Last March my T went temporarily mad and announced that everything she'd done was a mistake. She'd been too available, too self-disclosing, and she was taking it all away. She chose my birthday to make this announcement. It was awful, the pain was beyond belief. It took away all the healing there'd ever been.

I went back. We tried to work it out. But there was just no way forward. We ended my session the first week in April with the agreement that I would write a letter to T explaining my reasons for requesting a new therapist, and she'd discuss with the other therapists whether one of them could take me. I was so distressed that I felt too unsafe to leave the building. I went and sat in the toilets and asked T for skills coaching help to get home safely. While I waited, I wrote the letter requesting a change of therapist. When she got back to me a few hours later, she told me I was locked in the building as the last T of the day had gone home by now. Because she didn't drive, she had to send her husband round to let me out.

I was utterly horrified. I felt desperate that I'd caused so much trouble. I was terrified she'd be angry and think I'd done it on purpose to get her attention. I was going through a phase where I didn't even want to think about T having a life, let alone have to deal with her husband. I even told her that I'd lied and I wasn't in the building after all. He came over anyway- more terror. I was on my own in a dark building with a man, and so afraid he'd hurt me. I was sitting on the toilet floor, too frightened to open the door. And then I realised, I didn't have to trust him, or know anything about him. T trusted him, and had chosen him as the father of her daughter, and had sent her to me. I just needed to trust T. And I found that even after everything, I did trust T.

The next day, I thought about how T, knowing that I had historically made false allegations of sexual abuse against men, sent her husband into the building that night because she was worried about me. When I thanked her, she said she hadn't given it a second's thought, because she knows and trusts me. She assured me that she wasn't angry, and she knew I hadn't done it on purpose. She thought the best of me, when she had every reason to think the worst of me. And that day, I resolved to think the best of her. It didn't make it easy, and it took us months to properly recover from what she'd done, but I had decided and I never looked back.

It's not all roses. We've got a break coming up, and today was a wobbly session. But just tonight I wanted to mark the moment when T and I chose to put it all aside, and think the best of each other. And sitting here wrapped in T's blanket and knowing that she loves me, the thought of all I would have missed if I hadn't got locked in the toilet(!) that day doesn't bear thinking about.

[kitty004567]

I'm glad you were able to find it in yourself to trust your T and that she could find it in herself to trust you.

[SpiritRunner]

((((((Improving))))))This rings so real to me, after what T and I have been through in the last month. I am so glad that you went back, that you and T have worked together to keep trust alive! And that when this anniversary came around, you can look back on it with a sense of relief or even a peace because you did go back - how different this anniversary would feel if you had not! But I am glad, even if the lessons were/have been hard to learn and to hold on to, that you had the opportunity to learn them, you and T together. So glad that you can sit now wrapped in her blanket and her love.
I am so glad I chose to keep trusting T and that she has chosen to keep trusting me, too. Maybe not the easiest choice, but the one with the most blessing in it.....

thanks guys. Poetgirl, I'm glad you went back too

[Perna]

Wow, what a great personal story, thanks for telling us! I love those moments when we realize something big about therapy/our therapist and get a new perspective to work with and give it our all. My therapist said something early in therapy (responded well to what I was thinking when I didn't even realize I was thinking it) that changed my willingness to work with her (or any therapist) and I kept working on it for another 30 years until I got what I had come for

[Suratji]

Improving - thanks so much for sharing. Your story is very touching. I, for one, would love to have that level of trust with my T.