OK, I was initially putting this part into my writeup of Monday's session, but realized it's kind of confusing in there. So will do a separate post. Most of this past Thursday's session was spent on breathing and meditation techniques, but I'm not going to ramble on about that here. Just something else from the start of the session.
I'd been talking about how awful I'd felt the previous Thursday night (4/4), the anniversary of termination with ex-MC. And I said part of me had wished I could have talked to T briefly. But that anytime I brought up the possibility of a brief, unscheduled phone call with him, he'd given me a different answer, so I had no idea if it was OK or not. Like one time, he'd said he never does unscheduled phone calls with clients. Another time, he had said that, assuming he was available, of course he'd be willing to talk for a few minutes. A third time, he said the only reason he'd talk to someone like that would be for crisis assessment, to help determine if they needed to go to the ER. I told him that, and he agreed that it was confusing. That he doesn't have a set policy on that (great, thanks! though at least he admitted it), how it partly depends on what's going on for him at the time.
T: "When I was younger, I was more willing to talk to a client on the phone if they were just feeling abandoned or upset. But now I feel differently. I'm sorry about that." Me: "I understand, you probably now realize it's a boundary you have to set for yourself." T: "Yes, thanks for understanding." He said in the case of a crisis, it's still OK, but not just for the sake of making a client feel better. And also his phone is generally always turned off between 10 pm and 6:30 am. I said it was helpful to know the actual hours (I knew he said before that it was generally off/on silent when he's sleeping, unlike ex-MC, who answered when I called really upset at 2 am once and talked to me for a few minutes).
Back to the calling in the case of a crisis thing. Me: "But we never really officially defined what a crisis is, did we?" T: "Not really." Me: "And what if I feel I'm in crisis, but then I'd worry you're sitting there thinking, 'why is she calling me right now? This isn't a crisis!'" I think T said he wouldn't think that? I forget. Throwing all this under a trigger warning:
Possible trigger:
T's response suggested that it would be if I thought I couldn't keep myself safe. I said I assumed he meant in terms of trying to end things rather than SH. Me: "Because I know you've said my SH isn't dangerous." T: "It isn't." I said how once ex-T had been really upset that I called her after I SHed, how she seemed to think I should have called her first. Her general reaction to it made me feel I couldn't talk to her about it. T said that was unfortunate. (Note: I had ended up SHing that Thursday night, with the anniversary, and T had talked to me about it more than usual the Monday after, seemed to be more concerned, where usually he'd just say "I'm sorry" and let it drop.)
Back to the phone call thing. I asked if he thought a client needed to be actively suicidal to call, not just having strong urges. He implied yes. I said wouldn't that mean they should just go to the ER? And how I also worried I'd call him and he'd just say to do that or "You need to call a crisis line" and I'd feel more dismissed. He said if he was able to talk, he likely wouldn't say, "Just call a crisis line," it would be more if he couldn't talk." I said what if I was pretty sure I could keep myself safe but wasn't sure--would it be OK to reach out to him in that case? He seemed unsure but said I could always email. Me: "OK, what if I was more 50-50 on whether I'd be able to keep myself safe?" T: "In that case, it would be OK. Or if you thought talking to me for a few minutes might calm you down enough so that you'd know you could stay safe." Me: "Yes, that's more what I was thinking, if just talking to you for a couple minutes could help, like after I'd tried other stuff." He said that would be OK.
I asked how to approach that...do I text and just request a call? Because he normally doesn't want any other info in a text other than scheduling. Me: "Or should I include the word 'crisis' or something?" T: "Definitely say it's a crisis." Me: "OK, thanks. I mean, I hope I don't ever have to do that, but...I'd rather know what to do and not worry that you'd be upset with me for handling it wrong. I mean, I guess you wouldn't be angry, but..." T: "No, I wouldn't be." Me: "And I'd understand if you wouldn't be available to talk." T: "Well, it's part of my job to be available at times like that." Me: "But you might be doing something that I'm interrupting." T: "Any time you contact me, you'd be interrupting *something*." Me: "Good point, even if you're just watching TV."
So we basically sort of came up with the parameters for when I could contact him. But I think I'd still worry he'd think I wasn't feeling bad enough to justify contacting him. And it's also sort of bothering me that he chose to mention that in the past, he was willing to talk on the phone in non-crisis circumstances. Like, why even tell me that? I may need to talk about some of this stuff more today, not sure...