Note:
C = Current T

S = Ex T with whom I'm trying (and failing) to have a decent friendship - he moved away months ago, came back to town over the weekend, didn't tell me despite promising me that he would. When I got mad after randomly finding out on FB that he was in town, he claims that he changed his flight and left without seeing me at all - claiming that all along he'd been planning to surprise me yesterday.

Chameleon = I have a little pocket-sized stuffed chameleon that I bring with me to and from sessions; it's my transitional object.

Let me start by saying... I am really sorry for scaring everyone. If I'm honest, I was scaring myself too. I wasn't really sure if C would send me to the hospital today. For now, I am stable. It was an intense session. I'm trying not to worry about some of the things I said -- C was receiving them differently than I meant for him to. I wound up telling him in the beginning (while rather frustrated) that he was always flat and distant, and I think that hurt him. He said he felt he was failing me. But things got better, and I eventually said that I no longer felt he was distant and that maybe that came from just the fact that he wasn't S (which he reacted as if that stung him....I felt awful for that...)

Lots of crying. Lots of feeling like the session was pointless. But it got better. I rephrased my fears that he would leave (which bothered him - he was quite convinced that I was going to leave therapy. He probably still isn't sure.) as questions about if he was going to leave. He said that felt better - that it implied I didn't want him to leave, which I emphatically agreed with.

I worked up the courage to ask him to hold the chameleon during the second half of the session. I told him that most of my reaching out to him was just me running to him like a child, crying "make it better!" Because I wanted to somehow believe he was in control. Very childlike - believing your parents can fix anything. He said "do you realize how much I wish I could just hold you?" Yeah. So, that helped. I told him I had thought about it a lot and wished I could just come in today and hug him and cry. "But you can at least hold my chameleon and charge it up for me." I wish I'd said more - I will likely email it to him - I wanted to explain that when I say that "I can't do therapy today," which he thought implied I wanted to quit therapy, what I really mean is "I can't talk about and process things like we might typically do in a therapy session right now; I'm in too much acute emotional pain." It turns out we have a LOT of misinterpretations between us....

There was other stuff - he admitted he hoped that this episode with S would mean I would choose to stop things with S. He admitted that my continued choice to engage with S "didn't feel good." That triggered the crap out of me...I expressed my feeling that I couldn't go to him now because I kept choosing to still talk to S. We did eventually resolve it by him explaining that the bad feeling was worry, not annoyance. Oh... he did say that he felt we had "pissed each other off a bit last week." That upset me, but I didn't really express that - he couldn't identify what had "pissed him off" and eventually changed his language to "irritated." I don't like that I can and have irritated him... I work so hard not to...

We talked about how his fear, which he readily expresses at every turn, makes me uncomfortable...because I want to believe that he's in control. That it stems from my feeling like he's a father figure - wanting to believe that parents can always make it better and are never afraid. "I want to believe that, somehow, there are adultier adults out there who know how to handle everything."

He kept me like 9 minutes late because he says he doesn't like how strict I am about his 50 minute rule. A lot came out in those last 9 minutes - why I try to control things like strictly sticking to his time limit - how it relates to my relationship with my father (will need to talk about that more - sometimes I forget he doesn't already know everything about me...). We clarified his phone call/text rule - I had thought that the content of my texts/calls could only be "hi, I'd like to schedule more time. Can we schedule?," but now he says I can call him about anything - he can't guarantee that he'll always have time available to call back (because life), but I can call and like leave a message like "Hi, this awful thing just happened, and I am losing my s*** and really need to talk to you..if you could call me back for just like 15 minutes if you can..." So, that was helpful. The biggest thing I think we unearthed is my realization that I didn't think/understand whether or not his side of this relationship with me was a positive thing for him... I always think of myself as an obligation. So we ended with him telling me that it is positive for him - that he looks forward to seeing me, that he enjoys our time together, and that he wants more time with me.

I also saw my psychiatrist tonight. (Good timing for a double-whammy day.) I'm more stable now, but I'll be going back on some Seroquel each night for a bit to stabilize. I love that my psychiatrist never seems to judge me when I say that I think I need to take the Seroquel because I feel myself slipping.

I came out of all of this feeling less like S having been "right there" this weekend and my not having gotten to see him means the absolute end of existence. I think I'm going to write C an email, though, and provide some direct feedback since it seems like the only message I've sent him through my feedback is "you're cold and distant."