Mindmechanic, I'm so sorry this happened with your T, and the sense of hitting her limits. It would be very hard for me to continue with therapy in this situation so I admire you for doing the work here.

My T has very good pitch with outside contact. He will sometimes write a brief, heartfelt email if he is "holding" something from the session, is proud of me, or if he is wanting to say he was sorry about something.

He freely allows me emails for the same sort of ethos.

With my first T "M" , email was intense, with whole sessions contained inside them, and both of us writing novels.

I experience outside contact with my second T as tiny splashes of intense care. I tend to be avoidant, or even disorganized in attachment style, and my T is very immediate with me if I reach out. He says he is trying to teach me that he will do his damndest to meet my needs, though inevitably he will fail sometimes.

These little experiences of outside contact represent lots of growth for me.

I used to feel squeamish after writing long, deep email back and forth with my first T "M" . It was too intense, then I had a hard time facing him.

I agree with Elio that there's dynamic at play between wanting to write and write and write v not wanting the T to feel bombarded and decide the level of care required is unsustainable.

For me I regulate how much outside contact, bc I know even though it can feel good in the moment to get the connection, I will inevitably want to avoid the next session or be tongue-tied due to emotional pressure .

My T is far more gifted than my first one at be there, being real, showing up, and having a "be as you are" message.

However , if he suddenly did what mindmechanic's T decided, and said hey no more outside contact, I would probably feel he was less invested in our relationship than previously. I doubt our relationship would survive that, which is not to my credit.