Dear T...

T, sometimes I wonder things about you that I can't say even to myself. I hate it when I think those things in session. But I am glad I am building trust with you and think that maybe after I have been seeing you for twenty years or so I can just come out and say "Sometimes I look and you and wonder xyz" Me

Dear T

We're doing ok, I think? We reconnected so quickly after your holiday, it feels like you never went away. And this week, when you simply disappeared on a really sad important day for me, we bounced back together pretty quickly. Loss is all around me, and there are challenging weeks ahead. Not least your next holiday. The big one. One day at a time for now.

Dear T,

I am feeling irked. Why don't I ever feel neutral toward you? If it's not exasperation, it's gratitude. If it's not frustration, it's security and trust. Why can't I make up my mind how I feel about you?

Your fickle friend,
Lacey

Dear T, I hope that some day you will understand that what I need and what you have been taught to give me are not the same things at all. I need your objectivity, I need your clarity of thought. I need you to listen of course, but listening is not , a hiding in the dark and waiting for me to speak. IT is the creating a safe feeling so I can comfortably speak. It is treating me as a human being and not as a symptom with legs and a hand for signing off on your bill.
Listening means that you are quiet when I am speaking, respectfully, but also that you do not listening quietly misinterpreting my words because I have not made myself clear to your hearing. If something seems amiss, you slow me down and ask for me to clarify and reflect it in your own words, so we are, as the saying goes. . . on the same page.
Perhaps when i come to you, you open up, aboutsome short story so I know that you are human too and my struggles make me human, and not uniquely messed up.
You may share with me, some idea, some poem that awakens my soul, comforts my heart, and shows that yes, I am a bundle of feelings and potentiality seeking to fulfill itself completely and my right humanness.

I know I am capable of growing and I hope you see that in me too. I ask that sometimes you hold that hope for me.

thank you, Mr T.

Sandworm

Dear T,

(trigger for mention of sex)

I will probably end up telling you this because I tell you almost everything. Since last session and your email to me, I'm thinking of you in "that" way. I can't help it. I thought about your eyes and looking into them and I got sort of excited. I don't think about my H like that. You're so much nicer to me I can't help it. I wish he treated me the way you do. How in the world are you going to help me?

Dear T,

I have been avoiding working on the assignment you gave me, because it hurts, and it will be especially humiliating to show up today with empty hands because you had ME pick the topic.

I feel sad and hopeless. We will be marking an anniversary soon, and today I realized that it will be #5, not #4... this has taken away all sense of accomplishment and made me realize all over again what a pathetic loser i am (still am). All that stuff about how healing is slow, and it takes as long as it takes... five years, T...

Can you see any light ahead for me?

Can you tell your T what you've posted?

Dear T,

What a day, thank goodness it's over.... I am so tired now but it's OK. And partly it's OK because I had taken a deep breath and said that you might leave me a message, if you had an encouraging word for today, and you did it; that was so kind of you. You have no idea how much it helped me.

Thank you for all that you have given me, taught me, showed me, overlooked in me, put up with from me. My life is forever changed because of knowing you.
SAWE

dear T -- right now i am so mad at you i dont ever want to see you again

T, my whole internal house is now in agreement that relationships belong outside ... we don't want to be that close to you... you are not our friend and we know that. That is fine. I don't need you now anyway. I wont tell you, but you will never again see my parts who are too little and had too much belief in a fantasy. I don't know right now but it feels safer to be away emotionally. Now I kinda hate that I see you tommorow anyway. I will be sure to not make an apt for next week. Maybe not any time. I don't hate you because we all agreed that would mean I had to care. And I don't. Us.

Dear T,
Are we going to get past this? I'm afraid we won't and all these weeks of work will go down the drain.

Dear T,
It's Friday evening. I know what I should do tonight, but I really don't want to. I wish I could call you and you could make the decision for me, but that won't happen because I won't call, and you don't make decisions for me. If I could only hear your voice, maybe that would be enough for me to make the decision myself...

