I know I haven't been great at updating this thread vs. the couch. I typed up a bunch of notes from Tuesday's session to discuss with consulting T today, so can post some of those here. It's really just, we keep having conflict and I'm just tired of dealing with it. He also just seems more...harsh to me lately. Plus I find myself lashing out at him, and I'm not normally like that. It's like we're triggering something in each other. And it's not helping the therapy. And he keeps taking things personally rather than seeming willing to explore bigger issues that might be going on, like transference/countertransference stuff. I said Tuesday how I suspected many of our conflicts lately had to do with his being away a bunch this summer. He said, "Oh, I'm sure they are." And I was like, "So why don't we explore that more, what's going on there?" I don't think he had an answer.

The biggest thing I'm struggling to get over is his saying he felt "trapped" into responding multiple times when I emailed him a couple weeks ago . That it was being selfish, but he was thinking of liability. And in one of those emails he called me manipulative (not due to what I was feeling, but because I mentioned maybe needing a different T). And he was like, "Leave, or don't leave." Also the lines, "Give you hope? Make you stop hating yourself? How are those things my responsibility?" Which I know is true...but much of it is in how he said it. Really, the "manipulative" thing is particularly affecting me. He wrote all these things knowing how I was feeling. If he didn't want to deal with it at the time, he could have said, "I can't reply right now, but here's the number for a crisis line. I could reply more tomorrow." Instead, it's like he lashed out.

Apparently, he was also going to tell me in the email that he was frustrated with me, but said he decided against it. He later agreed with me when I said maybe he could have saved the "manipulative" thing for session when I was in a more stable frame of mind. He did seem to agree with that. But he still keeps hiding behind "I'm just being honest about how I feel" and "I want you to know what's going on in my head because otherwise you'll wonder."

Sorry, will stop ranting. I guess I just feel done. I think you're one of my T's fans. And I like him for many things. He just seems different to me lately, and I feel we've hit a bit of a wall. So I think a break, whether temporary or permanent, might be best. I am consulting today with another T specifically about him (I met with her once before--she's not his backup T and doesn't know him personally). The T I'm meeting with next week would be more to consider seeing going forward, rather than to talk about this T so much.