What I Sent My T

Peaches, my T said that those who go through trauma or abandonment are far more sensitive to reading the body language and subconscious intentions of others. It is one reason they make sure good T's when they are healed up! I think you should go with your heart and instincts on all this. You do know what the truth is about how all of this impacts you. Stay truthful to yourself and what you need to do or ask T for your protection.

Peaches...You don't know me, nor I you, so please take this as intended i.e. caring.
You got the most beautiful response from your T and came to an equally great ephipany regarding her . Please stop over thinking this. It isn't productive or good for you. You are tearing yourself up after what should have been a comforting session. Please be kind to you.

Peaches, that was such an honest email you sent to your T. I am really glad you stuck with this. You needed more healing and you "went for it." That's fantastic!! You took risks with no guarantee of a good outcome, but yet you got one. That is how it is so often. We never know if our risk of letting ourselves be vulnerable will be worth it or result in healing or love or other good things. Sometimes we can crash and burn, and I know you have had many disappointments in your life growing up. So it took a lot to keep with it and not shy away from your feelings. I loved reading this thread and your "happy ending" after you got T's email.

Quote:

I know this email is inconvenient and annoying. But the alternative is to tell you in session....

But you did talk about it at your session, peaches, and so much good came of it. There is no way you could have had that important conversation through a series of emails. In the future, when you are reluctant to talk about your feelings and make yourself vulnerable and tempted to instead write all that in an email to your T, I hope you can recall what happened in session, face to face, with your T, and draw inspiration from it.

I loved your T's response. It was so very honest. Now was not a time for her to go all formal and aloof and refuse to self-disclose. And she didn't. She came through with flying colors and told you so much about herself and her relationship with you as well as others in her life. She was so very real. Without getting defensive, she was also very able to look at what you called to her attention about herself and discover something new about herself and share with you her desire to learn more about herself and perhaps even to change.

I breathed such a huge sigh of relief to read your realization. Yay!!!

That must have felt good to hear that. I am sometimes hesitant to accept the "specialness" of my relationship with my T and can fall into telling myself that oh he is that way with all his clients, oh he has gone through this a thousand times with clients, oh he would do this for any client, etc. And it really isn't true. It is so validating to get acknowledgement from the T on this.

Yay!

Ummmm, Peaches, you're not hanging onto this in your heart. You're going into distrustful hyper-analytic mode and trying to shortchange yourself some joy and healing from your session with T. Can you give yourself a few days or weeks to savor what happened between you and your T? It was great! You deserve to take your time with this and not immediately launch into more doubt and distrust. Peaches, you really do deserve this. Please slow down and enjoy....

Hi Sittingatwater'sedge,

I've seen John Bradshaw books but have never actually read one. This is something that i will definitely look into.

I decided last night i am going to have to start really working hard with the inner child part of me. What i'm going to do is whenever she feels empty and anxious, and gets that urge to email t, i'm going to take a few minutes to sit with her, talk to her and try to comfort her. Also, i will let her imagine being with t, sitting next to her, or i will remind her of things t has said that made little one feel good. if i can just reintroduce those good connected feelings inside, then the urge to contact my t reduces.

PS - My t has been working with the adult me to start listening to and getting to know that small child part inside. I know she's there and try to be like a comforting mom, but it still feels kind of "hokey," like she doesn't want me to comfort her, she wants t. But I'm willing to keep trying. . .

Hi Bloom,

I liked what you said here:

maybe there is a place in between totally opening up to people and getting hurt and totally closing yourself off.


I have not found that middle ground, so i tend to swing from one extreme to the other.

About crying. . .after i read your email, i did cry. i do let myself do that sometimes. i did it on purpose before my session because i wanted to go in as the "adult" and not as little Peaches. So i cried and then "put it all away" so i could go see t and not feel vulnerable.

Hi Hangingon,

Thanks for calling me brave. I guess a part of me must be! Even though i get soooooo scared sometimes anticipating what her reaction will be. I don't know how many times i've worred about "saying the wrong thing," "going too far this time," "ruining everything," after i get brave and spill my guts. My stomach gets all tied up in knots and so anxiety ridden! But my t never has reacted badly to what i've said to her. Not replying is, I guess, the worst thing she's done. She has never acted like i'd said bad or wrong or weird. Sp the more she reacts fine to what i say, the bolder i guess i get!

