Terrified that T died

I'm not going to leave her. I can't imagine anything she could do (throwing out the ridiculous things I don't consider to be in the realm of things that could reasonably happen like murder or sexually assaulting me) that would make me leave and that is concerning to me. She could probably slap me and I'd just take the blame for it or justify it by saying I misunderstood and that is worrisome to me not just in this relationship but down the road. I don't have strong personal boundaries at all and that's probably why a T needs to have the boundaries I lack. But I'm not leaving

Is having stronger boundaries a goal for you?

No not stronger. Better. I either completely shut people out completely or I let them get away with too much. Like a bunch of my friends really suck. They are judgmental, catty, insult me, and ignore me/leave me out of stuff but I still stick with them because I'm scared of not having a group of friends. I do have good friends outside of these people too. But I need to figure out what I won't tolerate, when to walk away, when to give another chance, how to open up, and how to be okay with walking away.

(((((Growlithing))))) I'm glad your T is okay. Definitely share what happened with her. Be kind to yourself. thinking she was gone was a major crisis for you and those are never fun , not to mention exhausting. Sending you love. May angels surround you.

I don't think you should leave her. I still think she can be a real asset to you. And I'm glad you'll have a schedule this week; but what of next week? And the week after? I don't see anything wrong with your seeing her as a mom. I do have a concern about her lack of clarity in how she sees herself in relation to you. A big part of parenting is consistency: being where you say you'll be, emotional constancy, being an anchor to return to when the world tosses us around. She's not providing you with that. I think you're pulling it from her more than she's providing it. I think it's situational, but that's why I have questions about her status. Her role within the residential program was defined (even though she took on responsibilities outside of her defined job duties, she did so pretty consistently.) On her own, she seems in chaos. The fact that you recognize your willingness to "make up for" her mistakes shows that you are like the child parenting the parent. It's possible this can work, but a side effect is that it's also creating anxiety that wouldn't exist otherwise.

I've said before that I think part of the reason you haven't developed a bond with TT is because all of your emotional energy is tied up with LCM. You don't have to see TT as a mom in order to benefit from working with her. But you do need the safety and security of the therapy frame to do trauma work, and LCM can't provide that.

growli I do believe that LCM does have a purpose in your life and can be a positive influence in your life. although like feralkittymom says to some extent .what that roll is needs to be a bit more defined. I don't necessarily see her behavior as unethical at all if she is acting in a different roll .something other then therapist such as life coach. I am not exactly sure what the roll of a life coach is .maybe it is more of a teacher ,parent friend roll. more tailored on a personal level to what your needs are. but I would doubt very much that it is like the roll of your TT or school T. maybe some of her behaviors would be definitely seen as unethical in the roll of a T, but she is not acting in that roll .you have I believe two other T for that (sometimes I wonder with so many T that you could use someone to teach you not to be in your head so much and to make light of things) what I wonder is how this relationship seems to hinder your relationship with TT. I wonder if you are able to see how the two need to be different .that I know from reading your posts there seems to be some confusion there. maybe I am wrong. that you are wanting LCM to play that roll and the roll of TT and everything to the point that you are unable to work on the issues that will need to be worked on at some point such as trauma stuff. again I may be wrong but it seems through your posts that you have difficulty in managing life on the most basic levels .such as needing to be told to brush your teeth, shower, and how to eat properly. in this case a LC can be awesome and allows someone to deal with you on that basic level on a daily basis. something a T can not do. at the same time I cant see the LC being able to deal with you on such a basic level on a daily basis and also play the roll of a T who gives you the emotional structure you need in dealing with your traumatic past. I believe YOU are doing yourself a huge disservice by focusing so much on LCM and your relationship with her that you are not utilizing the help being offered to you by your T also. the help that will allow you to heal , grow, and move forward.
again I don't see your LCM as acting like your T at all so don't necessarily see her behavior as unethical. ant this may just be my crap because I have been exactly where you are and in fact ended out living with my counselor. I had a very hard time transitioning to such a different relationship and wanted her to also continue filling the roll of T as well as mom and teacher etc... I understand it is hard. but remember you have other recourses. anyway just my 2 cents not worth much and will probably get blasted for my opinion but heck I haven't been blasted by pc in a bit im over due

I think that while LC has a lot of potential to help you, there is a looooot hindering that.

