Final good bye to xT

I sent this several days ago via email to my xT. It was the last time I will ever have any contact with her again. I didn't expect , nor entertain the unrealistic possibility of a response, however... I am now wondering if the letter came off the way I wanted it to. So I am asking for your opinions, sorry it's so long.


Ms. T,

I thought about handwriting this, but I enjoy email. So I apologize in advance. I am truly sorry for all the misplaced feelings I had and using you as an object of transference. I was a mess a total mess, sometimes I feel like a freight train headed for hell, fast and furious. I have attached this picture I wanted you to have. I began painting it when I was seeing you, you liked it. It isn't finished, I'm sorry. Although I do believe that Dr. J can help me, I still miss you. I hope with time, it will diminish. You don't give painting lessons by chance? I don't think that Dr J will see little me near as much as you did. *Can you see two T's at once? I promise I will stop after this. I picked the junk back up after our end...only to punish me of course. *I also stopped going to work and pretty much just melted down. *I currently am putting it back down, looking for a reason to move...to cut my hair,I have to lay people off soon. *Dr. J did share some of your conversation with me and I believe you didn't hate me, you always said , I don't dislike you ...but never that you liked me...that is how I remember it. *I wanted you to be my mom my friend my mentor...my protector, my warm shelter to hide under when the weather was too rough. You always said I had hi feelers or antennas, well I picked up somethings about you. May I be so bold as to tell you what I felt? I feel as though you were hurt more then once in your life, you eyes are sad ... masked only with your self assurance and esteem. You are brilliant, intelligent,youthful, charming,distinguishably beautiful , your hair is amazing and skin tone is flawless. You have some anger , I brought it out. I was never sexually attracted to you nor addicted to you. I was intrigued by you, I looked up to you, I wanted to be like you. I was obsessed at one time, but I'm always obsessed abut something. Yet something about me, I feel triggered you. Maybe the mommy thing, I was so needy, I never considered your feelings or personal space. I wanted too much, too fast .... I don't blame you. You will always have a spot in my heart for you are a season in my life. I want to hate you but I can't, you have taught me inadvertently, that everything in life is not black and white. *In the end I wish we could have worked things out , I am to blame. To have sat at your feet with my back against your knees on the shag carpet , I would have open the flood gates of all the years of pain. Tears would have streamed down my face and rested hidden in the pinks of the carpet. *I just needed to hear you cared....nothing you could have modeled would have ever evoked that kind of emotion. No amount of talking... I needed to hear it and feel human touch at the same time, my downfall. You are a wonderful Therapist and a remarkable person. I will only regret that I never got to say good by in person. My last words on my way out were goodbye....if I had only known that was the end.

Lola


. <------ Link to picture

LC, how did you want it to come off? What were you aiming for?

Stopdog that's a good question. I didn't want it to be mean or crazy or hateful. Does it say closure? Can you just hug me?

Got, maybe I wanted to make her feel guilty and see that it wasn't all my fault ...in a good way of course.

Sure. It will be okay.

It seemed very honest and raw.

I do hope this brings the final closure you desire.

it's kind of a place of honor, isn't it? a favored child position or something? I LOVE that spot. there is something submissive in it, yet powerful at the same time. I used to want to sit there with previous t/pdoc (he had huge furniture, I almost felt petite in there, it was great!). Current T said he used to sit with his mom like that.

it sounds like this therapy ended WAAAAY before it was over, and that maybe she couldn't handle your romantic / parental transference. Not so much because of the gay aspect, but because psychoanalytic psychotherapy wasn't really her thing? And she wasn't able to "contain" you. I don't see the therapeutic alliance. I see idealization and acting out, but not partnership.

There's a lot of anguish and disappointment in that letter--grief really. But I don't hear closure--especially not with the ambivalent statement about wanting to see 2 Ts.

I've experienced a painful termination, and it sucks. My exT could never be who I wanted or, even much more minimally and realistically, who I needed. I think I was convinced of that when I left even though I ended my last session hyperventilating and sobbing. You don't seem quite convinced yet, given the idealization I hear. I hope your new T can help bring you to an acceptance of her inadequacies, so the yearning that seems to be present in you tapers off a bit because yearning is a bi tch, and this one damn sure ain't gonna be quenched--at least not by your exT.

You say you wanted her to know it wasn't all your fault, but in your letter you specifically say: I am to blame. and I don't blame you.

Do you see how including those sentences is at odds with your stated goal? That contradiction is definitely something that could be productive to explore with your new T. Maybe it's limited to this context, or maybe it's part of a pattern of communication--saying something other than what you mean or even its opposite and expecting the other person to infer your real meaning.

My personal preference is always for brevity. But that's just me.

LolaCabanna - Were you forced to terminate with your T or did you do it by your own choice?

Hugs, anyhow! I am here for you and I feel your pain!

I completly agree, we had no closure session and I reached out for one via my new T and she said no. So there will never be full closure until, time has passed...until then sheer will power to avoid thinking about it...I'm in a funk, this too shall pass. But overall, it was like be rejected by my mother all over again, this time it was the good mother I wanted that I made my xT and that hurt even more

I'm not sure I follow , lol please explain...


it's complicated... feel free to,relive that craziness which is my life , by reading my past threads. I was leading up to termination , may have done it and she referred me.

New T said the letter was beautiful as was the picture. I'm beginning to him.