If you miss your T constantly, is that a warning bell?

I realised this weekend that 'missing' my therapist is like the backdrop to my life. She is never far away from my mind. I don't even know why or what is going on, but I am so sad. I feel a bit awful saying this because I love her so much, but sometimes I wish I could press a button and forget her.

It is all well and good saying that transference should be worked through, and then it stops feeling like a pile of balls like this. But I wonder if sometimes it is simply too much? I am too dependent on this therapist and she will never be able to do enough because she is a therapist.

I feel quite sad because I think I have to give her scarf back, give the little gift back she gave me last year, and tell her that we need more firm boundaries where she doesn't do nice things for me, doesn't hug or come with me to hospital appointments, and doesn't tell me anything about herself anymore, because it makes me want her more. But if I ask her for all those changes, therapy will be totally different. It's almost like asking her to be a different person. I already feel distant from her thinking about this stuff.

I had such a nice weekend in terms of seeing people I truly love who actually want to spend time with me. Mulled wine and a quick catch up with good friends in London before getting out of town to a beautiful part of the countryside for a night seeing another good friend, watching dvds and stuffing our faces with nice food and drinking fizzy wine. I did not actually want my therapist during these times, it isn't that..it's more that every now and then she would cross my mind and I would feel so, so sad and excruciatingly alone even though I was with people I want to be with, and then annoyed because why am I even thinking about her? Why is my head trying to ruin my nice weekend with other people?? It doesn't make sense.

Why am I so ungrateful? Why can't I just accept the kindness, and not feel the longing for more?

It strikes me that these are all just thoughts, and thoughts do not need to be given great or even any significance. For example, I do not see why you are "ungrateful" for having thoughts about wanting more from your therapist. It seems like you are being hard on yourself.

What has worked for me when my thoughts are bumping into my present (usually nice) experiences is to just allow those thoughts to exit in the same way they came. Sometimes I imagine tying them to little balloons and letting them float away. It might be that meditation has taught me that thoughts come and go, and made it easier to let them go. And that I can choose which ones I focus on.

Feels like background and foreground. A painting needs both. A life needs both. The background supports the foreground. Come to think of it, my drawings are not big on background. The foreground just sort of floats there - a weird bunch of flowers, the alphabet. I didnt grow up with a background. It feels like too much, doesnt it?

Thank you, I love the thing about the balloons! I wish I could do this! I am seriously rubbish at that sort of trying to control my thoughts though. They just are free range and when I try to do that sort of thing I feel like I'm lying to myself. This is why me and CBT are a disaster.

My mother wants me to do a mediatation class, and I am interested. I just think I will be crap at it though. But perhaps like a lot of other stuff meditation can be learned, even if you aren't a natural at it.

This is a really interesting way to put it. So how do we get a background then? I am confused! How do we do it right?

IG, I remember how much your therapist means to you from other posts you made. It is okay that you feel close to your t. It shows that you find caring and compassion there. There is nothing wrong with that.

I get feeling really sad too when you say you must give the scarf back. I feel that is the uncaring mother character in me saying I can't have caring or compassion, punishing me to give it back. I want to say no to her - I just want to put my foot down and say enough is enough. You have run my life and made me suffer but you cannot make me do that anymore. You don't have power over me anymore.

I hope I haven't triggered you, but it really makes me indignant to hear that hard cold voice say I can't have a gift of caring and compassion.

You are right, if you make all those changes and follow the cold hard voice inside that says the therapist cannot be caring and compassionate, it will change therapy.

We all have that voice that wants to rule our lives like a tyrant and it will if we let it. Don't let it snuff out any caring and compassion in your life.

It is okay to feel attachment to the only person that you know who shows you caring and compassion no matter what you reveal to them.

The longing for more is the human condition. We want more than a person can give us. It may not be ingratitude, just this deep deep longing in our hearts. Some say that is the human condition. Some say this is what brings us to a better place. Home.

Its like what candc says - you dont have to give the scarf back - it can become part of your background. We dont have to choose between background - mum / t - and foreground - friends and our future.

I think it is about *not* controlling your thoughts, but giving them some attention and then allowing them to exit. Meditation is about letting go, starting over, so it may be that a meditation class would help you.

I used to think meditation was just a bunch of woo-woo junk, then I tried it, and kept at it, then started Tai Chi and found the ability to go deeper. I wouldn't claim that it's for everybody, but the worst that can happen is nothing. Not the worst side effect I've ever heard.

Thank you for your post, and no I am not triggered I am actually still very stable, and thinking about this in a calm way, even though I am sad.

I just am so confused. Last week, my T took lots of photos for me from a book, and one of them was the saying-

"When I loved myself enough, I stopped settling for too little"

But how do you even know what is too little? My relationship with her, for some mysterious reason, feels like it can't ever be enough. Not at all her fault. My stuff, obviously. But why don't I feel this way with friends? Why why why?! Is it just because I can call them at 3am if I had an emergency and that 'proves' they care about me? I dunno.

The bit in bold, I think is very wise and true, in fact it's kind of what my brother and my mother argue back at me when I bleat about how lonely I am. They'll say we are all alone really, when it comes down to it.

