Monday 10/2 session
I got to the office with 8 mins to spare, I switched pants (I’d already switched shirts before leaving work). I used the upstairs bathroom to change because it is much bigger and I wanted to change before you saw me. When I headed down, your previous client was coming up and through the door. We did the little dance at the door. I headed down making sure to catch the door from banging. I pushed the button and went into the waiting room 3 mins to go. A minute or so later you came out to get me. You were asking about my eyes. I told you that they were better today. You wanted to look at them, I said sure. You noted that they were not as bad as you thought they might be and that the left is redder than the right. Yeah, I reiterated that they are better and you said something about being glad I got the drops. I was in a good mood, were you surprised at how good my mood was? I think to some degree, I was/am surprised at how good my mood was.

I climbed onto the floor and said that I wanted to lay on the floor that it has felt good the last few times. I pulled out my blanket, I laid on my stomach, and used my blanket as a pillow. You sat down on the floor too. I told you it was warm in your office and you said that you didn’t know how the heat was controlled, that you’d look into it and thanked me. I said that it was warm but I just did a 30 min walk to get to you, so might just be me. I looked up at you and I said I love you. You said I know. I said I processed through stuff. You asked for more info – curious, want to know about me. I laughed and said that I was going to tell you and that it was a long story. Somewhere here in the beginning I told you that I had gaps of stuff from last session, you said it was ok.

I proceeded to tell you what I did from the moment leaving previous session until the bed. I didn’t look at you much while I told the story, off and on. When I told you that I went up to the store – that I thought about buying food, alcohol, about hurting myself but I was too something, that seemed too hard, too much work, not satisfying, … something. I was kind of in a daze. I told you that I went to the bathroom and cried there for a while before heading down to the train. I told you about some of my thoughts on the way to the train (mommy doesn’t love me, mommy loves art, but if mommy did these other things that showed love, why didn’t she do this one, saying no doesn’t mean mommy doesn’t love me.. and circling around). I told you that when I got to the train, I had 12 mins to wait, I texted wife about being late and hard session, then I went and stood by a building and cried some more. It seemed like you were being supportive (showing empathy) while I told you this. I said that I stopped crying before the train arrived and didn’t cry any more on the way home. I said that once I got home I put the bracelet and clip away and that is where they still are. I told you about interactions with wife, about her asking if I needed/wanting anything. My reply being that I wanted to go to bed and cry. I told you about our discussion around her being in bed, me crying, and her not comforting me. I asked wife if she could handle that and she said she didn’t know. That reminded me that wife needs me to be something different, something stronger. I told wife that I’d go down to the basement. She said I didn’t have to do that but she wouldn’t argue with me. I told you about me gathering up a blanket, pillow, and laptop, then headed to the basement. I explained how I laid out the blankets and laid down on the mat and cried until I was in a snobbery mess. You said that I let myself cry. Yeah, that's an understatement. Hmm let myself cry, I think it is more, can't prevent myself from crying level of sadness. There were no more thoughts at this time, just laying and crying. I told you how I got up and cleaned up, tried to journal and couldn't, the laid back down and cried myself to sleep. I told you that it didn't take long for me to fall asleep. You talked about emotional exhaustion. Yeah, that pretty much sums up where I was - like a little kid crying out the emotions.

I told you how wife came down and woke me up and she said that I looked like a little kid. You seemed to, I don't know, felt sad for me or... just felt sad at what I was describing. It was sad. I told you that I recognized that I was processing this at a young age, 3ish.

Then I told you about Friday morning/day and how talking with a friend helped a fair amount. I told you that the friend and I did a Webex. You didn't know what that was so I explained that it was a way to conference call and share screens. She wanted to talk about how I was doing but I was at work so I couldn't talk about that. I showed her this application (journaling application). I told you it was nice to hear her voice. I had to go, though, because work called.

She and I continued talking via chat. I shared with you her question, while I wasn't sure if it was a translation issue or not, her wording caused me to pause. I wanted to get the wording correctly so I pulled out my notes and read to you her question, "What do you hope to win from touch?" I explained how the word win in the question made me stop and think, what did I hope to win - win hmmm? I told you that I didn't really answer that question; however, I went on to answer other questions, including things that led me to think that maybe the time for this type of touch had passed (meaning really was wanted during the move) and with the new location, logistically it isn't as practical as the fantasy images seem.

I said that it was here that I started to wonder and worry if previously ok'd touch was still ok. Both the friend and I believed that was not the case; however, I started to spiral with the thoughts that I might have messed up what I had by asking for more/different. I didn't wait very long in this spiral before I emailed you. I got your response right before I left work. Your response telling me that previous touch was still ok and that the no applied only to recently discussed touch. I'm still not sure how precise you mean with that. I'm not going to ask at this time. I didn't think your email needed a reply and I was already running to head to personal training so I didn't reply to your reply. On the drive to personal training, I tried to put in place a rule to not ask for touch again. I want to put the rule in place because I don't want to mess up what I already have. Asking could result in you (others) taking things away, too selfish, not grateful. Hmmm secrecy is like this. If I don't tell others about something then they can't have it, they can't take it away from me - either physically or emotionally.

Somewhere in here you asked me about the feelings changing. I pulled out my journal and read to you, “I thought a lot about us (you and I) and the no. I thought that mommy loves me (sometimes you are mommy and sometimes not). I thought about how compassionate you were with me yesterday. You sat with me through that pain, you didn’t leave me alone, kick me out/send me away. I was able to feel the pain and the hurt, I was able to articulate parts of it. I was able to be with the pain and be soothed by your presence, your words, your empathy. Thank you. I guess thank you for the experience. As painful as it was, I think it is a big part of the work. Which really sucks, cuz it really sucked. And thank you for being there for me as I worked through it, being patient with me and my questions where ever they went.” You said, “you are welcome”.

