I just had my session with T. It was excruciating. I won't give you all the details, but I will tell you that this past Sunday, we had to ask friends over to help us move some furniture. Our house is dirty and cluttered, and I have felt too much shame to ask others for help. But my wife was crying and finally I gave in, and overcame the embarassment/shame. We called for help and they came, and they still love us.

Then, on Monday evening, we had to put my favorite cat, Lucy, down. It was time. She was 17 and sick. I had been crying all day. I held her as she was put down and I cried some more. Since then I have been crying on and off and I also cried for about 25% of my session as I am finally accepting (emotionally) that my mother never loved me the way I deserved to be loved. I had known this intellectually for years, but somehow Little Cool was holding out hope that The Good Mother was going to appear and take care of me and love me. T can't do it, and neither can my wife. T said that in the end, we all have to learn to be our own mothers. That made me cry some more. After all, I had a lousy role model.

I managed to continue the session without constant crying and T suggested I look up Clutterers Anonymous and read some of their literature and try to find a nearby group to attend. T also said I should try to look forward to the good things that could happen when the house gets/is clean, rather than holding onto the shame my mother blanketed me with, by not loving me, and by traumatizing me in various ways (which I also won't talk about in PC, at least, not yet...too much shame there. Even my T and my wife barely know all the details of that mess.).

T said to try doing 1 little thing every day, and little by little things will get better. I will lose the shame and I will stop listening to my mother's awful voice in my head. By the way, my mother has been dead since 2003, and T doesn't think I've properly or completely grieved for the mother I never had, but desperatley needed. So I expect more crying and writing about this grief for some time yet to come.

I asked T if we would ever meet in person again and she still doesn't know, but said that maybe, before the snow flies, we could meet somewhere and take a walk together. I like that idea, but I told her I don't know when I would actually feel like doing it.

I am going to take an Ativan and try to calm down, but in the meantime, I would appreciate it if you could send words of support to me. I feel like at any moment I will start crying again and never stop.

Thanks in advance,
Cool (who is still a librarian, even though she retired from her previous toxic work environment)