For one, your TT should be taking some priority here. Both in regards to your effort (as you put very little into your relationship and work with TT from what you post here), and in regards to TT's direction with LC. Your LC needs guidelines, especially as this is a totally new role for her to be taking on. I think that if she and your TT were to actually work together (I'm pretty sure that they've touched base, but it sure doesn't sound like they've worked out a plan at all) they would be able to come up with a treatment plan for you that would actually be healthy. As it is, it looks like your LC is just sort of wandering cluelessly around and is causing more damage than help.

We all know that she isn't meaning to do that, but she does need to start acting like a Life Coach and not like an older friend. She's hurting you, and preventing you from working fully with your TT because you are so focused on the relationship with her - and the instability of it is definitely making that harder for you!

It might be useful for you to consider that your interpretations of her are at least part of the problem here. If this relationship becomes all about what she has to "fix" in this relationship to help you, I don't believe it will move you forward because this kind of distorted thinking and acting on those distortions will not move you forward in your healing. At best, focusing on what she's done "wrong" is distracting you from the real issue, which is that you have some large dysfunctions in social relationships, as you have pointed out with your friendships elsewhere in this thread, and certainly in your relationship with your parents.

Instead of spending your energy on communicating your distress because of her actions, and writing about that here, it might be useful for you to take a look at your interpretations of her words and actions, the quote above. First of all, other people's actions are never "obvious" in their meaning or motivation unless you ask them about them. You can't know what was in her head or what she was thinking. Second of all, there was no "leading on" or "making you an anxious wreck." The woman was very ill, and her failure to communicate wasn't about you. It was about her being sick. It is common for abuse victims to feel that everything is about them and that people do to them, because that is what abuse feels like. But that isn't the way that non-abusive relationships work, and I found that as I healed from the traumas, I stopped over-interpreting other people's words and actions. And it is possible to start doing this anytime, but first you have to stop yourself-- assuming you're interested in this rather than just complaining about what she's done to you and being reinforced in that. You can go back through your interpretations and come up with alternative reasons for what she said and done, and be willing to see how your interpretations are distorted.

I think only you know your relationship with LCM. I think the concerns people have expressed are good things to consider. I don't think I agree completely, but they have interesting points that sound good to consider. Perhaps they are right.

My experience with a T that ended up being unreliable and untrustworthy, although remarkably well-intenioned and caring, is that even in her mistakes, I learned some things I wouldn't want to give up. It ended up making my journey MUCH more painful, but I learned from that too. Mistakes are a funny things sometimes.

I get uncomfortable when I hear you defending your choices. I want you to feel free to explore, without feeling that you need to defend your choices. I don't mean I don't care about your decisions and whether you are helping/hurting yourself. I love how you are so clear that it wasn't something laughable, it was serious, you let her know that, AND you maintained a connection with her.

This is the problem. I do see how a lot of my thinking is distorted. I wasn't angry with her because I'm able to turn it around and see that she was sick and just messed up. What made me upset was when she belittled my reaction to it by laughing. Then I reinterpreted stuff like I did up there.

But I am so confused just in general when it comes to her. Stuff happens and I get upset and because I can see things from her perspective, I don't know whether to be angry or not.

For example, I skyped with her today. Her reactions to me seemed shallow to me. I didn't feel like she cared because she was somewhat neutral. She goes from being really sweet and loving to being kinda neutral every so often and I always get confused and upset. However, I do not know if she actually was acting more neutral or if she was just failing to give me the type of reaction or interaction I anticipated/wanted. I also can see that if she was more neutral, it's because she was very focused on watching me. She likes to watch my body language. When we are on the phone, she doesn't get that and when we are in person, there is no lag. So she could have seemed more neutral because of that. Or she could have just been having a different day and just was in a more professional head space or maybe all of this is in my head and I just interpreted her as neutral because her dog came into the picture and I saw her pet the dog and kiss her. In comparison, she was neutral to me and not at all affectionate. I told her how I felt about it and she just had me keep talking about how it made me jealous. But I don't know if I am or should be angry or not. It's really confusing to be crazy

I feel like I need to defend her. Not my choices. Because I love her and maybe to the outside, it may seem that she is too casual and unprofessional. I mean she skyped me from her bed. But the thing is that I don't think I need someone super professional. That sounds weird when you consider the amount of problems I have. And maybe I'm wrong and the relationship with LCM is clouding my judgement for what I really need. I don't know.

You could need both.