[skycastle]

(trigger warning if you don't like to read about termination)

I guess that's the topic of my post. I'm scaling back on therapy to every other week. My T gave me a good, reliable time in the evening and we're going to stick with this schedule for a while if it goes okay.

I don't think I'm done with therapy. I have some things to work through still related to sexuality, anxiety, and self-esteem. I also have things that I feel I need to talk through but haven't done so yet--bad memories, basically, that I want to share with someone.

Still, even though I expect I will land back in therapy in the future, I'm thinking now is the time to wrap up with my current T. I'm tired of being so dependent on her. I want to experience some fun in my youth and learn to rely more on my peers. Also, I make very little money, and I don't want to spend what little I have on therapy appointments. Finally, I just haven't invested myself in therapy as I would have liked, and it has been a few years. I wonder if I may need a new T to take those next steps--or maybe just a significant life event to motivate me to dig deeper.

I don't think that my T and I will ever have the intimate conversations I've been hoping for. I feel surprisingly detached about this and about seeing less of her. Intellectually, I know she has played a core role in my development, but emotionally, I just feel some simple appreciation to her for being an okay therapist over the years. (I also don't feel like I can tell her this because I don't want to hurt her feelings.)

In the meantime, I feel like I've been having these crazy-weird transference feelings kick in for someone I was deeply attached to (and probably inappopriately attached to) when I was an adolescent, to the point that he has been showing up regularly in my dreams. I do wonder if somehow this is tied into the distancing I've been feeling with my T and whether it will also pass once therapy is wrapped up.

Essentially, I don't want to take any risks of leaning on my therapist if it will get me to a point where I am deeply longing for her when she takes her long trip this summer. I'm kind of, you know, over that. And maybe that's okay. Maybe I just need to be a little more independent. I'm not really distressed about it, which is weird, but fine.

I guess I have some thoughts to sort through. I wonder if you all have any input.

My advice... talk to your T about all of this....

[WikidPissah]

sky. it sounds like you have thought it thru. Sometimes we need to push forwards, sometimes we need to step back, sometimes we need to stand still. Only you know what you need right now, and I don't see any problem with backing off on T a bit. You're doing it the right way ie:cutting back instead of just quitting.

[skycastle]

Thanks. I might try to talk with T about it. I mean, it wouldn't be wise of me to put a relationship with someone who I'll probably never see again (once therapy ends) over my mental health. I am the person responsible for making sure that I am okay, so I guess I need to do what I need to do to ensure that I am actually, in fact, okay. This might involve letting my therapist down a little bit. I guess I just wish I could tell her Thank You So Much You're The Best Therapist Ever You Met All Of My Needs You Are A Super Genius I Will Be Eternally Grateful You Are Amazing, but instead, I just have a mild thank you along with some doubts.

I've felt just like you once about my T... I cut back on sessions which of course added to the distance and indifference I was feeling about T... I blamed T for it...said it wasn't great...it wasn't helping...etc... Then one week I told him that I quit. He convinced me to comeback and have a final session...which was helpful...in someways he was honest about things that he never said to me before... He said lots of things some helpful some honest to point of sort of hurting... But said if I wanted to come back he would be around...

Months went by and I realized that I was avoiding getting to close to him... that I was pushing him away because I didn't want to let anyone get that close to let anyone mean too much... to be too important to me... and because we had just started on a subject that was totally different and it (the whole T thing ) was feeling like too much and panic alarms of "get out why you can" were going off in my head...

Guess what nothing got better on its own...all the reasons I went to T in first place (that hadn't been resolved) were still there... I ended up calling him and waiting a while to get an appt to go back...

All of that pain could have been avoided if I could have just went to him and said for some reason I feel like I have to keep you at a distance.... I don't want to like you... I don't want you to mean anything to me... and I prefered not to see you again.

I think my T could have helped me deal with all of that without having wasted months... on the slow fade...the I quit... the I need to come back but you have no openings... and the awkard... I'm back...help me reconnect things..

My point in sharing is just so you could ask yourself if there are any underlying reasons... or think of what is possible to discuss with your T....

[critterlady]

Readytostop - thanks for posting that. I've been feeling like I needed to pull back from T, to keep myself from getting hurt. I've had a lot of losses in the last few months and that part of me that protects me was screaming, "back up, back up! Don't get more attached! He'll just hurt you like all those others have!"

I told that to T this week and we had what I think was our best session yet. I've realized now that it's really okay to be attached to him until I don't need to be anymore. That may be a long time, it may not. He's told me repeatedly that he's in this with me and he's not going anywhere. I need to trust that and let him help me work through the things I started him seeing him for in the first place.

[skycastle]

Hi, I REALLY appreciate your input and the different perspective/experience. I guess I see how it may be that I'm just afraid of getting closer. There are a lot of things it could be. I just want my therapist to tell me which one it is because I feel like I can't tell for myself who I am or what I want or what I'm feeling or what is right or what I'm worth. I am trying to defer to her, and I'm pretty sure she won't let me.

I'm going to bring some of this up tomorrow, maybe. My obsession with this other person is getting a lot more intense and maybe I'm just kicking it up a notch because I want to create drama but it's still probably worth talking about.

I just wish I could find the confidence and trust in myself to be okay and to TRUST that I'm okay. If I could do that, I think I could be fine and move on. I am doing way better than I ever was, but I remained deeply insecure.

[skycastle]

....I didn't manage to bring up any of this with my therapist today.

I feel sick and tired.

I'm fine with reading about terminations. I just struggle with the "dependency" word. If that's what it feels like then terminating doesn't make that feeling disappear it just means it doesn't get processed and leaks out in other relationships to people/places/things

[skycastle]

Soooo I decided apparently to NOT confide in my therapist but instead to confide in some of my peers but also reach out to this person who I had this really weird arguably inappropriate but not necessarily so (totaly grey area) relationship with over a decade ago. Life is weird. Maybe it's just time to propel things forward and stop living in the fantasy that has been therapy.

Therapy is where we get too resolve fantasies. Perhaps it's fantasie you want too hold onto?

[skycastle]

Originally Posted by earthmamma

Therapy is where we get too resolve fantasies. Perhaps it's fantasie you want too hold onto?

Maybe therapy is a fantasy, and maybe these other relationships and ideas are fantasies, and maybe I'm just moving from one fantasy to the other, without really ever resolving anything because there's nothing beyond fantasy and thus nothing to resolve. Maybe I'm not seeking resolution but rather seeking action, engagement, investment, interaction. Maybe I'm just exercising my right to choose, which is an accomplishment, anyhow.