Feel more alone now I'm in therapy

This is my first post here. I've been in therapy on and off for about 8 years. I started seeing a new t six months ago and she's great, by far the best t I've seen. I finally feel like I'm making some progress. The last two sessions have been really intense and scary for me and it's getting harder and harder to get through the week between sessions (lots of feelings and stuff from the past coming up). I can call my t if I need to and a couple of weeks ago she said I can e-mail her inbetween sessions if I want to - although she won't respond very much because she's worried about the possibility of misinterpretation which I understand. I did e-mail her after our last session and she responded and that was good but then I wanted to e-mail her again over the weekend when I was having a particularly hard time but I managed to stop myself because I'm worried about contacting her too much and I don't want to become dependent on her.

I hate that she is the only person in my life at the moment who knows what is going on with me and that I can talk to about any of this stuff. I feel even more alone than I did before I started therapy (again) when all this stuff I'd pushed away wasn't bothering me much. It's not like I can just call her when I'm having a bad day and talk to her for half an hour like I would do with a friend - if I had any. The relationship is so limited and while I appreciate her support during the time I'm with her I'm really struggling with the fact that I have to cope all on my own for the rest of the week.

I have a session tomorrow and I can feel myself wanting to really pull away and shut down but there's so much going on at the moment that I know if I do that it won't be good for me. I don't know how to find the balance between accepting and taking in the one hour a week of support from her and then coping alone the rest of the week without falling apart inbetween sessions or shutting down in session. Or just quitting altogether maybe.

WELCOME

Lots of people on PC are going through the same thing. Lean on them - they have experience.

Hi Splintered, welcome to PC. What you are explaining sounds normal. We go to therapy because we have issues to work on and these issues we had been coping with the best that we could before coming to therapy. Well, you get to therapy and break them open and start working on them. This sort of throws how you have been coping with them (denial and ignoring most likely) into disarray. It is like moving from an unhealthy world into a healthy world. Having supports and others in your life is healthy. Working on this eventually would be really good.

(((Splintered))) I totally relate to this- in fact have been going through something similar over the past few months. It's hard and it hurts. Talk to T about it is my advice. Welcome to PC!

(((((((((((((Splintered)))))))))))))))))

I experienced that same thing when I started therapy. I think it was partly because so many big feelings and memories were coming up, and it was SO HARD to be alone with them during the week. There was no way I could tell anyone else in my life about this stuff, so I was stuck with it. It was really really hard.

And I think part of it was being in this relationship where someone was listening to me, paying attention to me, believing me, caring for me made me really FEEL how much I had never had that in my life before. So a lot of the loneliness was OLD loneliness, kind of finally FEELING the absence of all of that in my life up until that point. It really, REALLY hurt.

After maybe a month of once a week therapy, I started seeing T twice a week and we just continued that way (for the most part) for over three years. Adding the extra session REALLY helped. It gave me some stability during a really unstable time, and it just made the whole thing feel safer and a little more bearable.

It really won't feel this bad forever. I am taking a break from T right now, MY choice, and I'm fine. I miss T, but it's not the desperate loneliness of early therapy. I've learned to connect with people by connecting with T, and I've learned to be nice to myself by watching T be nice to me. I know it hurts SO much at the beginning, but it's so worth it in the end.

Lots of ((((((hugs))))) to you. I know it's really, really hard.

Welcome, Splintered. I can relate as well. Sending good vibes your way.

Welcome to PC, we are all here to support you and for the most part I would say we are a great group to talk with, I understand where you are in therapy right now and my best advice is to have faith in both therapy and your therapist, Good luck and I hope to see more posts from you!

Thank you all so, so much for replying. I was a little worried no-one would respond.

Granite - thank you for the warm welcome

Suratji - I'm sorry that you're also going through the interminably long week thing - people who think life is passing by too quickly should definitely think about starting therapy! I'm struggling with the idea of becoming dependent on her I think mostly because I hate feeling dependent on someone who I can't have a normal relationship with. I can't see her again now until next tuesday, I can't call her and have a chat if I'm having a bad day - well I can call but I wouldn't think she would talk to me for more than a few minutes. It sucks to be dependent on someone you have such a limited relationship with. Although I'm glad you've reached the place of feeling good about depending on your t - I agree it's healthy and ok, just wish it wasn't so painful. Like you I don't want to live the rest of my life with all this stuff hanging over me so I guess I'll just keep going and try my best to accept the support my t does give me. And post here inbetween sessions

Sannah - thanks. Yeah I guess it is normal for this to happen when you start therapy. I think I'm going to have to work through a lot of my issues before I can find people outside of t to lean on and talk to - which is kind of back to front but then so is life sometimes

((((Chronic)))) thanks, hugs back. Of course I saw t today and didn't talk about it at all. A big part of me wants to keep up this front of I don't need anyone, especially you. It's really nice to come here and have people who understand though. I'm sorry you're going through this as well.

Treehouse - thank you . Your first sentence pretty much summed up how it has been for me epsecially over the last few weeks - lots of big feeling and memories coming up and no-one in real life to turn to (although of course I'm refusing to tell t what these memories are anyway!). I think you're right about a lot of it being old loneliness - it's easier not to think about it and be in denial about how alone I've really been feeling when I haven't had all this old stuff coming back to haunt me. After next week my t is going to be away for 3 weeks (which means 4 weeks from next session to the one after) and I think that is really making these feelings so much more intense right now. It will be the first holiday she's had since things have gotten really difficult for me. It's good to hear that this gets better and that it's worth the pain - might need you to remind me of that again sometime

Seshat - thanks for the welcome and the good vibes It's nice to have people who relate although I'm sorry you're feeling this as well. Sending good vibes back your way.

PTSDlovemycats - thank you for the warm welcome I will try to have faith - I do have faith in my t, just maybe not therapy, or myself! Trust the process I guess!

Hi and welcome!
I've been with my T for about 10 months and also have these questions and feelings crop up. So, just to let you know, you are not alone.
I guess I'm scared of forming a relationship, where I know from the onset that it is only temporary. I don't want to lose someone.
I'm really considering pulling back.
Right now the irony is that I probably am in therapy to work through my feelings about therapy - which obviously does mirror quite a lot of what I go through in my life.

It just sounds like such a contradiction!