Dear T: I need to tell you something but I don't know how part XVI

Nuff said

Dear T,

We meet tomorrow...tomorrow is my birthday...please, say something otherwise I'm going to feel pretty insignificant to you...I know it's selfish and silly, but I don't want to talk about that with you so please, just acknowledge me tomorrow.

Dear MC,
It's always nice shaking your hand at the end of the appointment, especially when you say "It was good to see you." (Even if maybe you say the same to everyone else, you seem sincere in saying it to me.) Sometimes I wish I could hold on to your hand for a little longer...

Thank you for telling me you're not angry at me or disappointed in me.

Dear T,
Thanks for touching my shoulder as I was walking out today. I know it probably seems like a really minor thing, but you never ever make any physical contact with me (aside from one Christmas hug). So it was nice.

And I like that you shared a personal anecdote related to what I was talking about. Sure it was about your friend more than you, but it was still nice to have the insight into your life and friendships.

I have to wonder though: You know I respond particularly well to MC, who tells lots of personal anecdotes and shakes hands after every session. Are you maybe trying to shift your approach to me a bit and emulate him a little more? If so (or even if it's for another reason), I'm not going to complain!

Dear T
I know I'm being needy. I'm sorry. I can't stop just yet, but I am sorry. And you don't displease me, I'm angry and stroppy, but not at you.

At first it was so subtle it passed me by, then I realized you had said "we had to go down to the ______." Who's "we"?

You forgot me big time.
But you know what, I think I was silly to believe you wouldn't, especially right now. I'm not suffering, my emotions toward you are somehow finally asleep and it's relieving.
I just hope I have the time to settle and you don't call before I'm totally used to do without you.

Hey I'm going to be in your office in 11 hours and 10 minutes. Maybe I should think about sleep!

I think that I have gone as far as I'm supposed to go with you. I thank you for all of your help but I would like to begin therapy with the psychiatrist that you referred me to. I do appreciate all that you have done to get me where I am today.

T, I see you tomorrow and I'm scared. I want to show you that I'm strong, but it's been a hard two weeks. I'm scared of talking. I'm scared of telling you about the flashbacks. I'm scared that you'll think I'm gross. But I guess that's true, so what does it matter?

I'm kind of nervous to bring it up tomorrow that it is our one year anniversary, to the exact day. I know you won't realize it and I wouldn't expect you to but it's significant to me so I think I'm going to bring it up. I'm hoping we can reflect on the past year and everything I've learned. I just think I'm' going to be too nervous to actually initiate that conversation...

dear T

im so glad you are able to recognize when youve made a mistake, and apologize. i know you didnt mean to hurt me. i think i know what you were trying to get at..but the approach was wrong. i cried while you went to the bathroom but i wiped the tears away before you came back. i suspect you saw my eyes though bc you said you were sorry again. i forgive you... i know you didnt do it on purpose.

me

You're stunning in bright blue and black.

That meant a lot. I hope I can remember that moment in time forever. I don't want to ever forget it.

P.S. Thank you for finally sharing your own situation with me. It was helpful and right on target and yes, it gives me hope too.

Sparky, you just don't love me like my old T does.

Dear T,

Tomorrow is our re-scheduled appointment. I know you'll hate me, that's if I actually tell you. But if I don't, would you be mad? Would either make you stop seeing me? You've helped my PTSD so well. This is hard, well harder. I dont know how much I can trust you yet, to fully tell you why....

Hopefully tomorrow wont be our last appointment. We get along well. Your the only one who truly cared about me and not threw me out and tried to get me locked up. Thank you for that.

I want to be sitting in your office (my safe place) across from you. I have so much to tell you and I am really struggling right now. I feel like you can keep me safe as long as I am in your office. I like that feeling but I only get it for an hour.

Dear t,
I wish i could be honest with you on a few things, but im afraid to get anyone in trouble. The letter unsent was to some one i met in the past year. Someone you and i both know. I wish i could tell you who that was but it would be unprofessional. I developed feelings that i probably shouldnt have, but i couldnt help myself. I have never opened up to someone so quickly before, this was bound to happen.although this person is gone, my mind still drifts to them. I keep telling myself its just transference. I cant shake the thoughts. I sent the letter to clear my mind, but it didnt help, i know its been seen, the details of the message tell me so. But with no response i feel empty. I should have been honest with both of you. Yes it hurt when they left. Yes it bothers me i will no longer be seeing them . Yes , i became attached in a short period of time. But after how i have been treated for so many years, i finally meet someone who truely cares, its hard not to get attached. Yet this wasnt about me, this is about you. You had a chance at a better future, and im gad you took it, you deserve it. You traveled a distance before, now you are closer to home. I care very deeply about you, and want you to be happy. I want whats best for you. I feel like a creep saying this, but its what my heart truely feels. I truely miss you, and wish you the best at your new future.
Sincerely, from me.

