Not taking a break from T after all

At my session last week, I had been thinking I would tell T I wanted to take a 7 week break. We see each other every two weeks so it would only be skipping a couple of sessions. I have been so exhausted lately from not getting enough sleep due to all the work for my new grad program that I felt like therapy was one thing I could cross off my list during this intense period until summer term was over. Plus, it didn't seem worth it to go to therapy when I was so tired and didn't have the mental energy to work on stuff. When I don't get enough sleep for extended periods, I start to get depressed, my ability to function goes down, and I need to conserve energy.

When I came in and sat on the couch, T looked at me, and instead of sitting on the other couch across from me, he took his swivel chair and sat right opposite me, so very close, almost knee to knee. When I first started therapy, he always sat like that, but after a number of months, he moved to the couch, and then he seemed so far away, and I missed him. Now when he sat close to me, it was kind of hard, because I am not used to it. He has not done this for a couple of years. I felt torn--I wanted to draw back from him and have our usual space but also wanted to draw closer to him and let him take care of me.

We talked about my fatigue and also the recent work I have been doing in school on Death. It's been very intense and triggering for me, as some of the hospital work has brought up a lot about my Dad, who was recently in the hospital and will probably die within 6 months. Each time my Dad has some crisis, we wonder, is it the end? He can decide to die at any time, if the going gets too tough for him or he loses what is left of his will to live. He has made hospice arrangements for when he makes that decision to die. I cried about this and several times told T I didn't want to talk about certain things because they were too painful. At times I just wanted to sob. I am inches away from totally losing it over my Dad.

At one point I told T that I just wanted to be able to manage my feelings about my father. That sounds so cold, but sometimes it is just too much, and the feelings come up inappropriately. I can’t be walking around crying during my duties. (I had this problem several years ago during the worst of my marriage break-up.) It’s really hard for me to hold the sadness in when it arises and wait until I can escape and can go off and feel sad or cry without others around. T said I really needed to be sad and cry, and that holding it back was making it more difficult to get through the day. He suggested I try to schedule time to cry into my days. Maybe if I provided myself enough time to be sad, I wouldn’t have it escaping at inappropriate times. (I was too embarrassed to tell him about the death simulation we did at school last week and how after it was over I went in the bathroom and sobbed.) I told him I felt abnormally sad, that others in my family weren’t as overtly sad as I was. We can all be there together and experience the same thing, and I am the only one from my family with tears streaming down my face, barely able to remain present. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I be like them? I am sure they are sad too, but they handle it so much better. T said things about my father and our relationship and when parents die, blah blah, and listening to him just made an even bigger sadness come on me, like a huge wave inside, and I felt in a struggle to stop being sad, to stop crying, and it was too much and I didn’t want it right then, so I asked T to stop saying those things. Sometimes we don’t want our feelings reflected back at us because it makes us feel them even more strongly.

T suggested that I was so strongly affected because of my relationship with my father, and he thought it would be helpful to me in my grieving if we explored that. That made me feel better, that T thought I was reacting in an atypical way too, and he could help with that. It gave me some hope.

When we were scheduling my next appointment, even though I felt more rested that day (I had slept 6 hours the night before!), I knew I should take a break from therapy because of my fatigue. But before I could say this, T asked if I could come in next week. I looked startled, I’m sure. T said if I wait two weeks, it will be harder to work on my sadness about my father, it will give me more time to stuff the feelings away. It will be easier for him to help me if we do this work sooner rather than later, and it will be easier for us to stay connected too. So I agreed, in spite of myself, but wondered, how could I come to therapy intending to take a break and leave with an appointment scheduled a week sooner than usual? We usually have 90 minute sessions every other week but if going weekly, I should really only do 50 minutes because of the cost. T only had a 50 minute session open on the day I could see him but immediately he said he would call one of his clients to try to make a longer space for me and I wasn't thinking clearly so didn't veto this. Before I knew it he called a female client (he said she often canceled appointments) and she answered and he said he was calling to confirm their appointment next week and she said oh she couldn’t make it. He ended the call and said well there is a 90 minute slot for you and sat back, quite pleased with himself. Since he had gone to all this trouble, I felt I couldn’t say we should only do a 50 minute session. Plus, I was kind of charmed he had done this for me. (It showed how much he cared?). As he penciled in my name on the schedule, he said that he was writing in “grief work” next to my name so he wouldn’t forget. Great. (He’s never done this either, as far as I know.)

So here I am now with a 90 minute "grief work" session scheduled in only a week, when my intent was to take a 7 week break. T was uncharacteristically assertive about when my next session should be—usually he lets me decide. I wonder too if this is tied to why he sat so close to me. Did he somehow sense I was needier than usual and so sat closer--to provide a stronger presence? I also wonder if doing "grief work" with T will help make what is happening with my father any easier for me? It seems like it could make things worse by stirring everything up. I'm kind of apprehensive about next week. What are we going to do? I feel some dread, and a bit like "I don't want to do this."

I sense you know why your T did this for you... Your T knows you... knows you do need this time with him. He sounds like a wonderful T for you. I think about the Nanny McPhee saying

"when you need me, but do not want me, then I must stay. When you want me, but no longer need me, then I have to go".

I think your T knows you better than you know yourself. He is an AMAZING T and he knows when to step in and take charge. You are very lucky to have such a person in your life!

(((((((((((Sunny))))))))))))))

I love that T is taking such good care of you.

Once, my T and I were talking about the different lengths of time that things took in therapy, and he said that grief work was the shortest...that people were almost always done with it in 7 weeks. We didn't talk much more about it (actually, thinking back, I think that it might have come up in relation to my own father's death), but something about that made it feel really "doable" to me.

