I sure have appreciated all the support and good words from everybody here! It gives me warm fuzzies.

Well. . .I had my session Wednesday, and my t brought us both a cup of tea into her office, along with some thin, windmill shaped cookies. For some reason, I'm thinking they are made in Holland. Anyway, we didn't really talk about the session being a celebration. But it felt nice. Since I missed my session last week, due to my painful neck/shoulder incident, I thought my t would have forgotten that I asked if we could "do it over." But she did not forget.

Since I'd only seen her 1 time in February because of her trip to Argentina and my illness, the session was pretty much a "catching up" session. We talked about how my husband got denied disability for the 2nd time. He got denied 3 weeks after the hearing. I thought he'd get it this time, but NOPE. It feels very unfair, and I am trying not to think about it because it makes me feel and . We've called a few lawyers to see if they would pick up our case, but once they heard it had already reached the hearing stage and was denied, they didn't want anything to do with it. I'm not sure what we're going to do. My h will have to continue some kind of work or we will not be able to pay the bills. My income doesn't quite cover all our expenses.

The session went well, and my t is so gentle with me. But I feel so bad that I have such trouble with her trips, that I disconnect emotionally because of it, and that it is then hard to feel reconnected. I told her it feels like I can't win because if I (1) shut off my feelings about her absence and all the past abandonment issues that it triggers from my past, then I go numb and disconnect from her. But if I (2) allow myself to miss her and feel all the abandonment pain tied up with my past issues that it raises up, I spiral down, feeling separation pain, followed by anger, depression, and then I disconnect from her too. So either way, I disconnect when she takes a long trip. I told her I don't know what to do to fix that. She said she didn't know either. That kind of scared me because, well, aren't they supposed to know how to fix everything? (Just kidding)

Since I have such trouble accessing my emotions (internal pain) about my issues, I write alot about it by means of emails, poems, and such. Yesterday, I created a "picture story" from some pictures I found on a royalty free photo Web site. It shows how I feel about what happened to me as a child, and how that affects my feelings about myself and my inability to connect with others. I want so badly to share it here but do not know how to. It is a Word file with pictures imbedded (jpegs I think). Is there any way to do that? I have the Word file on my C: drive and not on any Web site, so I can't link to it. Is there any other way???

Yesterday, I had my yearly appt with my pdoc. It's always a short visit, 20 minutes or so, so he knows justs the very basic gist of my issues. We mostly discussed my meds and he wrote me updated prescriptions. Then he asked me if I had any questions or concerns I'd like to talk about. I'm posting part of my followup email to my t, so I don't have to retype it.

One thing I told Dr. W that bothers me is that I sense that I have loads of emotional pain, but it feels buried deep inside me, where I cannot access it. I have trouble finding them or feeling them. Most of the time, I am living in my head and don't feel any emotional pain. At those times, if I did not know better, I would say that I do not have any mental or emotional issues at all, or any pain in me. But on the rare occasions where I truly access my deep pain, it feels powerful and terrifying. Instead of being able to feel it and get through it to the other side, I become scared and overwhelmed, or just shut down and feel numb.

I told him I feel bad when I do this because I go forward for a little while, but then two steps back. Dr. Wamboldt told me that therapy is a long, hard process. He said healing is not a straight line up. He drew me a zigzag picture of up and down lines, where each up is just a little bit higher, and he said that is how healing works.

I also talked to Dr. Wt about dissociation. I told him how I get spacy and forgetful under stress. I told him that sometimes I think that I am feeling completely fine emotionally, but then all of a sudden, I realize I am NOT fine. Or how I am not always in touch with my body (like yesterday, Dave pointed out several bruises on my thighs that I did not know I had and have no idea how I even got.) I also said it feels like there are parts of me that I don't know well or can't get to, and that I am afraid to know about. I told him that I understood that dissociation exists on a continuum, but I asked him when is it actually considered pathological? He said whenever it interferes with my normal life.

Then Dr. W asked me, "What has R (my t) told you about the dissociation?" I said we had discussed it and decided I was somewhere about halfway between a normal person and someone with DID. I told Dr. W that my t had also encouraged me to learn as much asbout these different parts of myself, as it will lead toward healing. Dr. W asked me if I agreed with this? I told him "Yes, I agree, but it scares me." He asked me what was scary about it? I told him: "I'm afraid I have been guarded so long, and have pushed away so much of myself, that I am afraid to find out what is there. Then he gave me a long, hard look and said, "Fair enough. Fair enough. You're right. IT IS scary."

I told Dr. W I feel bad sometimes that I take so long to move forward (I've been in t for 10 years). He told me that therapy is long, hard work. He said I am struggling with many of the same things I was a year ago when he saw me. But he is happy that I keep going and have not given up. He said he believes my therapy with my t is working because every year when he sees me, I look just a little bit brigher, a little healthier. He said I need to come back to see him in a year, and that I can always come in sooner if I need to talk to him about something. But he said that I am in good hands with my t.

I apologize if this email is rather long and boring. I like to hear details about other people's therapy sessions, but I know it aggravates some people.

I also want to apologize for the times when I've started a thread and it got so long that I gave up in replying back to everyone who replied to me. I appreciate it so much when people reply, each and every person who reaches out to do that. But sometimes when the threads get long, I start to worry that it will feel like "old news" to people if I keep it going on and on until I've replied to everybody. Especially when other people have brought up more recent, serious threads. What's the right way to handle this? I don't want anybody to feel like I don't appreciate their posts. I DO!

Because it is so very hard for me to connect with people in my real life, I appreciate this community as a way that I can be connect from what feels like a "safe distance." I am so glad to be a part of this community.