Realizing once again that T can't be my Mom

I cried on the way home from my session today. We talked about the details and how I feel when I don't have time to tell T all of them. I also told her I felt bad this week because I wrote 2 long emails but she responded more briefly than usual. I said I feel like I'm a pest and I write too much. Her response was that it's not me. She just doesn't have the time because she works long hours and is tired when she comes home. She liked my emails this week, and even remembered some of what I wrote. I had written that no one can replace a mother. She agreed and said she can't be my mother, and no one is going to be there the way my Mom was. She was interested in hearing all the details. But she's not here now.

T asked more questions about my Mom and we talked about what I remember about her. She never got to know
her grandchildren. I never completely grieved for her.

Now I feel very unsettled. I don't seem to be attracted to T any more. I know she can't replace my mother but my brain doesn't seem to refect that knowledge. I'm falling asleep with my phone in my hand so I need to sleep now.

Hugs to you.

I'm going through similar grief on how my T can't be my older sister (my older sister was parentified though she wasn't nurturing) or an idealised caregiver-figure.

It's hard. Wishing you well.

Your T does care about you though I know how painful it can be that they can't fill a role in the past. Long Term T once told me that therapy recreates the "essence" of good parenting even though it can't replicate old needs in detail. Think of it as love distilled to its most important parts.

At times I am in the same boat. Its a very painful hopeless feeling to want your T to be your mom or fill an important role in your life. I feel for you. I also know what its like to write long emails and get a short response when you are hoping for more and you are struggling.

Something that has really helped me is really seeing the relationship I have with my T in a new perspective. I see her as a maternal figure. I told her this in my last session and she said that she is not my mom but I get pieces of it from her. I have internalized her as a maternal figure. I know we have a professional relationship and it feels really healthy. She is right, I do get maternal pieces from her and that makes me happy.

I know your T cares about you. It might help to talk about this with her. I was scared to death to mention it to my T but it really helped and I feel better about it.

hi rainbow,
I feel that way too. my therapist is not my mom too. even though she has that motherly instinct inside of her and the being an experienced registered nurse she has those qualities of a therapist who cares about me . she can sense that if something is wrong with me she can tell by my messages that I leave on the voicemail at the office or when her receptionist takes the message down for her .I knew it tonight that she didn't call me back up .knowing that she and I will discuss it tomorrow afternoon when I see her for my appointment with her.



Diagnosis: Anxiety and depression
meds: Cymbalta 60 mgs at night
Vistrail 2 25 mgs daily for anxiety prn
50 mgs at night for insomnia with an additional 25 mgs=75 mgs when up past 1:00 in the morning

Thanks, QuietMind. I'm sorry you're going through something similar. I wish you well too.

Thanks, Growly. I know you're right but it's hitting me hard again. You'd think I'd stop wanting what I can't get from my T by now, and I've been pretty much okay with the reality, but then wham! One of my parts, or more, is trying to get my T to be like my Mom. I thought I was an adult when my mother died, and technically I was. The problem is that she still took care of me in a lot of ways. This need to tell the details is a big deal for me. No one else wants to hear them and respond to them. My T is there for me and is very special, but I need to grieve more for my Mom. T says we do that our whole lives; it doesn't matter how old I am now! My H's death probably is triggering me thinking about my Mom. It's all rather depressing to me.

Thanks, Cinnamon. I have talked about it with my T because that's what started the hand holding; the child part wanted to be comforted, and who comforts a child? Mommy. My T acts as a better mother in a lot of ways, because she is calm whereas my Mom was anxious. My T is happy when I'm happy, and tries to raise my self-esteem. She's just NOT my Mom, and I never realized how many years I've been without a mother. I started therapy when my Mom died, and never stopped, yet I never let myself grieve much. I'm sorry I'm taking my thread in this dismal direction, but when I told T I still can't believe my H is dead, she said, yes, it's hard to get our head around that. It's even harder to realize my mother was dead for most of my marriage and raising my kids. That sucks!

Thank you, spring. It sounds like you have a wonderful, caring T.

I want to update the part about my T not emailing back. At the session, she told me she thought she did respond to one of my long emails. I checked and there wasn't anything. This morning she sent me an email that was in her "draft" section. She apparently forgot to send it. That email was just what I had been missing, and it was so thoughtful of her to send it to me after the fact. She tries so hard to accommodate me, and now I feel a little guilty. She doesn't have to respond to my emails, especially since she told me how busy she is. But she takes her job seriously, and knows how important the response is to me, even if it's only a few lines about what I wrote. Responding to the details, like my Mom used to do.

