As I thought I would after Mondays session re talking about when therapy ends, I did email T feeling very triggered. Needing to understand it all.
T replied with this VERY helpful reply.
I think it's helped me understand it a whole lot more.
Not sure if it will be of help to anyone else.
I know this is a difficult topic for some.

.......I think these feelings that you can't live without me whereas I can live without you are really to do with your mother and how she made you feel that she didn't care enough about you to make proper efforts with and for you. Of course you needed her and depended on her - you wouldn't have been able to survive without her. I think she never let you feel that your survival was important to her, or that she wouldn't survive the loss of you. In fact, this is what has been acted out between the two of you every time you've tried to come close to her; it ends up with you feeling abandoned, and backing off to protect yourself and her letting you do that. Not just for a short time, but permanently. She never makes the effort to hold onto you or to bring you back. She also made you unsure of your own inner thoughts, feelings and experiences, so even if you felt she was wrong, you couldn't hold onto it internally.

Because your survival was threatened, both externally and internally, it's not surprising that you have difficulty trusting my motives in the external world, or that the thought of internalising me as a good object is terrifying. You can't believe that I would remain as a good object; your experiences are all about losing the good object and being left with the bad.

It's because you have had these early - and ongoing - experiences that I think it's important that we talk about our future, and the possibility that there could be a time when I really am unfit to help you. When you started in therapy, it wasn't something that we needed to think about, but as we both get older, the possibility of illness, death and dying becomes more real and therefore more important to discuss. I think you need my honesty about these things. It's not that I'm trying or planning to abandon you, but that I want you to be as prepared as you can be for the possibility of an ending that neither of us can control. Maybe I will live longer than you and stay healthy enough to continue. But even if we knew it would work out that way, I think we would probably still need to be talking about an ending that would inevitably feel premature to you, even if it was dictated by your needs and to your timetable.

You assume that I wouldn't care if you decided to end therapy, because that's your experience of your mother. I don't think you are making a mug of yourself when these feelings are aroused. I think you are trying to make sense of it all, and that's a difficult and painful task. The framework of our relationship may seem too rigid sometimes. Maybe you like the idea that you could have me more available, or always available. But it's the framework that makes it possible for us to think about these very difficult things, and have some hope of changing them. Without the framework, it might feel too scary to go close to them.

I don't know if this will help you "get it". But these things are all part of our ongoing conversation, and the more we talk about them, the more room there is to think and make sense of it all......

[Merecat]

That's a really lovely, sensitive explanation of endings and the reason for the framework she works within. It may it make talking about endings any easier but she so clear about her reasons and motives. Thank you for sharing that, it's so helpful.

[Lamplighter]

Mouse, that's a very insightful and clear letter, your T manages to address your abandonment fears without being overly sentimental or falsely involved (at least, that's how it comes across to me ).

I have to say her description of your relationship with your mother profoundly mirrors my own, with both my mother and stepmother, so everything she says resonates strongly within me.

Thank you for posting this.

[Coco3]

That's a very clear and insightful email. I can see why it's very helpful.

Wow, what a lovely email/explanation. Thank you so much for sharing.

[mira belle]

That was a good read...thanks for sharing...

[JustShakey]

Mouse, your T rocks.

[Perna]

I think endings are hard, no matter what. I guess I had the idea that they were "harder" for me than for other people but now I see that that does not really make sense as one cannot know how hard it is for another in their world and no one else's situation is the same as mine as far as time, place, and person? The best I could do to help myself in the year and a half we were talking and terminating was to remind myself that "right now" we were just talking, it was not the termination, the last session, nothing momentous was happening right this second. I learned in that year and a half to live in the moment better.

The time and the talking and the going in and out of the terror and fear of loss helped to desensitize me a bit, it was good practice in experiencing all those feelings and living through them so when the end did come, I knew I would live well through that as well. Too, during the time we talked and worked on the termination, I was still working on my outside life and my future and what I wanted for it. I built bridges for myself to my future after therapy and, while some of them couldn't hold the weight, there were enough of them that could and new skills at fixing some of those that had design trouble, that I got safely to the other side.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by JustShakey

Mouse, your T rocks.

I know, right? I told my t that shes my favorite t. He claims hes not jealous. Otoh, insight alone doesnt change you (which may be why hes not jealous). "Its the relationship that cures."

Still, thanks mouse for sharing this. I think it helps to know where we're headed.

Thanks for sharing that Mouse. Somehow, for me, the email kind of misses something. I think the relationship with T is a real relationship with a real person, and that person will be missed. It doesn't feel to me that it is all about one's mother?

Originally Posted by Brown Owl

Thanks for sharing that Mouse. Somehow, for me, the email kind of misses something. I think the relationship with T is a real relationship with a real person, and that person will be missed. It doesn't feel to me that it is all about one's mother?

Yes, I think that's why there's more to be discussed. But, her reply is certainly a huge life ring for me.
It's not over till the fat lady sings :-)

[always_wondering]

What your therapist wrote to you is just awesome. It's clear, thoughtful and honest. Thank you so much for sharing.

[SoupDragon]

Thank-you for sharing that Mouse. I found it personally useful to read and it has helped me put some things into perspective.

Your T sounds fab.

Originally Posted by SoupDragon

Thank-you for sharing that Mouse. I found it personally useful to read and it has helped me put some things into perspective.

Your T sounds fab.

Perspective is it exactly.
By linking it to my mother I can see why it all seems so impossible and urgent.

[ECHOES]

What a wonderful and articulate response to you. It is meaningful to me. I can relate very much.

How is it possible to internalize when pushing away has felt safer, historically?

I can feel abandoned at the end of a session. I can't even imagine the black hole that would be there if I were never to see her again.