Dear T: I need to tell you something but I don't know how Part XIII

Dear T,

I want to ask you something but I'm afraid. Since I looked at your new FB photos, I have this desire to know if you were popular in elementary school and high school. Were you in the "in crowd"? I was never popular but I think you were. Or, were you one of those " nice girls " who were friends with everyone? I was always jealous of those girls who seemed to have everything: looks, brains, lots of friends, and boyfriends. They were poised and confident, unlike me. I'm an adult now, and all that was childish, but I'm still not popular. I still compare myself to others. If you were one of those popular girls, I feel awkward with you. I know you'd still be you but I will feel inferior. I feel sad about this. Please help me work through it.

Love,
Rainbow

I think I'm ready to be on my own.

dear t,

seeing you tomorrow. i'm not feeling great.

Try to hang on until tomorrow. Maybe leave a message for your T, if you think it would help. Or write down what you're thinking/feeling. Or keep posting here. Think of how your T would be proud of you for not doing that, if that would help.

I'm feeling better and I hate myself for it. Therapy is almost ending and I was feeling really sad about it. Now something has changed since I last saw you and I should be happy about feeling better, but all I feel is guilt. I'm afraid I'm not gonna miss you anymore and that I'll forget you. That I'll forget what you mean(t) to me. How can I feel this way? What is wrong with me?

thank you. i find it very difficult contacting my T out of hours because i'm terrified of intruding. writing down my feelings only serves to make me more miserable unfortunately. but i will keep posting here. thank you for your support Lonesome

FM,

As I said, I failed. It's a sorted addiction — a voyeur. Thanks for the email saying, "And you will get through this and be okay. I believe in you."

I just wish I believed in myself at the moment.

FM,
Sweatin like a boar...

Hey T! I want to know something. What happens to this connection after we terminate? Will it just fade away? Or will I feel it in some way forever? Will my dreams still pick up on your psyche like they do sometimes now? Of course, I won't know if they have, when I'm no longer talking about them with you. Which I suppose is fine. Okay so I want to know another something, too. How the heck do we say goodbye to "us", to this therapeutic relationship, that has meant so very much to me, and that has provided some profound moments for you as well? We both know it's time. But I'm not sure either of us know how.

It's not my place to ask what's happened but I'm sorry and hope for the best for you and your family. You should take whatever time off you want or need. I'll be okay and hope your other clients would say the same. I do care about you even though I'm a bit of a pest with you. Thanks BTW for asking if X or Y was my goal. That was thoughtful of you to stay neutral. You're a good T.

Darling T -

I'm so tired of fighting. I'm so tired of being strong. I just want this to all go away. Please take it away...

~EM

Dear T,

Oh god, T, you scare me. You tell me this or that...you do this or that...and if it is slightly different from what PrevT would do..I feel scared and question to myself, "Is this right? Is this ethical? Do you know what you are doing?" I feel scared! I feel scared I am about to get hurt again..scammed again...traumatized again! Intellectually I understand this is just PTSD ....but ..emotionally I am frightened, alert and anxious. After what I have been through, I will never trust again...and that hurts.

FM,

Failed miserably today, but I have hope for tomorrow.

The other little problem, I stayed strong in my interaction, and the message may get through. But, I will not change course. Yeah! for me.

I wish so badly I could call you and find out whether your husband is considering hiring me for the job. But I want to keep things as separated as possible so I won't call you. But pretty please, could nudge him a bit to give me an answer as quickly as possible. This wait is killing me!

dear t,

seeing you today. feeling quite slow and bleugh.

OMG, my life has been turned upside down again by one phone call in a 12 hours time. I had no future until yesterday and now I have to get out of here, make plans etc.
Freedom.
I don't know where to start from.
Once again, will you stay through this, will you keep seeing me, despite having to reorganize things again, and me re-relocating?
Please don't drop me and don't talk about spacing sessions now. I've started to think about it but I don't feel ready. I'm taking a huge leap today which you don't know about yet and I don't know if it's my greatest chance or if it'll ruin me. I think the bravest thing I've ever done was to come to your office. It still is at times. One day I'll look back at my twenties and I will hate myself for wasting so much time, for being so afraid of life and depressed during the best years of my life. I want to stop this and learn to really believe in myself. I know you can help me. That's what I'm going to ask you next time.

