Dear T: I need to tell you something but I don't know how. (Part III)

Dear T,

I miss you Is it monday yet? You make me hate the weekend.

Dear T...
why does all the wierd stuff happen when I cant tell u?
....I feel better than I did yesterday..and I hear your calming voice and its helping me do my homework for school....

thanks T.

(((TryinToGetBy)))

Dear T,
I wish tomorrow were our session not a week from tomorrow. I hated how I felt after Monday. Yet I am craving another session. I am so confused and so sad. I feel like you are the only one who understands where I am at right now - and I love and hate that at the same time. I want to slam the door we opened together and shut you out of my secret life at the same time I want to open it just a crack farther and let you in just a tiny bit more.
Me.

Dear t

I am really nervous about my session with group t on Friday morning. I wish we could have talked about it more during our session. I am also nervous about talking to my supervisor tomorrow, but I am going to make myself do it. I have to do it because I know you will ask me next week if I did, and I can't tell you again that I was too scared, especially after we spent all that time planning out what I was going to say.

T,

Hold on, we're going into the serious stuff on Monday. Maybe. If I don't chicken out. Which I may do. In that case, hold on for some riveting discussion about how much I hate my job yet refuse to quit. Nothing like talking in circles to suck the entertainment value out of an hour.

I feel ugly, fat and disgusting and I do not want you to ever look at me again.

i really get this!

I enjoyed our chat about the weather but please get me to open up tomorrow, otherwise I'm in for a weekend of regret.

Dear T,

I have to tell you about something really, really embarrassing, but it's important because of the shame I feel about it. I just have no idea how to start and it's going to also involve telling you intimate details of my CSA, which I've never, ever done with anyone.

Help.

Dear T, I can't even tell you how happy I was to see my art project I gave you a few weeks ago actually on the wall. Never thought something seemingly as small as giving you something I made would have ended up having such a huge impact on me, but obviously there's a lot behind it...acceptance and appreciation of something I did probably the most powerful. Thank you. You really are a wonderful t for me--not just because of this but it only adds to all the reasons why.

Dear T,

With the emergence of my inner child approximately two months ago, life has become very confusing. I feel like two separate people inhabiting one body. One person is the adult married woman, student, mother, dealing with MI and feeling content and happy with my life the majority of the time. The other person is a needy, clinging child who is scared and afraid and tired of trying to cope with all the crisis and diagnosis that define my life.

Please try to help me understand why all of a sudden I feel like I'm regressing. Why I want my mother to comfort me. Why I want to be a child again, to be held and comforted. Why I feel so needy all the time. Why I feel the constant need to cry but am totally unable to do so.

I have too much to do, too many responsibilities, I don't understand why after six years of therapy and moving forward, all of a sudden progress has halted and I'm moving backward.

Please help me understand what's going on - I'm confused, frightened and frustrated.

Dear T,

Am I doing this right? Am I doing therapy right? Why do I think and think and think and think all the time about everything that I said and didn't say and could say and would never say and what did happen and what might've happened and what should've happened and at least it didn't happen?

Am I moving forward or just in circles?

I need more guidance.

I don't know what's going on, I don't know whats going to happen, and I'm scared.

Dear T,

Tonight's session was AMAZING. Why are evening sessions that much better almost always? It's like I feel closer to you at that time... the time I usually start to get really depressed and hopeless feeling. Today I got to spend some of that time with you, and it was amazing. I wish I could have evening sessions more often. I wish I could tell you this, but I'm too embarrassed. It sounds weird. It is weird. But it is true, and I didn't want the session to end tonight. I wanted to go home with you. ugh SO WEIRD.

I want to carry tonight's session with me forever though. I don't want to forget how safe I felt for those 50 minutes.

yup. I knew I shouldn't have trusted you. now you're leaving me. I can't deal with trusting another T. it was so ****ing hard to trust you I'm not going to be able to trust someone else.

everything is falling apart.

you saw me at my most vulnerable today. but you leaving me has just tipped me right off the edge. I donor remember the last time if ever I was that out of control in front of someone. it was kind of a panic attack but not really. it was just me falling apart I guess.

I don't know what I'm going to do but I just can't take this anymore.

