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Originally Posted by LonesomeTonight
Hugs, NP. It's not ridiculous to feel that. Breaks are difficult, and so are discussions on love in therapy. I can certainly identify with that right now...
Do you think it's partly that you wished he'd say it back? I mean, beyond just "there's love there."
I'm asking in part because I'm wondering if that's part of what's going on for me right now. Like I knew cognitively that my T wouldn't be like "I love you, too" or even to acknowledge that there's some level of love on his end when I talked about it. Or even be like, "I won't use the word love, but do know that I care." But I think this other part of me maybe thought there was some tiny chance, and I'm struggling to accept the reality now. But I also don't feel like I can talk about it with him, at least not for a bit, because he suggested that he wanted time to process it and figure out how to feel about it. Even though I already told him once, 4 years ago, that he apparently forgot about--like he literally said that he didn't remember that I'd told him (and hm, I wonder if part of this for me is that he'd forgotten?)
But anyway, wonder if this could be part of what's going on for you, too? (Sorry if I derailed!)
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I didn't say "I love you" to him in the first place so it's not that he won't say it back. I let him read the post I made in the Stutz thread.
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I watched it. I thought that the ability and willingness to express their love for each other was really nice. I felt a little jealous actually. I love my therapist and although I've said it in other ways, I don't think I could say "I love you" to him and I don't know that he would say it that way to me either and that kind of hurts.
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Then I felt ashamed for what I was feeling and hid behind my hands for the rest of the session. He did some talking during that time reiterating things he's said before but I'm not sure exactly what was said during that time. There was some "nothing to be ashamed of" and "you deserve to feel loved here" and some talk about how he thinks about love in therapy. The next day I sent an email asking if we could just forget I brought this up and that I really wasn't asking for him to say anything to me. I guess I was worried he thought I was fishing for him to say he loves me. He sent back a very lovely and thoughtful email in which no "I love you too"s were said, but it was made very clear that he does feel love for me. I don't feel comfortable with posting publicly a direct quote because they are not my words to share, but if you want to read some of it, I can share privately.
I felt something very neutral after this. I don't know why it felt so neutral. I felt a bit more secure I guess knowing more concretely that the love I feel for him is reciprocated. But I was also still feeling ashamed and I didn't want to talk about it further. At our next session, stuff about my weight and eating came up and it was like, boom, I'm right back to feeling unlovable. He knew I was feeling ashamed and I said some really vulnerable things at the end of the session. Then he left on this trip and we haven't had any contact. I guess I was hoping he would check in with me knowing where we left things. Guess that was a bad hope to have. I don't know, I'm just feeling like what's the point of all this feeling love business when it's trapped in a little bubble. Sometimes the little bubble is nice, sometimes it feels constricting.
I'm not sure how you deal with your therapist as well as you do. You seem very brave telling him the things you do knowing that he's so closed off. I don't think I could handle that situation at all. Sorry if this is a rambling mess.