Being late for therapy

Ummm, he emailed me and asked if I want to reschedule. He said sorry too- his usual brief text messaged thing. Now I feel really dumb for being so upset about it, and carrying on so much in these two threads. I really thought he would forget about responding if he didn't do it right away, but it is only one day later, which is a very reasonable amount of time to respond.

I really appreciate everyone's support and attention here. The uncertainty about therapy was strong in my mind before this happened, so I'm kind of glad this motivated me to get feedback about that on the other thread. But I'm really glad now I don't feel like I need to stop going immediately due to t ignoring me.

Glad to hear you heard from T. Don't think you are dumg though - the whole reason many of us seek help form T is because life isn't always that straight forward and we can feel things deeply and I know for me, things get very twisted up in my head. If every situation we came across we could deal with appropriately without getting hurt or confused, then we wouldn't need to be going through the T thing.

I think you should tell your self well done for being so open on here about your thoughts and feelings and also use this experience to learn both about yourself and your T. Maybe this whole experience would be even good to explore in more detail with T?

Have a sunny day learning1 - Soup

thank you

my brain says I'm probably supposed to tell him about some of this stuff, but Idk how I can. Also he wants me to not try to think of things ahead of time to talk about, so i guess i'll have to just see what's on my mind next week. he also said "i know it feels like falling off a cliff" trying to empathize w me about how scary it is to be more open. so I'm trying to imagine telling him something that feels like that without planning what to talk about ahead. i hope nothing scary to talk about is on my mind next week.

I'm glad you can reschedule and that you heard from him.

Yes my T says the same thing - on the one hand just see what comes - but then when I get there it is "So what do you bring today?"

So how does that work then? To bring something implies planning ahead - surely?

Oh yes I know the scarey feelings - I am so good at sitting here knowing all the theory, it is SO different iin that damn room with T sitting there waiting.

Good luck in your next session learning1 - Soup

In my opinion 15 minutes is way too soon for a T to decide you're not showing up and leave. As someone else said, the hour is yours and the T should allow that time for you, whether you are there on time, half an hour late, or not there at all. Your T should certainly confirm he has receieved your email at least- and I hope for your sake he apologises. You haven't done wrong - ok you were late - things happen. Your T has left you in a state of thinking it's all your fault when he should ethically have waited for you or at least rang or emailed to check you were still coming before just marching off. I hop you get this sorted.

Ah I just read the email about T rescheduling - glad he said sorry and you got it sorted out. It's horrible having this sort of worry hanging over.

yeah, it sure is different being there experiencing it compared to understanding it later. my t's opener, when he uses one, is "what can i help you with today". I never liked it because it sounds like customer service/salesperson to me. Once I said, I don't know but there's a lot going on, and started to tell him. The next time he said, "so what's going on," which I appreciated. But now he's back to "what can I help you with". I'll most likely tell him I don't know if he says that again. I assumed he wants me to start talking about anything I want to talk about when he says that, and I usually had a few topics prioritized in my mind. But now I don't think that's what he wants, so I guess I'll try to find out for sure if he says that again.

I think the phrase "What can I help you with?" would make me want to respond "My kids maths homework?". lol

They do use their phrases don't they? Their "hmms", with a particular enquiring tone here and there - I so wish they could be more transparent, rather than playing this game of snakes and ladders - well that is what it feels like for me sometimes. Like when my T said for the first time this week did I want an extra sessions with no rationale behind it - did T really mean that they were concerned about me and thought it would be good for me to have another session or was it that T was a little hard up that week and had spotted a new pair of shoes and needed some cash - I don't for a minute think that is why T said that, but when there is this game going on it is easy to come up with a whole heap of alternatives to explain T's behaviour and as they are working with people who are a little less straight forward in the cognitive functioning department (referring to myself here ) - it is easy to jump to the wrong conclusions.