T thinks I'm growing and changing so I suppose her emailing me is all right. I'm still a work in progress, and her being there for me is necessary. I may always need her, as a "sort of" Mom to cheer me up or cheer me on, for the rest of my life, or as long as she is still working.

I guess I needed to get all that out.

I have a different experience as my mother was cruel, abusive and neglectful. When she passed away it brought me a lot of peace. Like I was finally safe.

In some ways I want my T to be that nurturing figure I never had and she IS in a lot of ways. She is very open, loving and affectionate with me.

It can be painful.

Two things have helped me. One is understanding that my T is uniquely different in the context of therapy than in her other relationships. I'm sure with her family she gets distracted and cranky. The endless patience she shows me is part of the T relationship and one reason its limited. We talked about my desire for more time once and even I admitted that while id like to have one night around a campfire to sit under the stars and ask a million questions other than that I find 2 hours an ideal session time. I get those rarely and it's the perfect amount of time. 1 hour is simply not enough time. 3 hours?? I could not maintain the intensity of our work for 3 solid hours. It would wipe me out totally. The whole nature of the T relationship makes constant contact seem overwhelming. I love my T but what we do is WORK too.

For me when I get very sad about the mom thing it helps me to list the concrete things I actually want. "Heal the giant hole inside me" is not concrete and not something she can do anyway. "Be my mom" is neither concrete nor realistic. So I ask myself do I want more praise/encouragement? More touch? More sympathy? Do I want her to worry about me? What do I think is missing? If I figure that out then I can ask for it and I often get it and its helpful . for instance ive told her to please express concern for my physical safety. For a 41 year old woman I'm quite a dare devil and she found this totally counter intuitive. Its not that she didn't worry about me but that she thought I would be completely insulted by her concern since I'm very capable etc. But I wanted it because I never got it. Now she will say things like "well, please be careful if you are taking your kayak out in 8 foot surf" and I feel like I get what I need.

If you break it down into.things your T can actually do you may find that longing lift.

I have a great mom, but I often wish my T could be my second mom. It's hard knowing that we'll never be able to have that kind of relationship. I'm insanely jealous of her son, who does get to have that type of relationship with her. Anyways, I understand your feelings of wanting T to be mom, and I'm sorry about the original email situation. I'm glad she ended up sending that one email that she had forgotten to send from her drafts though!

Thank you so much for this! This was so helpful for me.

I am really interested to know, since you say you have a great mom why do you wish your T could be your mom? I really want to hear from your perspective.

I think it becomes irrelevant whether T can be a mother or not, if what she can be, is working.

((Rainbow))

This is an area where therapy can definitely help.

Sorry this is happening right now, Rainbow. I completely relate to "oh my transference issues are going pretty well!" and then BOOM something happens and it all comes flooding back in.

I have a question about how other people don't want to know all the details. I do get that T's know ALL the details and are more interested than any one person IRL, usually. But I'm wondering if you could expand on your experience here. Are you talking about your H? Because, well, again, he seemed like a decent dude, but emotionally you and he weren't really on the same page.

Even so, I consider myself to have a strong marriage, and even my H doesn't always want all the details. He will listen if I tell him he is dismissing something I need him to hear, but there are some things I just don't go to him with. I don't think there's any one person in my life to whom I take everything -- it often gets divvied up among my friends and family. There are definitely times where I feel like I'm not able to go to someone I'd normally go to about certain things, so it's not like I never feel lonely, but I'm wondering about your experience here. Do you feel you can't spread it around among your friends? Is there something important about it being one person?

I know that doesn't really touch on the mom issue, and I think it's good that you're talking about grieving your mom in therapy. It seems like it's much-needed. I guess I'm wondering about the practical side of it, about trying to meet that need now. I think processing how it's been for you without your mom is going to be a more complicated thing than that, so I don't want to make it seem like I'm saying "just talk to your friends and you'll be fine!" Stuff about your mom is much deeper than that, I know. I am grateful to have my mom around while learning to be a mom myself, and I wish you'd had that, too.

I think part of it is because I have maternal transference with my T, and because I think she's super awesome. But I also only have one parent, my mom, but no dad. So maybe part of it is just wanting a second parent, and my T happens to be a female, so it would be a second mom, rather than a dad. And it's not like I would want my T to be my mom instead of my mom, but that I'd want her to be my mom as well.