Dear T,

What we've been working on is very hard for me (no surprise there).
And okay, so some house guests have dropped in for a week.
And they don't know I am in therapy.
So with all that, I had to call you to cancel tomorrow's appointment.

You called back leaving a message to confirm, which is the professional thing to do.
But dang.... you didn't have to sound so cheery about it.
SAWE

dear T

thank you for not being mad.i am trying to trust.i do want to talk to you about what happened at work and will try next week.
i am so glad you are not going on vacation next month.
i do like you even if i am skeptical

Dear T,

I won't see you for another six days. I have not written you a new essay, either expanding on the last one or on a new topic. I cannot; there are no tears any more; no more sorrow comes up.
I'm afraid that I have blocked the way somehow,
even more afraid that I have let it all out and now there is nothing left inside but emptiness.
I feel flat, powerless, questioning, alone.
How can you help when I don't know what is going on myself?
SAWE

Dear T.,
Thank you for your phone message yesterday in response to the letter I wrote to you. Thank you for telling me that you did write me a letter while you were on vacation but just didn't send it because something pretty sad came up in your life. I feel bad about that situation and I feel bad that my little kid was so upset about not receiving a letter/card. I still don't want to come in. I am ashamed.

Dear T,

I'm sorry I used up some of your "good crayons" just to scribble all over the paper.

Please write me back something helpful when you respond to my emails today or tomorrow!!

You know I don't really hate you, don't you? You know I have a lot of angry feelings inside, right?

You know I hate myself, don't you?

Please help me work on the shame about my feelings for you.

Please tell me again that you still like me and that I'm not pathetic.

Dear T,
You are really just a very nice person. I am not in love with you. I don't need you to love me. I just think that you are a kind, and considerate person and I am happy to know you and have a chance to learn from you.

Dear T, less than five hours and you get stuck with me, sorry.
but please be gentle, calm, and not mad about whatever i did the last time that was bad. thank you.

Dear T,

I may send this for real right now so she will answer this one instead of the 'hate" email. I feel like I tell you way too much. I feel like I'm exposed. I know you don't judge me but I feel like you're looking at me and seeing how yucky I am inside.

I just sent it to her but added a little more about wanting to be able to tell her all the yucky stuff and have it be okay.

I said I don't want to be ashamed of my feelings but I am, and I feel I'm bad. I want to tell you feelings about you, and about my body, and about death. I want you to accept me even though I'm fat, ugly, and pathetic.

Dear T,
I can't stop crying right now. I am so overwhelmed by sadness right now, it's swallowing me alive. I don't know how I'm going to make it until my next appointment with you. This is too hard to deal with alone.

Dear T,

I don't believe in beatles, I only believe in me.

Thank you for taking me on as a patient even though you technically were not accepting any new patients. It was such a challenge for me to get the courage to call therapists to find one, but you were the first one I actually got hold of and I felt comfortable with you even just speaking on the phone and didn't really want to have to make any more calls. It will be worth sticking it out as a waiting list patient until I get a regular spot, because even though we've only had 5 sessions so far I already know I got lucky in finding the right person my first try. This is going to be a difficult road for me but I am ready to take it on with you by my side.

Dear T,

You did what you did to stop me from hurting myself, but what it did to our relationship was harmful and now I have never felt worse in my life and I didn't know how to tell you.

And then yesterday we really connected. After months of me crying after our sessions, I actually felt good. Thank you for understanding and for making that possible.

Dear T,
It's been 6 months and I wish I could trust you and talk to you, but I just can't and I don't know why?

I am bothered over and over by and event in my past, not something that was done to me, but something I did to someone else. We have barley scratched the surface on it. I wish I could tell you. I really do.

I want to tell you about the night terrors but I don't know where to start. Everybody says leave the past in the past. Is that the way it works??? Do you even want me to talk about the past? I am afraid to ask you questions, so I don't

All we talk about is my anxiety, depression and day to day management

Maggy Jo