Why are the boundaries so difficult for me?

Hi,
I just joined, so I thought I would jump right in. I've been in therapy with this therapist for about 7 years, maybe more. I lost track. I email him when I get upset about things during the week. I don't do this a lot, but the point is I'm not supposed to do it at all. If it is a true emergency, I'm supposed to call. Otherwise use other ways to cope, i.e., journal. Sometimes it just gets overwhelming and I feel so bad I just write to him. Usually he doesn't write back. Sometimes he does though. I'm afraid he is tired of this.

Hi Butterflying
Welcome to PC
I don't see anything wrong with emailing T when things get tough. My T has advised that i not use email as it has been a major source of miscommunication btw her and I. Though i undertsand this, i still email T when i need to.. but i don't expect her to write back. It's nice when she does though. Have you though about writing a no-send email? What about sending T and email to just say, 'Are you there"? Sometimes it's comforting to just know that T is there even when things are rough. I know that has been helpful for a lot of people.

Maybe because when you learn about boundries, it requires one to emulate to understand why the boundry has been made. Say you are a T, and lets say your caseload is say 40 people a week at 1 client per week. Now if you got emails from them when things got rough, and you read and responded to them, how much quality time would you have left to work with your caseload each week? I think journaling is a great way to cope. Or you could come here and get a whole bunch of feedback. Heck with this bunch of great people on here, why would you want to call your T?

I think how you feel about this is "normal". Some T's allow emails others don't. I can email and don't feel T is making me enforce her boundaries, I can feel her boundaries in how and when she replys, sometimes boundaries aren't always about taking something away, sometimes their best modelled by permitting something but maintaining them whilst permitting. If that makes sense. A person unsure of being able to maintain boundaries often times builds a barracade, perhaps its this your feeling?

((((Butterflying)))) Welcome! Since youve been in therapy for so long with this T he is probably aware of the issues you have and you both are probably pretty comfortable with each other. What if you were to tell T everything you just wrote? That you are afraid he is getting tired of this emailing and contact from you and that you are wondering if it is a boundary thing. He might be able to alleviate some of your fears about boundaries and bothering him.

Again...welcome!

Thanks for the replies! I think I will bring it up again and get it straight or straighter, haha (since we have had this type of conversation before). I do know he wants me to be more inner directed as far as what to do or to cope more by journaling or other self soothing "tricks". In the past he has looked at me funny with that look when I ask if it is bothering him. He usually says that the things that go on are not "new" and are ongoing and that we can talk about them at sessions and that we wont get them "solved" over email or even in a week....I think mostly I just want him when I'm feeling upset or overwhelmed or depressed.

I can relate to wanting to email T whenever I'm upset....my T does allow email and has not put a restriction on it. She just responds when/if she can or we talk about it next session.

I think my T knows that I am more worried about boundaries than she is, since my boundaries as a kid were so violated. So she doesn't put a lot of restrictions on me because she knows I'll restrict myself. Though I'd love to email with her daily, I tend to email about once a week at the most...and we meet face to face every two weeks.

I have asked her before if I'm bothering her and she always says no, not at all...I've learned to trust that she means it and will let me know if I ever get to be too burdonsome.

I hope you can get the same reassurance from your T as well.

welcome, butterflying.

I think it's ok to talk about these things with T over and over, no matter how many times you have had that conversation in the past, it's ok to have it again.

My t and i have had some problems with email. She has permitted them, but i have a very hard time sticking to the 1 email per week limit. Her workload has increased, and sometimes she doesn't have time to reply to me right away, occasionally not at all. This hurts because i've been so used to her always replying in the past. So it's something we work on.

