I'm sorry about the length but things between R and me haven't been going well since I gave him a birthday gift which he didn't acknowledge and I wanted to explain as fully as I could.

I used to do twice a week therapy but dropped down to one session a week two weeks ago. After I skipped the first tuesdays session, he emailed me asking to discuss things. I sent him the following email.

"Me asking you how you were last week and not getting a reply back hurt. It illustrated the notion that my relationship with you was artificial. It felt unreal. Like it was just one sided, like so many of my other previous relationships. That you're just like them. With all the delusion in my head, I'd imagined that I was your favourite and special. That I meant something. It was also never about being thanked, but you didn't acknowledge the present I gave you- like it was nothing. I choose the book because I have a real thing about books, yet I don't have a single memory of my father ever reading to me. I thought you could read it to your baby. "

Cut to yesterdays session:

He started with hello. I asked him how he was. He choose not to reply again.
He said that I seemed different, that he could barely hear me.

I told him that maybe he wasn't listening properly.
"What would you like me to hear?" Nothing. I told him that I could have left him cold turkey, but I knew the younger part of me would cry about it for a year.

I questioned the happy memories- when I talked about my mother beating my brother and I. My father calling me a ***** and not being able to love me . My grandfather violating my sense of safety. That if he couldn't figure out what was wrong with me- then maybe he wasn't a good therapist after all.