I know this is a dumb little thing, but I’m having some trouble not fixating on the clock, and I’m wondering if anyone else struggles with this. From where I sit on the couch, I can see 2 clocks. One day, I noticed that they were off by about one minute and I sort of panicked because I was thinking to myself that I didn’t want to stay too long, but I also don’t want to leave too early and I didn’t know which clock was right. There is a third clock behind my head that T can see and I started to worry about what time that clock said.

Anyway, I mentioned to my T that it sort of stressed me out. I feel like I need to be the one watching the clock. I’m independent and not used to relying on others for things, so maybe that’s part of it. When our time is up sometimes I mention it to T or sometimes I wait for him to say something, but I’m always very aware that time is up. He is very subtle about it though and never says “time’s up” or anything like that and I do worry about feeling hurt if he says that to me. He said that he will be in charge of the time, but I don’t know if I want that. I don’t want to feel like the ending is abrupt and I don’t know that I want to hear him tell me it’s time to go. I guess I’d rather be the one to make that decision. I think I’d just rather be in control of that. But since he is so subtle about how he ends our sessions, I’m worried I might miss his cues if I’m in the middle of talking about something. Today he said he almost covered the clocks, but I’m glad he didn’t. As we were ending I said “I think it’s time,” and he said, “We still have 26 seconds.” So I guess he was sort of in charge, but not really.

Does anyone know what this is all about? Do you have any clock “issues”?