Closure

It's been almost five months since my exT terminated me. I've been meeting mostly regularly with my new T since then. She (new T) has been quite helpful, and I feel a lot more distanced from the incredibly painful emotions I experienced after exT terminated me.

I'm torn now about whether I want to do a closure session with exT. She's insisted that if I want to do so, I need new T to contact her to arrange a joint meeting between the three of us. In talking with new T about this, she's said that she would really prefer that she be the one to lead any kind of closure session with exT, but that she's of course unsure about whether exT would be open to that.

My T has been pushing me to define what exactly I might want from a closure session with exT. Mostly I think I don't want to leave things hanging the way they have been for the past months. I feel like I want to go in with my head held high to tell her that I'm not going to allow her to have power over me anymore. But what would that really accomplish? I don't know. Any thoughts about what might be gained and/or lost by having a closure session?

I would think that it would probably be too late for a closure session, plus it might be for the best because if you did have one than something could happen that would make you wish that you didn't have one (much like what happened to me when my last Therapist wouldn't accept a farewell hug from me).

Ouch, I'm sorry that your T cut you off like that. You make a good point that it might just be best to move on.

I guess I don't really see the point. You talk of what you'd want from the session as though you're talking about confronting an abuser. Your former T is unlikely to say anything you want to hear under those conditions. There's no hope or possibility of a reconciliation, so there would be no opportunity to work anything out with her that you couldn't better work through with your current T. It just feels like there isn't anything to gain except an amorphous sense of closure--which might even backfire and just reopen wounds.

All true. It's interesting that you frame it as if I'm confronting an abuser. I hadn't thought of it in that way. I think more than anything the point is to say goodbye.

Good morning,

I would write a letter to ex T. I would let the words flow uncensored. I would then take it to new T and read it. If you can connect your feelings to what you write, it might bring a sense of closure.

Sabra

I feel like I want to go in with my head held high to tell her that I'm not going to allow her to have power over me anymore.

This^ is what made me think abuser. It doesn't sound like a simple good-bye. I guess it feels unresolved--as though the hope is that going through this will result in a feeling of closure, rather that it being a presentation of a resolved good-bye.

I remember when I was able to recognize good in my parents. I never had the desire to forgive their abuse, but the feeling when I was able to accept that there was good along side the bad, was very freeing. I couldn't separate from them as long as they existed in my mind only as abusers: the negative attachment was too strong. It was only when I could recognize the positive as well that the bond lessened and I could let it go.

I don't know the situation with your ex-T, but somehow your bond feels a bit similar.

I think it's really natural to want to tell the person who kept you down that they aren't keeping you down anymore. For me, when I have felt that way, that I need to make a point of directing my "revenge by living well" right at them, it's often because it feels like they're cheating me out of one more thing by not letting me get the last word in. As if they "win" somehow, or get to pull one last nasty trick by being allowed to believe that I am not better off without them.

The thing is, though, I can't really change the way someone rationalizes to themselves about our relationship. It might bring you some sense of closure to have this session with exT -- but if it has no impact on her whatsoever, will it really help you? Or will it do nothing, because even putting it right there for her hasn't impacted her thinking, and she still "wins" by actively keeping herself in that zone where she believes she didn't do anything wrong?

In fact in some ways it can really look like desperation on your part -- for instance, ex-boyfriends that have to come back to me and throw in my face how much better their current relationships are... it just comes off as sad and bitter a lot of the time. I'm not saying this is how YOU are, but I am saying that it may be the way your T interprets it to herself, regardless of where you're really coming from.

Do you think there's an element of that for you? That she gets off easy somehow, or gets the unfair satisfaction of still having some kind of power over you, since she doesn't know otherwise? Do you think maybe you run the risk of walking right into that trap -- where you SAY she has no power over you, yet you go to her for closure, so in the end she can still tell herself she does?

(I don't mean to assume anything about what your T thinks. I'm kind of painting the picture of the worst case scenario, because that's something you have to consider here, with so many sensitive emotions on the line.)

I just terminated with my t of 11 years. We had a serious transference issue and she became very resentful and harsh with me. It is driving me crazy that she takes no responsibility for why things weren't working. I feel like I have to convince her and get her to admit her part but I know I can't do that. I don't know how to just move on and not care what she thinks.

Can you tell us why she terminated you so we can frame the situation a bit better ?

I think I would wait for a closure session, it sounds like you are still working through the termination part which is probably somehow connected to your past. Best of luck to you!

You're absolutely right that it feels unresolved, and I see how that could very well set me up in a huge way if I tell myself I only want a closure session to say goodbye.

I think a part of what has been so difficult with exT is that I saw good in her all along. It was when I started noticing what felt like her anger, which she relentlessly denied, that I started to wobble. I believed her perception over mine, that I was crazy for thinking she was angry.

And maybe she really wasn't angry. Maybe it was all projection on my part. What really got me though is that she refused to talk with me about it.

Thanks for sharing your experience, FKM. As I'm writing, I recognize that perhaps I want a closure session so that I can reconnect with some of the good that used to be there.

Ah! Yes, exactly. I *know* the "best revenge" is living well, and I think I'm doing that for the most part. But I want her to know it, damnit! That I'm just fine without her.

I laughed when I read the part about ex-boyfriends. I think what I'm trying to do absolutely can be perceived as desperate. If I can just drive up to T's office in my new fancy car, with my arms around two new hot Ts...

Seriously, though, my new T and I have talked about what if exT doesn't respond in the way I want, or responds in some awful, stubborn kind of way. I think I've come to terms with the obvious idea that I don't get to control how exT perceives anything about our therapy. But at least I get to know that I did everything I could to not play into my pattern of shutting down and allowing others to dictate my reality.

Idk, maybe I'm deluding myself into thinking that a closure session will be the thing to evict exT from my head once and for all. I mean, obviously it doesn't work like that, but...

You succinctly summarized pretty much exactly what my experience has been. The new T I have been seeing has tried to convince me that moving on is about understanding at a very deep level that I'm ok regardless what anyone thinks about me. She also acknowledges that it might take a really long time to get there.

I had consulted with an additional T (about an area that was not my Ts expertise) during the time I was seeing my exT. My exT and I had had a lot of difficulties in our relationship that pretty much stemmed from an enactment of attachment trauma from my past.

When I told exT that I felt much better understood by consultant T than by her, she told me we needed to end. I had, in fact, been talking with her for a couple of months about how I felt as if I had overstayed my welcome in therapy and should leave. However, I had also told her that I really wanted to be able to resolve the enactment with her.

That's the really abbreviated version.

Hi formerly Antimatter! Good to see you

If you feel like you need a closure session then it's might be because you do. Maybe you just need to stand up for yourself, speak your mind, let exT know that you care about how others treat you. Too late? I don't know about that. Sometimes we have to work our way up to being able to do difficult things. Who says that you don't have a right to speak your mind just because it's been several months. I'm NOT saying that you should definitely do it. You have a lot to consider but I don't think being too long is one of them. Sometimes it takes years before we can even admit that someone hurt us that doesn't negate their responsibility or your rights.

That's why I'm in therapy now. Because someone hurt me long ago.

But I would recommend that you know and maybe even write down exactly what you want to say and how you want to say it. It might be worth writing down the things you don't want to say to help you keep more control over your emotions and the situation.

Well, because you asked...(;

:hug



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Those are some great insights, likelife. It sounds like you are on the right track; going back just to make a point doesn't seem worth it, but giving yourself the chance to restore a more complete and relatable picture of your ex-T, so you can truly move on, seems like a healthy goal.