Some of these events might be out of order. It was an intense session and I've been running on fumes since the beginning of the school year.

I was running a couple of minutes late. When I came into the waiting room where I saw T sitting in the Tuesday room. "I'm glad I'm not the one running late today. I'm glad you're here. I was worried."

I came into the office and closed the door behind me. "i guess we have a lot to discuss today, don't we?" he said. I breathed a sigh of relief that he'd read the email.

"I imagine that we do."
"So why don't you tell me what led you to sending it?"
I rolled my eyes. "I told you why I sent the email in the email."
"Well, I know what I thought of the email, but I'd rather hear it from you so that I don't misinterpret it."

I told him that I was upset with him at the end of my previous session. I didn't write about it, but basically we were doing EMDR processing around my CSA. I was hesitant to do it, and told him so. He said that he would leave enough time at the end of session, and I was mad. After I left, I only continued to escalate. So I looked at the email as a form of catharsis. I didn't want to have that anger continue to fester. And I needed him to know that he was wrong.

"I'm sorry, Daisy. I didn't mean to hurt you." I laughed. "Why is that funny?"
"My feelings weren't hurt. I'm here for a service, and you didn't uphold your end of the bargain."

He said that he agreed, and that this seemed like a good opportunity to clear up some things between us. He said that he wanted to focus on communication and trust.

I told him that trust played into part of the reason I came. I remembered our session after VDay and how he'd hoped that if I ever wanted to leave, that it'd be beneficial to meet to try to repair trust.

He said that was true, but also felt like more pressing is that our communication was misattuned. That I wasn't conveying my needs to him and he wasn't conveying his decisions on therapeutic approaches effectively.

I said I felt like I conveyed what I needed to the best of my ability. That if I was able to hold good boundaries about what I needed or didn't need, he might be out of a job. I'm pushing myself too hard, and that I just want to be well. So I guess I trust that he'll keep me safe while I do my work.

He said that his biggest concern was expressing myself at the end of session. How he hasn't seen any change in the flattening of my affect as I leave. I still "turn off," and that it makes it difficult for him to assess whether or not I'm actually okay at the end of a session. "So it's important then that you feel safe enough and trusting enough to tell me if you're okay."



"But instead you asked if there was anything that I needed from you. I said no, because what are you supposed to do for me 5 minutes before the session ends?"

He paused for a moment, reflective. "Did I make you feel like you were being attacked? I didn't intend that. I'm sorry." I didn't respond.

He wanted to talk about effective communication. I wasn't interested; I knew that my email was passive aggressive, and he agreed. I also knew I wasn't communicating well in the moment.

"The other thing I wanted to say was that I put a lot of time and thought into our session today." That made me feel guilty, and I told him so.

He said that I shouldn't feel guilty. "If you think that I don't plan and think about all of my clients before a session, then you're mistaken."
"Well I don't know, I figured that sometimes you wing it."
"There's certainly an element of that, because you don't know what a client will bring with them, but I typically like to take a few minutes to think of my clients. I don't take notes for fun, you know."

I kind of shrugged my shoulders. I've felt conflicted about this part of the session since. I obviously wanted to affect him, and felt badly that I did at the same time.

He continued on for a while after this on a ramble. I don't remember most of it except the end. "I felt like it was important to put thought into this because this isn't a time for me to be defensive, but to focus on your needs."

Adult me appreciates this in retrospect, but in the moment my brain wanted to worry about him. Did he feel the need to be defensive? Was I that heinous in my email? Did I hurt him. I told him in less eloquent words I was struggling with this, and tried to put it past me.

He came back to how we should take a break from trauma work for a bit, because he hurt me, which is going to hurt my trust in him.

"I said I wasn't hurt. I was angry."
"Okay. How are you feeling about the construct that is therapy, then?"

I told him I was annoyed. That it's a false construct. That he can say he cares, but it's not like he'd care if I didn't pay him or punched him in the face or something.

He said that this was a choice for both parties. How I could make the choice to not come today, but he also always had the choice to terminate.

"Oh God, I'd not handle that well at all. I'd probably never go back to therapy after that. It was hard enough the first two times that happened."
"So, trust? Hurt?"

It was in that moment I realized he was right. I was hurt because he put himself in the box of the Other Therapists Who Hurt Me. And it was in the last 10 minutes of session. I started to cry and laugh at the same time.

He asked if I was safe to leave. "I'm not okay, but I will be."
"Daisy..."
"No. I don't feel safe in this moment."

Session maybe was 7 minutes over. I brought up Pillow Talking again. He still hasn't watched it. We also talked about something funny that happened at work, which turned into a conversation about interracial marriage.

Eventually he recommended that I call H as an "accountabilibuddy," to which the ironic humor was not lost on me. I called H and left.

I'm doing okay now. I was feeling like the hurt would never end, but like T said, it's physically impossible to feel one thing forever.