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

Dear T,
I don't feel safe opening up to you anymore. I know a few sessions ago I asked you to push harder, but when I ask you to stop using something as an example, I mean it. You need to stop. You tried to push a little farther today and that was not okay.

I am not sure how to trust you right now. I need to feel loved as a person to open up and today I did not feel very loved. There were a lot of things I could of and would of shared if I had felt more safe today. It's probably all my fault anyway - all my stupid "I can't" mentality. Well next session you'll get a dose of "I chose" instead. It's quite easy to just phrase it all as "I chose to." I'll play your little game.

And please stop with the "just focus on the good things" crap. Do you have any idea how impossible that sounds to someone who is sliding deeper into depression each day? Can't you see that?

When I left today I felt emotionally beat up. I know that's not the most accurate way to describe it. That's all I can think of right now.

I may just cancel our next appointment....I don't really see the point of continuing after today. I am better off on my own.

Dear T, it looks like there's something in the air today...so many people feeling helpless and hopeless, myself included. I've never felt so discouraged.

Thank you for continuing to try, though; you pointed out that I keep coming, so there is a fighter somewhere in me and I desperately want to believe that tiny bit of hope you seem to see. I really don't right now, though. Please keep hanging in there with me. Don't give up on me just yet.

Dear T,

I am glad we started DBT today. I think this is going to help me alot. Thanks for taking my suggestion and doing this with me.

Squiggle

Dear T,

I really enjoyed our session today....I hope that you are not giving up on me re the transference issues with ex t, as I know that it has been frustrating to say the least....How do you think I feel.......Please do not give up on me.....

Dear T, there was just something weird in the air yesterday. I don't know what it was if it was from you or if it was from me or what but I am quite obsessing over it right now thankyouverymuch and really really want to ask you for a hug next time so I know it's all good but I know I will not be brave enough to ask. Which is dumb cuz you've handled everything else I've thrown at you. What's one more little thing. Sigh. I miss you even though I was just there yesterday. Oh btw what if you're wrong and I am crazy??? love, me

Dear T,
Remember after that really hard session a few months ago when I told you that the next morning my movements all felt in slow motion and I was very aware of anything tactile? It happened again today. Always after a hard session. What is going on?
Me.

T - I am still obsessing about the other day. I'm worried that you're sick or something. I hope you are ok. me

I already emailed you everything so this is mostly a repeat. I am sorry I didn't let you help me today. I screwed up! I don't feel safe in that office without your stuff in it. It was hard to sit there looking at you. I feel good that you told me you missed me too when I was away. I didn't miss you this time but now I'm making up for it and you haven't even left yet.

I am so jealous of you for being able to travel so much. I could have gone on more trips with my H but I was afraid to fly. I'm glad I went on the ones I did go on. I wish I were going too. I don't want to think about your whole family together though it's nice that you're all going. I told you the truth that I hope you have a great time.

I liked that you offered to hold my hand before I asked you today, and that you gave me that coin or whatever it is. Also for the extra hug in the parking lot. I couldn't take it in today, though. You wanted me to learn some new techniques but I blocked them out.

I did notice that I felt you were a stranger and I told you that in the session. You said we're not strangers. You looked different, probably because you weren't wearing makeup. You're already tan, I noticed, and your hands aren't dry and wrinkled like mine are. I was very aware of my being older than you today. That fact I didn't tell or email to you. Also that you are so thin and I gained weight on my trip. I didn't tell you how ugly I feel. There's so much more I need to talk about with you.

I like the way we talk and act with each other now, yet I know you're my T and not my friend.

I feel sad and have been crying off and on all day. I hope I can stop myself from worrying about you all the time you're away or I'll go crazy.

Dear T
You don't really care so don't lie to me any more. Don't tell me you won't go away when you already have. Don't make promises you can't keep. Don't tell me "I'm right here", when you can't even answer e mail. I can't depend on you or anyone. My life is in my own hands.

Dear Therapist,
I didn't know that I'd quit today. It really wasn't my intention or the plan I had for my session today...At least I didn't know that was my plan until we were about twenty minutes into the session. But then it came to me. I knew that I wasn't doing what I needed to do in therapy. I knew that I was wasting your time and mine. What an awful feeling that was. What a rude and terrible awakening that was.

I don't think that I regret the decision. . .I think that somewhere back in my brain, I truly knew this week that it was coming, . ..it was like a roaring train that wasn't going to be derailed. It was something that had to happened. I know that I've quit before, but I've never been sure when I did it . . . I think it was a silly immature test. But this time it is different. It is sure and real. It is right. Not comfortable and perfect, but a resigned reality. I think that makes it worse.

I know that I'm not making the "kind" of progress that I believe is needed. I've been seeing you for two and half years! I should be further along in my progress.
But I do know that the failure falls on me. It falls on me because I can't seem to really move or make the progress or important changes I know that I need to make in my life. I don't think that it is in me. I think that I'm just too darn comfortable in my functional/dysfunction. I think that those needed changes are just NOT in me. I tried to talk about that today, but I don't think that you or anyone realizes it or gets it on a basic level. I just cope too well. I hold down a professional job. I am respected by my colleagues. My family thinks I am a success. No one sees things as they truly are because I don't let them see it. This is NOT an issue with your skills, it's an issue with my stuckness .. .my stubborness. .. . my reluctance to really and truly change. ..