But why am I severely not ok with it, to the point where it contaminates everything in daily life, and everyone else seems to be fine with it? And it's not strictly true anyway - my attachment injuries mean it is impossible for me to ever have a romantic relationship again, so I don't allow myself to think about even looking for one. But that makes life more lonely.

No, but the scarf makes me wish she was foreground rather than background.

I am actually having - not a panic attack, but like a spiky sadness attack, at the idea of her never being in the foreground This is what I mean. It's not good for me. I can't cope with...whatever this is. I am a disgrace to strong women everywhere!

But its your life - the focal point is wherever you are. Foreground and background are just constructs.

Im sorry this metaphor doesnt work for you. But thanks for opening it up to me.

I am curious what more you would want from her? My T doesn't do any of the stuff that your T does but I wouldn't mind if she did. It seems like it would be nice, not a bad thing at all.

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No, I get that we are the focal points of our own lives, but in my interpretation of the metaphor the 'foreground' people are the close people we share our lives with, and the 'background' is other people who maybe are very important, but who we don't engage with as much. Like perhaps loved ones who are dead, or friends from the past we don't see anymore, or therapists.

I wish I knew what I wanted, that would be a really great start...

The things she does are wonderful. Not bad. It's just my crappy brain gets upset at the contrast of her when she is physically 'there' or responding to my communications, and when she is 'not there' in that way. I know I am being very unfair and unreasonable, by the way.

I have had a rather bad day so far in terms of everything going wrong, and I'm handling it ok and calmly, and curiously don't feel the pangs of wanting to contact my therapist. Not sure if I'm just coping pretty well or in fact withdrawing in a weird kind of way. Although, I am determined I won't let myself actually withdraw and go bananas and cancel even if I do start to want to

Why am I so ungrateful? Why can't I just accept the kindness, and not feel the longing for more?

I think the depth of the longing is a mirror reflection of the depth of the need, and the need isn't fulfilled until it's fulfilled. That doesn't make you ungrateful, it makes you a feeling human being. My guess is that why you don't feel this longing with your friends is because they don't reflect the core need. They don't activate it, so you don't need them to fulfill it.

You're in transition, in the middle of it all, so you can't envision the need ever being fulfilled, but it can be. You just have to be patient and stay open to it. I think the fear that the love will overwhelm you is a red herring, or a defense. The fear is real, but it doesn't reflect the reality.

It seems you are pushing away a lot at the thought that you may not deserve them or they hurt too much. Don't give back the gifts but definitely talk to your T. about how it all feels. She may adjust her style but I don't think it will be a drastic as your imagining. I think as we go through therapy we need different things at different times. I got mad when my T. called us friends a few months ago but maybe I needed to hear that to increase my lack of trust. I don't know.
You are also saying you aren't capable of having a relationship before it even happens - again pushing away the thought/possibility.
I also used to think about my T. all the time: what is she doing, oh she would like this, think this is funny, etc. It used to really bother me but it has lessened. By that I mean it's not all day or all the time but it's definitely every day. So, I can completely relate. I've told her that I think about her and therapy way too much. She didn't have much of a response - I think she expects it to a degree as part of the processing.

I like feralkittymom's response!

Before I started therapy a few months ago, I had the feeling that all my relationships with caring friends were in my background, kind of shaping my identity, and rooting me, even if I don't see them all often (my family are not supportive figures in my background like this). I also feel that my T has now taken a dominant position in my background. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Though I feel that it is in some level supportive, I was quite alone in a way as I had never been able to talk about some things with any of my friends, and I think this made me lonely. When I decided to quit my therapy not long ago and had one day of being quit in my mind, I had a sense of loss, but also I got something of myself back, a kind of personal independent strength. I think that perhaps therapy has some drawbacks. Hopefully the benefits outweight the drawbacks?

Oh okay. I am seeing the painting as my daily life. The support to live my daily life is the background; the stuff i do day to day is the foreground. I ride the bus to t - foreground. I see t - background. I lead a pretty simple life. Dead people arent really in the picture anymore - theyve been painted over. Maybe they add to the texture of my life.

I like this analogy - thanks! (Or is it a metaphor? Or both? LOL)

I don't think you need to return the scarf or that it's a warning sign.

I think about my T when I see him more often (like I am now, weekly) and when I'm in a tougher place (as I have been this year). During the brief period over the last six years when things were relatively stable and I was seeing him every other month, I hardly gave him a second thought.

I've learned to be okay with this. I value his presence, want his presence, need his presence in my life and I am dependent on him. That's not easy for me as I have often valued my independence. That being said, I think of my toddler learning to walk and when he held my hand in that period leading up to independent walking. Would I chide him for being dependent on me then? Do I now, when he hits a new terrain and needs my hand? Or what of those that have some sort of condition that prevent them from being able to walk independently? Perhaps emotionally they go through some level of pain at needing a walker or the like, and yet I would never tell them that they are too dependent on it. It is a need and one that allows them some mobility where they would have none.

I guess I think of my T like that, except for my depression. I need a walker. Sometimes I can manage on my own and other times, I need his hand to help me through. And so, when I am without him, trying to navigate the world on my own, I find I miss him and his support and I am learning how to build other supporters around me in those that I see day to day (like my husband).