Perna,

Thanks for good reminder and your support.

thanks for saying this! gives me a lot to think about.

Hi Minime,

I'm glad you can understand my struggles. Did you say that you and your t do not have any communication outside sessions? Or did you mean that you DO communicate, but you plan beforehand what you will talk about in between? (Sorry, i'm kinda dense and wasn't sure.) I probably should (and really need to) learn some way of "hanging on" to my connection with my t without needing the email because as helpful as it is when she replies, it only takes 1 non-reply or what feels like a terse or insensitive reply to make me totally spiral down. Thanks for encouraging me to keep on with the journey. Sometimes it is so exhausting and hard and painful and scary. . .

Hi Rainbow,

Oh Rainbow, you know me well! You know how i struggle mightily with this attachment stuff. When i went on my session Wednesday, i couldn't let those vulnerable child parts of me be present in the room. i couldn't let them cry or grieve. It felt too scary/not safe for them to express feelings after they'd been so hurt. But i did attend the session as adult me and learned alot about my t, and i feel much better from that standpoint.

I hope soon i will feel safe and OK again about bringing out that vulnerable small part of me. She's been in hiding for over 1 month now since the email incident happened. It seems unbelieavable that something as small as t not responding to her feelings would send her into hiding. but it's true. she has felt rejected sooooooooo many times in life. . .and is always primed for it. any sign of it and she disappears.

Sounds like good plans Peaches! Good luck letting that little girl out in session with T! Please keep us posted!

Well, I “failed” my plan not to email my t.

I sent her a message from my adult self, as well as from the child. The adult message was telling her about a repetition I see in our therapy relationship of 1. Learning to trust and open up. 2. Facing my pain and t. assisting and helping to comfort me. 3. Feeling some relief and healing, which leads to 4. Emailing and telling t. how good I feel about therapy and that I feel attached to her, followed by 5. T. doesn’t reply or says something that makes me feel like she doesn’t care, 6. I feet hurt and it “undoes” all of the good feelings/attachment, 7. I distance emotionally from her because I feel she has done that to me. 8. We talk it over and resolve it. 9. I have to start all over at step 1 developing trust in the relationship again. I told her I don’t understand why this keeps happening. . .why just when I get to the point where I feel good about therapy and that we are starting to “get somewhere,” something happens to throw a wrench in it.

The child’s message was about how I feel when she does not reply to my email. Anxiety and hurt and pains in my stomach. Followed by shutting down and going into hiding.

Well anyway, after I sent the messages, I thought about how extreme my emotional reaction is whenever T. doesn’t reply to a message. I feel that this is pushing me away, that she is angry with me or doesn’t like me anymore, and I feel shame/bad for having bothered her. All of a sudden, I could see a link with what happened with my parents as a child.

When I was in grade school, I’d come home from school and really miss my mom. So I’d call her at work. Sometimes, one call did not feel like enough, and I would need to call her two or three times. I don’t know why, but I think I just craved the connection, felt empty, and needed to know she was there. Well, my dad would get very mad at me for calling my mom too often, and he would threaten to spank me if I called her again. This really hurt me inside. I “needed” something from my mom, and I ended up feeling that I was “bad” by needing that attachment/connection to her.

In the same way, I feel this compulsion to email T. at work. It’s like I need to know she is there. I need to know she has not forgotten about me or stopped liking me. It’s like a reassurance. But I feel bad about it too. I know I am bothering her, just like I was bothering my mom. And if she does not reply, then I feel like I am being punished. I feel like she is pushing me away, and that I am a bad person for wanting that attachment/connection to her.

So anyway. That’s the insight I had. Then I felt tears starting to come, so I went into a bathroom stall and cried. I’m OK now but am feeling sad. All I really wanted as that small child was to feel attached with my mom. And I ended up feeling bad and wrong.

I kind of wonder if . . .whenever I start to feel very attached with R. . .I’m the one who throws a wrench in it. . .because deep down I feel it is wrong or bad to want that. And any failure on her part to respond feels like a “reprimand” of sorts, some kind of punishment for being bad and bothering her at work.

Weird how those connections start forming when you think about them.

Maybe i won't be able to stop emailing until i resolved this traumatic memory. Do you think?

I hate it that i gave in. . .

Wow, excellent insight Peaches!! I think that after you resolve this old issue with your mom that your T won't trigger you anymore. Very Good Work Peaches!!