T yesterday. Here's Part 1--amusing beginning, then followup to Monday's emergency session to deal with fallout of my rupture with MC during a Sunday phone call):

Very cold outside, so had my winter hat with a big faux fur pompom on it in sticking out of my purse. As we were walking back, T asked, "Do you have an animal in there?" I laughed and said just my hat...but that I used to have guinea pigs and I could have fit one of those in there. He said, "That could be one of them, you don't know." "Oh no, this is faux fur! Vegetarian here! Plus, I admit the ashes of my last two guinea pigs are in boxes in my closet." "Wow, you really do get attached to things..." Me: Well, one of them we had for like 7 years...

I said I had something to give him but felt awkward about it. Was typed note saying how I was just needing support right now about MC thing, how last session (Monday, which I didn't post here), he'd talked a lot about how things may have felt from MC's perspective, but that wasn't what I needed right then. So for right now, could he focus on supporting me?

When he finished reading note, I said I felt awkward because it probably seemed like I was trying to dictate the session. He said, "Well, you kind of are, but that's OK." He said he was sorry if he missed the mark last session. But that his perspective then--and really at all times, not just with me, but with all his clients--is to focus on what the client can control, not what they can't. Which is maybe more like 50%. And that's what he'd been trying to do. I said I understood that and generally appreciate that perspective of his, but it wasn't what I needed Monday, when I was feeling really raw about MC stuff.

I said it felt like he was more considering how he would have felt if he'd received an e-mail (the love one, plus the follow-up stuff) like I'd sent MC. He said he kind of was...and was trying to get me to think of how MC might have reacted to that, both as a therapist and as a person. I said I had kind of been in a bit of a self-blame spiral, and his talking about that--he'd kept asking me how I would expect MC to react to receiving e-mail--it had made me feel like I was entirely to blame. Like, of course MC would have reacted the way he did.

T said he was sorry, that he hadn't intended to suggest he put all the blame on me. But he said he hadn't gotten the sense on Monday that I was blaming myself so much as blaming MC. I said maybe I had hidden it well, but the feelings were there, the feeling like it was all my fault...He seemed empathic and that he felt bad about if he'd contributed to that. He asked what exactly I'd wanted to talk about related to MC. I'll go into that in next post (I realize much of this is probably confusing without knowing details from phone call or Monday's emergency session with T or regular session with MC--maybe I'll type those up at some point, or at least a brief overview...)

To be continued in another post...