Hey there. I really am familiar with all those feelings and stuff. Thanks to therapy, tbh, I never felt all of this like this outside therapy stuff.

But then I tried to go into therapy because of actual issues and events that happened in my life. So it would be hard to say if therapy is to blame or the events are to blame or both : p (Bet it's both.)

Anyway. Yup I've felt that pressure too "but these people try and convince you that 'connection to others is important'" from "these people".

And I'm like. If it feels like being pressured into it, others trying to convince me that hard, I don't want it. It needs to be natural, not artificially sped up.

Tbh I don't want to be shut down either, so it's all a fine balance, of course. Dancing on that tightrope over the abyss, you know.

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So anyway, about the issue with these therapists.

Firstoff. I saw your posts wondering about anger, too.

If you have issues with a particular primary emotion for certain types of situations because maladaptive beliefs or secondary emotions or other people's instrumental emotions - if used manipulatively - obscured it, then yeah, it's a great step to get in touch with it, your anger in this case, but you do have to proceed very carefully at that point. Is my advice/answer to those posts of yours.

I mean. I don't know if that therapist is up to this work with your anger in the way you need it done. I've never seen one that was up to work with mine in the way it would've worked for me. If she is willing and able to, you should take that opportunity IMO.

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My own take on the current situation itself:

(IMPORTANT: Please, if anything feels like I'm accidentally invalidating your feelings, feel free to not read on or anything.)

As far as the Potential New Therapist, it likely is what you've said, miscommunication about when to get in touch again. It would be hard to expect most people, including a relatively new therapist, to keep your personal preferences in mind like that if they do not have a routine or schedule for dealing with that type of thing already. In this situation, doubtful she had one.

Why she didn't respond, IMO is simply that you did not - whether directly or indirectly - request that there be a response. At least, in your OP here, I don't see anything about you having asked her to respond or having asked some question that clearly requires a response and so on.

I know you did ask a question about whether she knows about anyone else to recommend. But some people just don't respond if their response would be no more than "I don't know anyone, and yes, thanks for letting me know". It would be just too much extra writing of emails/messages with short polite niceties. It's harder to communicate things like that online than IRL, for sure.

As for J, my personal feeling is that she was trying to help you a bit as far as it seemed appropriate to her for the situation since she's not doing therapy with you right now; and then when you put in a direct request about what emotional attitudes you want from her, she didn't really know what to say. People often won't know what to say in such a situation. And it's even harder to do all this kind of communication online without seeing each other face to face.

And I don't know if you two discussed what her being a therapy guardian means in practice, how it would be implemented in practice.

Or what she exactly means by caring deeply about you. Because, it's one thing to feel that, and try to do what one can do, and another thing to feel it AND not be able to do more than that. Even if one may want to, and something else suddenly comes up and then it's not possible to do more. Life can be pretty hectic.

She could of course have f***cked up and promised too much on the spur of the moment just to make you feel happy without thinking about it.

Miscommunication overall can be a very big issue at that point. When it comes to these deep needs and communication of them, on both ends, even if it's with an experienced therapist.

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Why I think all the above:

Her short email to your original short email was reasonable, polite, appropriate, though not showing deep involved emotionality.

She may have thought that you were going to talk with your current temporary therapist more in detail about these feelings. With her knowing of the temporary therapist, it may have seemed like to her that you were a bit impulsively venting a little and that you probably got over it by the time she was responding to your email. I doubt she was trying to look too deep just going by your first shorter email. This is hard to do online anyway, very hard to mind read in emails, as they can come off so impersonal even from people you know IRL.

All that before she got the second email from you requesting her understanding and compassion.

I'm no therapist but I frankly wouldn't be sure myself what to say to an email like that myself. I would feel like I have no idea what to say without hurting the other person. I would feel like I am lacking too much context to really say more. I would feel like I have no idea how much time I'm expected to put in to respond to this email. It would all be very vague and I would feel very unsure as to how to proceed. Especially online. IRL it's again easier.

A lot of people at that point may just give up trying to think about it all as they have to deal with other issues and responsibilities in their lives. Unless it's their direct responsibility to spend time on it, which she did not have as she's not your current therapist.

This is just my take, you would have to ask her if you really wanted to know for sure, not possible to mind read in an exact way.

Only you can know what feels right though from all the suggestions you're receiving here, including mine. What feels like it truly makes sense and so on. Hope it helped some, either way.