it is hard. i'm off... i was hoping to go on the 20th but looks like my visa will require me to wait until the 1st of August. So we only have... a few weeks. and he is off this week for the school holidays. so... near the end of our time together. not sure what will happen if / when i come back. i know that i'm leaving. he isn't leaving me. i'm leaving him. but it doesn't really feel any different. thats why i have had the urge to withdraw / not go back. because... things are ending anyway.

i don't really understand the object relations stuff very well. i get it a bit... but not a great deal. i was trying to read up on projective identification a bit. to try and help me understand what my t was saying... but i'm not really sure i get it...

i guess i do have this stuff that i try and avoid. the stuff that gets me in a MDE sometimes... its a kind of hopelessness... needs don't get met. life is painful. etc etc. i read some stuff about grieving... and stuff... but i'm not sure i really understand. i get that things aren't like this for everyone... but i'm not sure what i'm supposed to do to lessen the pain.

i've realized that i don't really go numb. i just... hurt. and the hurt is a dragging numbness. but it is hurt really. feels really painful. and it is a feeling i try and regulate / lessen. and i'm not sure that it is dissociation or that i'm dissociating from it exactly. i don't know.

but i do think... that maybe i have been trying to induce that feeling in him somewhat.

maybe... to see if he can handle it. if he can cope with it... then maybe there is hope for me too. maybe he can show me how to make it better. i don't know... i read something about the 'depressive position' being a partial resolution insofar as it constitutes progress from the schizoid position (one where there is splitting). but i dunno. i don't see this as progress, i guess. falling apart inside doesn't really feel like progress to me.