I also really liked that he validated your feelings about your grief being "atypical". The thing I hate the most (by FAR) in therapy is when T doesn't understand where I'm at - and when he DOES get it, it's the best feeling in the world. No matter how horrible I'm feeling, if T really GETS how horrible I'm feeling, and I can feel that he gets it, it's like a weight lifted off of my shoulders.

I don't think T would be leading you into the grief work if he thought it would make things worse for you. My guess is that getting to the bottom of what's going on and really letting yourself feel what you're feeling will give you a sense of peace.

to you

((sunny))

When I read this what surfaced in my mind was an experience I had in a 4 day craniosacral course I took last winter. I did fine the first 2 days but...the intensity of the 4 day course really stressed my ability to.."stuff the feeling away." At the end of the 3rd day a minor irritation caused me to come temporarily unglued. THIS WAS NOT A PLEASANT EXPERIENCE but WOW did it ultimately yield some major healing thanks to my T who was willing to respond to my emails sent while I was curled up on the hotel bathroom floor nauseous from the stuff that was unearthed that day. I've often thought that with some issues...I could benefit from an intensity or session frequency that would stress my emotional regulation system a bit. With other issues, I think however I need time to reflect and sit with things a bit before returning to them in therapy.

Sunrise...I'm sorry to hear about your Dad's struggles...many (((())))) to you and your family. Maybe your T is worried that time is very critical. Maybe he wants to help you process and connect with your Dad while he is still here and coherent. That way BOTH you and your Dad can prepare for his passing and be at peace when the time comes.

Thank you, WePow. I like the first part of the that quote, but the second part is not something I want to associate with my T (termination fear rising up).

Yes, it did feel good to have him say that, and not to push it away with comments like you're just sad, a parent is dying, it's understandable, etc. Because I do feel abnormally sad, and I actually used that word "abnormal" when I talked to T, not "atypical" as I did in my post. After he said what he thought might be going on that I was having this strong reaction to my father's end of life time, I told him that it made me feel better to hear him say that my grief was abnormal and that he could help with that. He immediately said "I didn't say abnormal," and said that was black and white thinking. I tried to reassure him and said it was OK, I was just not choosing my words carefully and to me it was not a negative thing at all (to have my grief be abnormal). It felt reassuring in fact to have him also perceive my difficulty as unusual.

7 weeks? Interesting it has a time attached to it. Such a short time does sound "doable."

What is grief work? I found this on the Internet:

In Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy... William J. Worden, Ph.D., makes a distinction between grief counseling and grief therapy. He believes counseling involves helping people facilitate uncomplicated, or normal, grief to a healthy completion of the tasks of grieving within a reasonable time frame. Grief therapy, on the other hand, utilizes specialized techniques that help people with abnormal or complicated grief reactions and helps them resolve the conflicts of separation. He believes grief therapy is most appropriate in situations that fall into three categories: (1) The complicated grief reaction is manifested as prolonged grief; (2) the grief reaction manifests itself through some masked somatic or behavioral symptom; or (3) the reaction is manifested by an exaggerated grief response.

I wonder what the specialized techniques are?At the same site it says this:

Anticipatory grief is the phenomenon encompassing the process of mourning, coping, interaction, planning, and psychosocial reorganization that are stimulated and begun in part in response to the awareness of the impending loss of a loved one and the recognition of associated losses in the past, present, and future. It is seldom explicitly recognized, but the truly therapeutic experience of anticipatory grief mandates a delicate balance among the mutually conflicting demands of simultaneously holding onto, letting go of, and drawing closer to the dying patient.

I guess that is what I am feeling (anticipatory grief). I am glad it has a name and I am not the only one to start grieving before the loss occurs. The part I underlined sounds very similar to what T hinted we would do.

That sounds good to me.

Want to give credit to the site I quoted from:
http://www.deathreference.com/Gi-Ho/...d-Therapy.html

What you wrote sounds likely, chaotic. T did move quickly. I like what you said about both me and my Dad being at peace. I hope I can do that. I spoke to him yesterday on the phone. I don't know how to do things differently from how we have done them in the past.

Now that I am a bit more connect to what is going on around me. I'm so much worried about how I will face death but I am now kind of worried about how I will handle death of someone close to me. I think I will really feel it now. I lost my parents and grandmothers within a 4 year period a long time ago and well I was young, immature, and unaware of how sacred this process is. Prior to this period I had never experience death before. I've recently read about some really interesting rituals that different cultures embrace during this transition. Mitch Album has written some really good stories related to death. IDK...I think modern society focuses too much on trying to beat death and not enough on facing this natural process in a way that brings a sense of healing, closure, and celebration for the times well lived.

That is where I am at now too. Do you have a vision of how you would like to handle it?

I feel I would like all of those things, vis a vis the approaching end of my father's life. Chaotic, do you have an idea of how to face death so as to bring about those things?

Wow good questions as usual sunrise. I think I'd like to actually share my feeling and thoughts with the person who is transitioning thiis time. My dad died suddenly but my mother's transition was slow and progressive and I think she probably wanted to connect better with me. But I was still young, angry at the world and I guess emotionally dead and spirtually inmature. I guess I would like to be the person that could handle serious conversations that someone approaching death might like to voice but also be a person who could find laughter in the sadness.

My one friend who is struggling with cancer at the moment often when I ask how she's doing will say..."well I'm vertical today." and sometimes theeonly thing you can say is..."vertical is good!"
IDK..I guess I jusy Want to be able to stay present and be a good supporting witness/friend.

Unfortunately I still haven't learned how to really share my feelings live with others very well. its hard to be present and. Be there for that crazy ...grieving/celebrating/expansion/grieving...rollercoaster death parade and still not really know how to release tears. I think I am good at sitting with people be...I still haven't figured out how to cry with them yet.