T, I'm so angry with him, but I don't want to waste my whole session ranting about him like I so often do. I wanted to cry last week when you said we had five minutes left and all I had done was talk about him and how upset I am about the things he's doing.
I want to talk about ME!!! F- him. He monopolized my life for sooooo loooong. I don't want him monopolizing my therapy either. I know I'm angry with him and I know I need to let it out, but not in my precious therapy hour. That's gold to me. He's toxic waste. I can run him off at the gym, kick the sh^t out of the bag and imagine his face there. Not in my therapy hour. That's MINE!

Dear T,

I know we've never had that mystically good rapport that some therapy dyads seem to have, but it's painful to feel this alienated from you, too. You've been nothing but kind and professional, and I thank you for it by barely standing to be alone in the same room with you. With the door open. It's grossly ungrateful and I'm sorry.

I want to continue, but my pride won't let me unless you call, first. Isn't that stupid and needy?

This isn't the person that I am.

At the end of each session I need more. I feel like an emotional junkie, desperately needing another fix. I still feel like I'm only scratching the surface.

I need to see you again right away. I need to tell you about the worst thing. There are some things so bad that the visions of them haunt you the rest of your life. They prove that God is not there. I wish I could reach in and rip out the memory. It's so hateful that it still makes me cry after all these years. It may make you cry too.

T...

Our next session will be on my birthday and you know it because I told you.

I secretly wish you'll wish me "happy birthday" that day, though I'm probably having too high expectations.

You have so many clients, and you've forgotten things you've promised (or I took them as promises) before. Safe space work and I even directly asked if you'd tell me what you thought about a letter I gave you.

If you forget, well... It'll just show me that I don't matter much to you, and maybe it'll kill off my attachment to you.

After all, I'm just a job. Probably one of your boring clients whom you dread seeing.

I know you're human and humans let each other down, but these things seemed like promises to me.

Stop being so nice and saying you care and I'm not "out of sight and out of mind". I probably am.

Dear T,

We’ve never had that mystically good rapport or deep attachment that some therapeutic dyads report having. I don’t love you, wish that you would hold me while I cry, or believe that finding a therapist is like finding a soul mate. I respect you. I think you’re good at your job. You’ve been nothing but kind and professional, and I thank you for it by barely tolerating being alone in a room with you. With the door open, no less. Go figure.
I know what I should do. Do justice to my life, at least. But it’s hard. It’s so hard to start. I read somewhere that everybody’s problem is just that we prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty. That’s probably as true as it is kitschy.

I don’t want what I learn here to become a cheap menagerie. I don’t want little glass pigs and bobble-headed cats that sit on the shelf and collect dust unless I worry them daily, trying to convince myself they’re precious. I don’t want a personality made up of clichés or a life spun from the fluff swept off the floor of that Trauma Symposium you went to.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I spent too much time being skeptical of grounding techniques, coping skills, and all the rest. They help, they really do. I’m better than I was. I function.

But, hell, T, even a corpse functions for something. What if that’s all there is for me? What if that’s all I ever create with my life—a death? You don’t have the answers; of course you don’t. If you did, you’d be a guru, not a therapist, and I’d be off to India with a shaved head faster than you can say ‘unethical.’ I get it.

That doesn’t make it any easier to hear you say, ‘I don’t know,’ or to see that look of genuine pain you give me because you can’t just ‘fix’ me and you know it. Are you just as lost as I am? Just as morally compromised, as shell-shocked, as everyone else? If I got angry and tore the world itself apart, would that help? If I tore it into pieces small enough, could I understand them? Swallow them? If I beat on them for a reason, would I find one? If I re-fashioned them into something new, could it answer questions for me?

You said something about beauty the other day. About appreciating it. I clammed up and agreed, numb, because you were right: The world IS a beautiful place. Beautiful things spill out at me constantly. Surprising things, too. Little wondrous things overflow from every corner. You were right. You are right.

I just didn’t know how to tell you that I can’t remember the last time I saw something beautiful that didn’t also strike me as profoundly sad.