Hi Butterflying,
The email boundaries with your T sound rather vague to me so I'm not surprised that it's hard for you. If you're not supposed to do it at all, but then your T responds once in awhile, he is giving you the message that it's not totally off-limits. Intermittent reinforcement is very powerful, so if your T really wants you to rely on internal coping methods he should set firm guidelines around email and stick to those limits by not responding at all.
I can send my T unlimited email to his office email address with the understanding that he may not have time to read everything and he rarely has time to respond unless I'm very clear about needing a response to a pressing issue. That works well for me because I'm not limited to a certain number per week, and he says he doesn't feel overwhelmed by them because we have an understanding that he may not be able to read all of them.
It's extremely important for a T to be very clear about those boundaries that are most problematic for a particular client/patient. While I can send unlimited email to his office address, I am not allowed to send any to his home email address. Last year I lost my email privileges for a month because I sent a couple of emails to his home address after being warned about that twice. Lesson learned, although I should have known better anyway because he's exceptionally consistent in following through -- he says what he means, and he means what he says. And I need that.
Personally, I think it's pretty natural to want your T when you feel upset or overwhelmed, and that's one of the reasons why my T allows unlimited email even though he rarely responds. He knows it helps me feel connected regardless of whether or not he responds, and because of my struggles with impulse control, being able to email him at work anytime reduces the frequency of other behaviors that he finds more difficult to tolerate, such as emailing him at home.
Maybe you and your T could come up with a more structured plan that will be helpful to you, rather than this vague set of guidelines that make it difficult for you to know if it really is or isn't ok.

I agree the intermittent responses are reinforcing. He did comment on that one time, realizing that if he didn't want me to write he shouldn't respond at all. I avoid bringing it up because I'm concerned he will say no emails whatsoever. Call if it is a real emergency or use my coping strategies for next time. Then I will most likely feel upset about this response. I realize he is busy. I know I need to cope on my own. I just slip a lot. I have to accept he can't be there for me the way I would like him to be.

I can understand your reluctance to bring it up but you're tormenting yourself over trying to comply with a "rule" that your T even breaks occasionally. I really don't see the problem as being entirely yours when your T doesn't always follow his own rule! On the other hand, it is possible that he will say that you can't send any email at all if you try to talk to him about it, so I guess you need to decide if that would really be worse than tormenting yourself over your difficulty with this boundary.
I think that you can still accept the reality that your T can't always be there for you while still being allowed the opportunity for some kind of connection between sessions with the understanding that he may respond rarely or not at all. It doesn't have to be so black or white. My T had never used email with a patient before I asked him about it, and now, 7 or 8 years after he decided we could try it, he uses it occasionally with other patients as well. I don't know why you are in therapy, but some people do need additional support between sessions. Email can be problematic but it also has much value in maintaining a connection for patients who struggle with the therapy relationship.

welcome, its really hard, i dont think there's any right answer, i have struggled many times between sessions & due to having a slight phobia with the phone, email is my only option, but it has lead to so many miss communications & ruptures, i try & fight it when i get the urge, or at least sleep on it rather than knee jerk, this is why my T really doesn't like it, we ended up agreeing i could email in a crisis but he would only read, not respond, & if need be he would bring it up in the next session.

Knowing i can do this does help loads, but i try not to, & try to respect that this is not my time, i think the idea of keeping a journal will help, & its something that you can take with you to share which might help, i think its important how you feel & cope between sessions, it can have an effect on the whole T, it has to be right for you.

Thanks for the interesting replies. We did talk about it last time--my T usually doesn't forget to bring up stuff like that. We will most likely have to talk about it again though so I can understand even more specifically. But what he said was that things I write about is therapy--things he wants to respond to face to face, and that when responding via email things can be misinterpreted or he can't see how I'm responding and I can misunderstand, etc. So he doesn't like to do that via email. Sometimes my email might require a more thorough answer though, like when I was out of town and something happened, it was appropriate since I was so far away and my resources were few. I also will sometimes tell him via email I don't want to go on or I want to end it. He said that saying this usually requires an answer or for him to check it out. He says I will say that rather refrequently--it's not that he doesn't believe me, but just that I have those feelings a lot. Soooo... I understand better about not wanting to get into "therapy" via email since there is so much chance of things going wrong. I totally get that. That helps me. He did say that he thought it helped me to write via email though, like journaling. So maybe we will talk about it some more and figure it out further. I don't leave anything hanging with him. I'm pretty direct and open because I know it is best for me.....thoughts?

Butterflying... My T allows me to do that with e-mail... to vent. Even though he does not usually respond. And he often misses half of what I say in e-mail because he does not read them all the way - but I know he is like that. He does his therapy work face to face -which is just fine. But sometimes things need to be said and I process better by sending email. I know that it is my job to bring up in session anything I need addressed from those e-mails. And sometimes he will bring up a point or two from the e-mails. So I do think honesty and open communication with T are the way to go with this. As long as the T is clear on what the boundries are (and the expectations) - and as long as the client knows and is not harmed by misunderstanding those boundries, then it can be a valuable tool for healing.