I also told you that I think it was a good thing that I didn’t leave when I was angry because then I would have processed the pain and hurt alone and it would have been complicated by the anger. You laughed at you inadvertently keeping me there by holding onto the colored pencils – the misunderstanding that went on there. We didn’t linger on this. I hold no residual feelings about the colored pencils nor do I believe you did it on purpose. I think it was just good happenstance of things to occur for me to have the experience the way it played out. Painful yes, helpful yes.

Somewhere in here we also talked about my wording around saying that I wanted to feel loved. I said it was interesting wording. You questioned interesting how. I said that I didn’t say that I wanted you to love me. I said on the forum lots of people write about wanting their therapist to love them. In that moment, I wanted to feel loved. You asked me what the difference was, I said that you loving me was about how you felt, what was going on with you. Wanting to feel loved, is what is inside me. You brought up my metaphor of the light streams of love flowing over my net. How sometimes there can be a breach and I can feel it for a little while then something happens and the breach is sealed up. You said it was a powerful(?) image or something like that. You also said something about me being able to see it around me, knowing it is there, and not being able to feel it.

There’s also this other thing… you can show someone what they need to feel loved because of caring about them without loving them. I think there is a part of me that chooses this thinking because it allows you to provide things for me regardless if you love me or not. There’s a little to that concept. There is more around me just wanting to feel loved and that is all about what I am feeling in the situation/relationship.

Oh, that reminds me one of the things said last Thursday was sorry for wanting. You had asked once before if a no on something would lead me to thinking I was bad for wanting or asking. I guess I'm not completely past that yet. It didn't linger.

I moved us back to my Friday, I told you that it was a little weird going into personal training as it was my last day. You said yes, my last day and to tell you about it, or that you were curious or...?? I said personal trainer (PT) was great this week and let me pic what exercises I liked the best so I told her no squats, well some squats not the big heavy squats. For some reason the last several months I have got scared doing the squats. I wanted to do bench press. So we did that, and I benched 105 lbs x 4. I told you that I was back up to my max pre-surgery. That I had 105 x 1 then. I told you how after the bench press, I was looking out at the martial arts space and I saw the climbing rope. I told PT that I’ve never climbed a rope. She said let’s give it a try. No one else was at the gym so I said as long as no one shows up. I told you how I wasn’t successful at climbing the rope, PT thought it was because we had not worked those muscle groups much as letting things heal from surgery. We did this other thing with the rope and that worked out. I told you about how I started to play with the rings while PT went to get more equipment. I started out swinging and sliding my feet along the ground. On like the 3rd swing, PT came around the corner and saw me and laughed. I kept doing it while she laughed, getting more confident with each time until I picked my feet up and just swung. She said that we could make a pirate obstacle course for my workout and that is what we did. I explained the different exercises.

You said I played. I said that yeah. It was fun. I gave you the card that PT had given me. You asked me how I felt about getting it. I don’t remember exactly what I said here, sad…uncomfortable. Then I said, see I think she knows I won’t be back. You nodded. I took that as my intuition being accurate.

I’m a little unsure of the order here and how we transitioned to the next topic.

You said something about my pants and looking comfortable. I said I was, that I could go to sleep. I said they were PJ pants. I told you that I decided this morning that I want to wear this outfit and lay on my stomach and I didn’t care what you thought. I said that it was warm in the room (kind of unlike me to make that kind of comment). I told you about going through the clothing the night before to switch out winter and summer clothes. I said that I came across the shirt and thought I could wear it and feel like I was wearing daddy’s shirt since it was from when I was much heavier. Then I found the pants, that my mom bought me for Christmas the year I lost the weight before, long ago. I told you that I looked through all the things to bring to do/play with that would work with laying on the floor and thought about the puzzle. Then latter in the day I remembered my eyes and thought that you wouldn’t want to do the puzzle. You made a face contemplating it and started to say that it would be ok, that I probably wasn’t contagious and I said that I didn’t want you to get this. You said pink eye was very contagious, touch a surface. Yeah, don’t want you to get it. So next time with the puzzle. You wanted to know how big it was and I said about the same size as the other one. You made the comment about waiting for the glow in the dark part of the other puzzle. I said not much longer and it will be on a Thursday since my appointments are later on Thursdays.

I talked about an interact with a friend and how I started wondering if I share too much or the wrong stuff. You picked up on the too much terminology here as too much is a big repetitive thought for me. I clarified that maybe I shared too much for the type of relationship I have, too personal. I think I told you this, not sure though – I’m not sure why I suddenly started feeling like I was sharing too personal of information with this friend for the type of relationship we have. We’ve shared some secretes with each other. I think it was realizing some of the stuff that was shared, but also feeling like maybe I’ve let her more in than she’s let me in. I don’t know. It was a passing thought and it made me wonder about my difficulty in making friends and the rules.
I think there was something else here at the end or I’m out of order because I don’t think we ended with the walk talk. Our time was up. I sat up – I don’t remember if I put things away first or if we did end of session ritual first.
Me: I love you
You: I know
Me: I miss you
You: I know
Me: it’s different, not as painful

I went on to say that I am not sure I like that the answer was no [touch]. I said more here, I think I said that it wasn’t harmful, or that it was helpful/useful something along those lines. Then came the Thursday comment. I was time to go. I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t sad to go. I headed back to my work.