Hard Realizations - Email I Sent to T

I am sorry you are suffering so much.

Your letter is beautifully and coherently stated, however. It sounds like you have a deep and deepening understanding of yourself, what you need, and what the reality of your circumstances is. If I were your T, I would be proud of you for such realizations and such honesty. I don't know you, but your letter sounds like you've come pretty far.

It sounds like you are in great pain and you really don't have to do this alone. Yes, there are limits, and yes, you will experience your suffering inside of yourself - but you can share it, like you have in your letter to your T and here to us.

Reading your letter reminds me a little of my own experience of feeling like I need too much from the others, like I am too much. I used to imagine that if I gave way to my needs and desires, I would end up requiring way more than reasonable. It took me a long time to realize that, in fact, I don't normally need as much as I fear I do. It's just that, without going the way, allowing yourself to want and need and ask and check with yourself, you'll never know how much is or isn't enough for you. This can be done in therapy. Now, your experience may well be very different from mine, all I'm saying is that it may be worth your while to face this fear sometime, when you're ready, whether or not you choose to quit therapy for now. You may surprise yourself. Or you may understand your child parts, your adult self may learn how not to scream at those child parts for needing what seems like too much. I kind of see how a child might really, really need a whole lot of love especially when the parent is screaming at him or her for just wanting without limits, as children do.

If you gain this understanding, this acceptance of yourself, then the prize may be worth it, because even if the prize at the end of your yellow brick road is yourself, you don't have to be alone when you get there.

Hi Peaches. I am so sorry you are in so much pain and anguish. I can relate to every single word you have written. It is such a difficult place to be, isn't it. I too have reached out to my T (for whom I have exactly the same feelings and experiences as you describe)and I too have been reprimanded by her for invading her boundaries (for texting). She will not reply between sessions now Except to confirm the time of our next apt. I feel so abandoned and pathetic.i only text when I am really struggling. These holidays have also made me realize I am her work and will never be anything more which really hurts but it is a good realization. I hate myself for being so needy and desperate for her approval. I don't know what to add except I feel your pain through your post.

I think the replies you have received from other posters have been brilliant - they have certainly given me a lot to think about. Thank you so very much for having the courage to start this thread and to share your letter. It can't have been easy and I really respect that. Thank you.

From the two parts i highlighted above I think you have allowed yourself to feel T's love and acceptance even if only in small portions... before you have to step back in pain. I understand feeling like you are too much... but its because you have so much fear about having these needs. (or thats how it was with me)... once I learned that i could survive the pain... and that I wouldn't die or fall apart and that my T even though he didn't get it wasn't going to abandon me...

in other words for me the pain and neediness was extreme for me because needing anything from anyone seems so extreme but to a T who understands having emotional needs and getting them met didn't think it was so extreme..

but you are right you will run up against the boundaries of the relationship and those are to remind you that T is not a replacement for what we missed out on.... but is there for us now.

Peaches... I totally understand this... I went through times when it almost felt like I was reliving some of the past... I would spend Saturdays in bed crying...grieving...feeling all of that stored up pain... I've contacted my T during that time via email...and he would remind me that I'm not in the past...that those things we from the past and not what is going on now... it was helpful... for me it was going through all of that ...to one grieve the past and what I missed that I needed and the other reason is that it shows you that its made worst by the fear of it... that fear gives the pain and past more power than it really has....

One thing that my T said to me that was helpful was to set time aside... to journal about the past and then to let myself feel those feelings and then to have something I had to do to get me out of that place.... For me... I used to do it on Saturday morning... sometimes I spent all day in bed and then was still in a funk on Sunday but would always force myself to go to work.... I never allowed myself to miss work...

My H had to pick up a lot of my slack with household work and meals and kids... in hind sight I might have told him what I was going through but I just said I'm in a bad place...

that is just how it worked for me... it was my path..you will need to find your own path...