Getting better=No T=Fear of getting better?

Has anyone experienced this?
I have only just realised how scary it is to feel OK for the first time in many years. Therapy is helping me a LOT, and last week i actually felt HAPPY all week
However, in the back of mind i know that getting 'well' means i wont see my T anymore. That makes me sad, but i also know it'll be a good thing. But i find myself feeling scared of being 'too well' because i wont need to see T.

I'm confused.

I hear you. For ages I was terrified that any sign of improvement would mean termination.

My T is in private practice and has promised that I can come to therapy even when I don't need to any more if that's what I want, so long as he hasn't died.

In my case I think it comes from a parent looking for any excuse to say I was fine and not support me.

Thanks TR. I dont know what is wrong woth me today, i have been wanting to text my T to make sure she still wants to work with me. I am struggling with those feelings of abandonment big time today

I have felt this way too, sometimes to the point of sabotaging my own progress so I could still work with T. I realize all Ts are different, and some systems require termination at a certain point. Not sure if that is the case for you? Have you talked about this with T? I am nowhere near ending work with my T, but we occasionally discuss what happens when I am doing better. We may decrease sessions, but T has let me know that as long as I'm willing to do work, I can continue with her. She said some people benefit from therapy indefinitely, which made me feel a lot better.

I hate those abandonment feelings though! Hope you feel better soon!

Thanks HH.
My T constantly reassures me that she isn't going to terminate me any time soon and thinks i have a lot of work to do before she would say i am ready to scale back sessions.
I struggle to believe her though, especially at the moment because of these feelings

I am trying to work out what triggered them, but i dont really know.

Feelings Suck

I've thought about that as well. I know that I'm nowhere near ready to end therapy now, but I think about when that time comes and I hyperventilate.

I do that with other things as well. I'm working on my thesis for grad school, but not very hard, because honestly, I like being in grad school and don't particularly want it to end. I don't really need the degree all that badly, nor do I need to get a fulltime job right away (I'm semi-retired). I like the social aspects of school and hanging out with my advisor and doing my research. When I finish, that all goes away.

This is where I am. I started seeing my T six months ago for grief counseling. It has turned into dealing with marriage issues. I just started marriage counseling this week with another therapist. My personal T is helping me process my feelings from the marriage counseling. I'm now afraid if things get better with my marriage I won't have any reason to continue seeing my personal T.

Sounds like you need more concrete information - it's hard to believe in a general concept, e.g. that your T won't terminate before you're ready. My T and I have talked through a lot of very specific what-ifs which has helped.

I thought I was the only one who's scared of this.

This is a common thing, you are certainly not alone. I think there is some anxiety involved in the idea that if you get better then you're going to lose the current relationship. And when it ends, there's obviously some grief in saying goodbye to the therapist. It's essentially similar to other close relationships you develop with select others.

Sometimes there is enough time that you can do this slowly and process it well. Sometimes it is not so. For instance it could happen that the therapist might die or develop a serious personal illness or be forced to move far away for whatever reason. Usually they will do their best to transfer the person's care to another therapist they're familiar with. But it's not so easy for the patient because it's not like you can extract the relationship and transfer it to someone else as if it was an object. That original relationship took a long time to develop.

Luckily the above doesn't happen frequently. I think another thing that many good therapists do is try to get the patient to develop good, close, and "healthy" relationships outside the office. That way, "losing" the therapist will feel less damaging and painful. Because for someone with no reliable supportive relationships out there, losing the therapist, even if as a result of patient's general improvement and better mental health, can be almost traumatic.

Thanks everyone, it's nice to know i am not alone in this.

It will be okay; when you get "too well" you will also want to spend your time and money doing something besides going to therapy where you won't have much to say anymore and it will get kind of boring. It is always sad to leave people we enjoy working with but that happens when we change jobs, move, friends & relatives die or move, etc.