I am very depressed and need to call you but I won't because I am ashamed and afraid you will think i'm a loser.

I miss you.. 2 days seem far too long

I miss you terribly at the moment. I miss the way I could always contact you when I needed you, your responses always made me feel so good. I miss our sessions and having you as part of my life. With every week that passes I am ever further from having you in my life, and when I start to think about you less it hurts me because I know that can only take me further from you. I hate it.

I need an answer. I've asked twice in the last month but you seem to be blowing me off.

thank you so much for our session today. you made me feel safe. even though i STILL have Si urges.

Yesterday I listened to an old session. Yesterday I stumbled across a post I made online recommending you to someone who was really hurting because they’d been abandoned by their therapist. I assured her that you would never do that, you weren’t that kind of therapist. I remembered how much faith I had in you. Then tonight I heard a song, and it felt like all my walls fell down. Looking at all the posts online about therapists terminating clients with whom they previously had good relationships- I find myself baffled. Confused. How does this happen? How does a therapist explain it to themselves, how do you make it okay to offer love, to offer touch, to hold a client’s hand, to hold their HEART, to hug them, promising you’re not going anywhere – to suddenly just taking it all away?

From:
“I like you best.”
“You’ve wiggled your way into my heart.”
“You’re the exception to the rule.”
“You’re special.”


To:
“We wouldn’t want to violate anyone’s body parts.”
“This is how it is now.”
“I just don’t want to anymore.”
“Stop bugging me. I just won’t have it.”
“You want to be as important to me as I am to you, but you can’t be. You’re just another client, one of many. You’re not special.”


How does this transition happen? How do you reason it out? The sense of complete and utter abandonment left in its wake is overwhelming. For me, I hide the feelings and smother them with food. I just don’t feel them. I hold them back. Others can’t do that, or can’t do it well, and they immediately begin to drown the the pool of tears their therapist has flung them into with no warning, no way to keep afloat. They cry, they rant, they beg, they struggle to find some explanation, they hope for reconciliation, but in the end none comes. Or if it does, it is not enough to bring back together the gaping gash inside their bodies.

So as therapists, don’t you all have to know going in that the person in front of you already has serious abandonment issues? That you CAN’T be the one to make it worse? You have to know how hard it is for us to let you in. You have to understand that by behaving as you are, you’re making a commitment to stick it out, because you’re essentially cheating, taking shortcuts to get us to attach, to depend. And then one day you shrug and decide you don’t want to do it anymore, like we are a once favorite pair of jeans you no longer favor, so you toss us into the bin. Like it’s really that easy to throw away a person. Do you have any idea of the pain you cause with the give and take? I think if you had any idea, any concept of the level of soul crushing pain you cause, then you wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t even consider it.


It is a case of better to have never received that to receive and lose abruptly, repeating old patterns and reinforcing that same trauma of not good enough, of less than, the very reason we came to therapy to begin with.

All week I have looked forward to seeing you tomorrow, but now... I want to see you, but I don't feel like talking. I don't know what to talk about. There isn't happening much in my life, but at the same time there is. I don't do much, but I have a lot of feelings. Unpleasant feelings. I just want to feel better. But therapy takes time. The medication isn't (yet) working. I'm scared.

Last week's session was way under time. I think you realized this as I was leaving, hence all the sudden 'small talk' when you don't do that kind of thing. I'm gonna use this as an opportunity to practice NOT internalizing and NOT reading something into my own self-worth.

But don't let it happen again, okay?

Dear T. The other day, when I walked out the door and you touched my shoulder, all I wanted was to turn around and hug you. An image of that even flashed before my eyes. It was the third time you touched my shoulder, but this time it felt different. Not a light, encouraging pat but a warm, firm, comforting and strengthening one. It was so hard to not give in to it and walk away instead. Really really hard.