[Hope-Full]

Shortly, I'll be losing one member of my support team for a while. After having weekly visits with this particular person for the last year, and emails in between visits, I'm having a hard time accepting that they will be gone and I'll have no contact for four months. In their absence, I'll continue to work with my regular T, who I am very attached to (and we are both comfortable with this attachment) and I am so lucky to have supporting me.

Problem is, I've grown rather attached to the team member leaving, and have come to rely on this person more than I expected to and am rather uncomfortable with this attachment. My regular T is phenomenal and I will be absolutely fine with just regular T, but without this other person, it just won't be the same. (both of these people communicate regularly with my doctor in order to best support me.)

I have no words to express what is going on in my head, therefore am really struggling to talk with regular T about how to handle the departure and break. I've tried talking about it with both regular T and the departing team member, but I don't even know where to begin and just sit there and cry instead. Now there's only a few weeks left to figure out how to survive the situation and I am not sure at all what to do.

What do you do when you can't find the words to explain what is going on in your head? How can either of them help if I can't express anything other than sit there and cry?

[roads]

When I'm like that, I'll write one word in the middle of a piece of paper. (paper--computer won't work for this.) off to each side I'll another word, or phrase, that has anything to do with that central idea. The idea of writing on the paper is to keep myself focused--even if I just doodle while I think. I try to keep words related to other words. After awhile. I take these groups of words and try to make sentences.

I may put this away & work at it for several sessions before I feel like I've gotten to a point when I understand my thoughts well enough to talk with someone else, but eventually I do get there.

This takes patience, focus, and perseverance. I hope it helps.

[stopdog]

I would try writing stuff down even if at first it is not correct or complete. I dind the act of writing to help sort things out so I can be clear. I am sorry you are losing this support person for a while.

[Hope-Full]

Thanks roadie and stopdog. The word mapping is a good idea, I'll have to give it a try. I've been trying to do just blind journaling - writing anything that comes to mind and not editing or censoring anything - and while I've filled several pages of my journal this way, nothing has gotten any clearer.

It's so frustrating, I know what I feel, I just don't know how to explain it to the people that can help me! grrr

[beautiful.mess]

I use journaling frequently too. I have an enormously difficult time getting my thoughts out. Journaling and then taking that to my session and reading it aloud to T helps. Even if it doesn't line up EXACTLY with what I'm thinking, it's a good starting point. It does take time too though.

[Hope-Full]

Thanks beautiful.mess (love your user name!)

I think I will spend some time tonight pulling excerpts from my journals from this week. Something has to give, cause I have little time left to express myself about this situation. It just hurts like hell thinking about all that is happening and I'd rather run and hide instead of face it all.

[Chopin99]

I agree with everyone. When I cannot speak, I write. Writing helps me get to the bottom of things sometimes. Many times I write what I want to say in session and read it to T.

I was reading about inner child therapy and writing using the non-dominant hand to try to get the right-brain to speak. I think I might try this soon to see what happens.