guess I didn’t want to know. You said something about maybe it not being safe to know. Maybe it wasn’t safe to know. Maybe that is why I had such a blind eye towards it all. I said that was the first time I wanted to die. I said that Jr. High was rough but I don’t remember wanting to die. I did that summer

It dawned on me that my watch didn’t have the alarm set and I had one more thing I wanted to talk about. I said shoot the time and looked at my watch, you looked at the time too. I commented about not having the alarm set and that I had one more thing, that it was a short thing. You said ok, I brought up these write ups and asked how accurate are they, and you said that I probably wouldn’t like the response, which I didn’t, as you said that they were what I experienced. A few comments back and forth. You said that they are like dreaming the session that you think we dream much more than when we sleep; and that we dream together in session. Then you said that they are 100% accurate to what I experience. I laughed and I said that was why I didn’t record the sessions. That I could record the sessions and I’d have a more accurate transcript but they wouldn’t be as meaningful. I asked if you had someone after me as I was late/over. You said no that if you had you’d been more on the clock. I laughed at this knowing how many times I say something about time and you are startled at the clock. You made a comment about setting alarm on your watch. I don’t like that I almost always go over, I do like that I call time. The alarm helps most times. I just didn’t adjust it for this one session.

I said I love you
You said I know
I said thank you for being this role in my life.
You said you’re welcome, my honor, my joy.
I said that I’m gonna miss you.
You said I know
I told you to have a good weekend and fun at the conference. Smiles.

I think you wished me well for the weekend too.

I got up and headed towards the door, I thanked you again. At the door you tried to do the time math and I said that I couldn’t do it today. See you Monday.