Dear T

The two bad days have become six bad days and there's no end in sight. It wasn't a tantrum which made me cancel my appointment. I cancelled because I know there's a good chance that at 4pm tomorrow, you won't be there, and I will be left in your waiting room. This is the nature of your Fridays right now- you should not really have anyone scheduled at 4pm because you haven't allowed yourself enough time to get back to the office for 4. Maybe I should feel lucky that you squeezed me in, whereas so many others must have lost a session this week. But it's not ok with me. Everything else- the texts, the phone calls, the emails, the gifts- is given freely by you, and it's yours to take away as you please. It hurts, but I know that's true.

But the one hour a week which I pay for? That's mine to have. You've always been really good at that, but recently it feels like it's a creeping problem. There was the session in January when you just didn't show up and I had to lie about feeling ill so I could leave uni early to come back later that day. There was the session in February when you trampled all over me and then said it was because you'd had a crap day. There was last Friday when I sat in your waiting room for 35 minutes while you decided to make a telephone call. I'm asking you for one hour a week which you honour instead of treating it casually. Show up, put aside your own problems, and make it about me. I'm sorry if that's too demanding, but that's what I need and what I think is reasonable to expect.

Dear T,

Can I hand this to you to watch over while I go on vacation? I don't want to take it with me. I just want to sit on the beach in the sun.

Signed,
I am seriously asking you this when I see you

What is it?

Dear T

Today's emails and conversation are worthy of their own Very Bad Film script. So, I've written one. I thought that if I do make to the session tomorrow, we could both save ourselves a lot of energy by just reading from the page.

Me: Um, can you please show up for appointments on time, and if you can't call could you please tell me in advance?

You: You're right, we must make Radical Changes to all our contact arrangements!!

Me: Hang on, that's not really related in any way to what I sai...

You [interrupting]: But I'm doing this because I am LISTENING TO YOU! I TAKE WHAT YOU TELL ME SERIOUSLY!

Me: But I wasn't actually talking about the contact, I was just talking about...

You [interrupting]: Never mind! I've been wanting to change our contact for ages and your email created the perfect opportunity! Plus this way you'll learn never to complain about anything again!

Me: okaaay [catch breathe, freeze thoughts, shut off heart], what Radical Changes do you have in mind?

You: [deranged from lack of sleep, stress and feeling corralled into making a call you didn't want to make] I have absolutely no ****ing idea, but I thought it would be good to throw it out there!

Me: okaaay, would you like to maybe think about it and get back to me?

You: No! Let's get together tomorrow and have this Exact Same Conversation all over again! That will be more fun! Plus, imagine how ****ing desperate you'll feel at the end! And even better, it's Friday, so you'll have the whole weekend to spend trapped in your own personal hell! Yahay!!

Me:...

Here the script is still unwritten. Will I (A) say no, and wait for you to recover a bit and have a think, or (B) come, get highly distressed, and regret it? I want with all my heart to choose scenario A, but history tells me that I should put my money on B.

And WHY do you stay with that T?

1. Because she doesn't really speak like this! Well, not exactly.
2. Because she loves me
3. Because I love her
4. Because I believe with my whole heart that she has the competence, skill and commitment to help me heal myself. I believe this because I see the evidence in my life.
5. There's no 5. I think no. 4 is the deal breaker. I was always afraid that no. 3 would be the deal breaker, and I would stay with someone who hurts me because I can't see past my love for them. But actually, for now, it's no. 4. I stay because I believe it's good for me.

thanks, skysblue, for the most helpful question ever!

Dear T,

I know that I should at least call you and tell you how low I am feeling.. I know there might now be anything you can say or do, but I feel like you should know. However, I called you a week ago today and I feel like, even though you said I could call if I needed I would be taking advantage. So, instead.. I think I am going to wait it out and pray my mood improves and see you on Monday.

This is a very important question and you have a right to ask.

My T explained that someone would phone all her patients personally and that I would be welcome at the funeral.

It's good to know.

If my T were to die I would go to her funeral and I would cry a lot, wishing that she were alive so that she could see me crying. I don't want my T to die.

Dear T,

I had no idea that missing a session could send me into such a downward spiral. I won't tell you because you have a valid reason that you had to cancel (death in the family). I don't want to minimize that. You do have a life outside of being a therapist. I have no idea what happened to me this week.

Squiggle