MC today. We usually see him at 2:15, but a scheduling issue came up, and he called Friday to ask if we could change the time. So we saw him at 9:30 a.m.--not sure any of us were completely awake yet.

MC had also called me last Wed. night in response to an e-mail I'd sent saying I was bothered that he still seemed to act like I was the one who needed to change my thoughts/actions/reactions to H, that maybe stuff H was doing was contributing to my issues instead of it just being me. On the call, he'd said he wasn't trying to put the blame on me. That he wanted me to learn to deal with anxiety and stuff on my own instead of being dependent on H to do that for me. I tried to explain more, and he said he could suggest some stuff for H to do that might help. At the end of the call, he asked, "Are we OK?" The way he said it, it felt like he was almost looking for reassurance from me about the relationship. So it was a little weird. (Yeah, I know, countertransference...)

Today, MC actually got us pretty close to on time, unlike the last 2 weeks (30 and 15 minutes late, respectively--had he been late to get us today, I would have brought it up). Sat down, small talk, recapped what happened in past week. H was like, "It wasn't a particularly stressful weekend" (or something like that), and I was like, "Well, it kind of was for me on Saturday, since we had the memorial/wake thing for my uncle." I talked briefly about that and MC just looked really sad (his wife passed away almost a year ago). He said, "Those sorts of events are difficult, no matter who it is." I agreed.

I mentioned how H and I had talked the other night (my brain was having trouble recalling everything--I'm so not a morning person!), after my session with T. MC asked how that conversation went, and we both said pretty good. (I'd originally wanted to bring up the transference stuff from that session, since T had suggested I talk to MC about it. But it just felt like the wrong time to bring it up, for whatever reason.)

Then I brought up my reaction the night after last MC session. How I'd been fine right after session, but then when H got home, I got all panicky and was over-apologizing (something that had come up in session), then just felt kind of stuck. MC asked H what that was all like from his perspective. He said how it seemed to spiral for me, like I'd said something, then apologized for it, then got more anxious.

H talked about how when he first comes into the house from work, with D, he's carrying all this stuff and wants to put it down, then D usually stops right in front of the door to strip off her clothes. And then I'm apologizing from the kitchen before he even really gets in the door.

MC (clearly having paid attention to my e-mail/the phone call) asked if there was something H could say in response to my apologizing that would make me feel better. I said, "Even if he just said, 'It's OK,' or 'Don't worry about it,' that would help. H said he has said those things, but didn't seem to help. I said I didn't necessarily remember them. Though maybe he needs to say more than that, like, "It's OK dinner isn't ready yet/you haven't done the dishes. Finish what you're doing, I've got D until you're done." H and MC thought that sounded OK.

I said I worried though that if I was telling H what to say...would he just be saying it because I asked him to? And MC said that actually, him saying it just because I asked him to, because it would make me feel better, would be a way of showing he cared. I said I hadn't really thought about it like that, but it made sense.

MC said he wondered if some of what I was experiencing was time pressure, because I'd talked about when H would come home and worrying about things getting done. I said that was definitely a big part of it, how I was often looking at the clock like, "OK, they'll be home in 3 hours...now 2 hours, only an hour left!" And I'd have this stuff in my head that I'd intended to get down that day--I work from home, so work stuff, but then also other stuff. I mentioned how the previous week, I'd been trying to finish PhD application, but I stressed over what exactly to say, like finding the perfect word/phrase to use in my personal statement, how that could determine whether I got accepted or not.

Then I brought up stuff from a previous T session, where I started thinking again that maybe I have ADHD. I said how T's description of his wife, who he said has ADHD, going through a pile of papers was exactly like how I am doing that. So could it partly be that? Because I'll have this intention to get lots of stuff done, but just...don't manage to do it. And I try making lists, but that doesn't work either.

MC mentioned how "a few paragraphs ago," I'd used the term "perfect word"--so he wondered if it was maybe not so much ADHD but either OCD-ish stuff (I do have OCD) or perfectionism? How maybe I felt I had to do everything perfectly, so it would take me longer? I said that did make some sense...

MC said there was something else that he should have followed through with a bit more, which was his fault. But he noticed how I often talked really fast, which can indicate anxiety. And it's not just that it shows anxiety, but could lead to me feeling more anxious. And also make H feel more anxious. H said sometimes I'll say a whole paragraph before he even processed I was saying something.

So one suggestion MC had for us was to slow each other down. He said he knows it can be annoying to us/other clients when he starts talking more slowly in session, or asks clients to speak more slowly, but it really can affect the mood. I said the one recent session where he kept suggesting I talk more slowly actually did seem helpful. So he said maybe H could help encourage me to slow down, and vice versa.

I said also with H, that sometimes it seemed like he was running around frantically doing things, like cleaning, etc. And that made me feel like he was anxious. He said he wasn't anxious/stressed, just in a groove. I said maybe it was like for me, I was sensing anxiety from him, so that was making me anxious. And I said the same was probably happening with him if I talked fast, how he'd think I was stressed/anxious, which could raise his anxiety, when sometimes it's just that I talk fast because my mind moves fast. So we agreed to try to do the slowing down thing.

MC asked if there was something else H could be saying to make me feel more secure, beyond just "It's OK." Then MC sneezed. I said, "Probably not that!" and we all laughed. I said if he was more like, "It's OK, I've got D, you go ahead and finish making dinner" or something like that. H seemed open to doing that.

We were at close to an hour at that point, so scheduled for next Monday (back to usual time!) Shook hands, "It was good to see you," headed out.

Did send him a brief e-mail saying I'd wanted to talk about transference stuff, but it hadn't felt like the right time today, asking him a couple questions about what the end of transference is supposed to feel like and how I could tell if it's resolved vs. just shifting it to someone else (like T). MC wrote back an hour later, saying they were good questions without easy answers, so let's discuss on Monday. I said that worked.