Wow, how awful that is to realize or face! How painful it is to realize that I'm not able to be proactive and emotionally ready to be something I say I don't want to be. I'm sorry I wasn't a better client. I sure do know that you were a good and proactive therapist. I sure wish I had been a more willing and compliant client! Hard thing to accept in yourself. Thanks for everything, good and caring therapist!
Jay

Dear T,

Remember when I was so upset, saying there seemed to be no end to the telling of my story, and you said it seemed that this most recent thing was probably the last big piece of the puzzle?

It wasn't.
Yesterday memories came back that, in light of what you've told me in the past 2 wks, are probably huge.

I just don't know how I am going to get the words to come out of my mouth. I have to tell you because no one on this earth knows but me.

If I were you, I'd run away now. I wish *I* could.
SAWE

Dear T,

This is not going well. Every time I go in, I think, "I don't know if I can do this anymore." I'm not sure what keeps compelling me back. Hope that things can be different, perhaps. Trust in our long history together? Foolish, blind, trust?

I can't just keep going in and crying without being able to say anything. It's not getting me anywhere, and to be honest, I'm not sure I want to pay to cry. I can do that on my own at home.

Seeing you just opens up this big, yawning hurt in the center of my chest. I actually don't really ever cry at home because I don't feel a need to. What is it about seeing you that hurts so much?

I get that you probably don't want to bring up things I've emailed you without me actually bringing them up first. At least I think that's your MO. Your canned response to my email yesterday just pissed me off, frankly. I'd much rather you tell me that you'd like to save discussion of these issues for sessions instead of feeding me platitudes about my feelings being important, yada, yada, yada.

Gah.

Dear T - I think I'm going to have to cancel my next appt. It was just too weird the other day. Can't get it all out of my head. That stuff I gave you to read, it was just well my soul was just too open and and even though I trust you with it I felt so exposed I wanted to jump up and run away I don't know how I managed to stay sitting. I was so uncomfortable. And all the "I don't know"s, of course I know, and it terrifies me what's inside me, it's so not what I was brought up to believe, and it's all compounded by my realization after the fact that you really did look tired, and probably weren't feeling well, and more than probably weren't in the mood for my crap, but that stuff didn't even register in my stupid brain at the time. I am so very sorry for that. I think you need (and deserve) a break from my let's face it messed-up self. Love, me

Dear T,

Your lack of response to what I sent you a hour ago proves you don't care about me. Now I have a reason not to care too. Thanks.

An hour is a pretty short length of time to expect a response. Give him some time. No telling what he's doing at the moment.

dear t
last night was hard. i was afraid to tell you why about the article, what if you agreed with him? i couldn't have handled that. i almost started crying about the hurt it caused me but i didn't want you to be mad tath early in session so all i did was start thinking of my mom and it died. i went back to childhood. i am sorry for that.
and the first abc i did was about you hating me. it worked. so that was good. i don't get the bees. they scared me. and i don't even know if they were real and you wouldn't tell me
please you were very gentle last night but you lost me for so much of the time.. more that usual. makes me feel so stupid like i can't keep up. i am glad you read that paper to me but it was way too long. i cannot stay focused for that long. i need short, slow and calm. and i still don't understand thought vs beliefs

Dear T,

I don't think I can keep going like this. I'm not sleeping, I'm feeling suicidal, having major SI urges. I just want to quit.

Dear T
It's been a long week without seeing you and I've felt angry much of the time. You tell me to take myself seriously yet it doesn't seem like YOU do.
I don't know what to do about so many things. If the things in my life aren't improving, why do you think a hospital is my answer? I am doing the "push/pull" thing with you again.

oh T - right now I feel like such a big fat loser failure like i screwed up so bad the other day sharing too much and probably alienated you now like everybody else and you're probably dreading the next time i darken your door and i feel like crap right now argh!!!!!!! don't hate me ok????? why can't i stop obsessing about this???

Dear T,
I see a pattern emerging and I don't know if it is okay or not. I fight and resist in sessions, go home and get very angry for a day, feel guilty for feeling angry and then do a ton of writing, really come to understand it, get really excited about understanding it....and then I have to sit with it for 12 days until our next appointment. By then I've moved on to something else and it no longer seems relevant. Discussing it at session feels like moving backwards. That is frustrating for me, but I don't see a way around it. I can't come once a week and we both know it.
Me

T ....

could you possibly drive tomorrow? I have not yet gotten over wanting to flee from what you showed me 2 wks ago,
and now there is what I saw for myself this week, another whole subject you don't even know about. (No one does.)

I need to breathe.

SAWE

I've had similar sorts of patterns.
But maybe writing it down is where you process it, so it really isn't so urgent after that.

Dear new T,

That PhD from Harvard on your wall is impressive but I think you're just kinda weird. I miss my old MSW from Local State University. She had her head on straight.

T.

I will not tell you what impact your last email had on me on so many levels. Not yet anyway. I am not a perfectionsit. But you telling me that caused me to realize how I must portray that to others and I didn't know it. It is not the me on the inside one bit. And I realized that it is my fault that if you see me as a perfectionist who was always trying to please others, that meant I have been gauarded even in the one place I should have been free to be open. The walls are so high that even someone trained to see into those walls can't see the real person who is inside.

W

Dear T,

Your compassion, patience, and love for me never cease to amaze me. You are there for me like no one ever has been. You listen to me, defend me, and give me great suggestions for calming myself down (including the Ani Difranco song you recommended). You spend your free time helping me and are so selfless. You've helped me to learn to do it myself, so I need you less and at the same time you always support me. Words fail me to describe how much what you do means to me. I love you doesn't even begin to explain it.

Eastcoaster