Dear T: I Need To Tell You Something... Part XVIII

t,

i think ur the best

me

Can you tell me why someone who has 5 kids, a husband, cars, homes, work and yet, they have to steal my T from me? Why?? Why take from me??

Can anyone tell me why??

Nine days until you get back from vacation. Nine. Freaking. Days. Ugh. By which point it will have been Three. Freaking. Weeks. since I've seen you.

Hurry up.

I'm abit weirded out after our session last night. I don't know why- it was good, great even after the break. But I'm definitely discombobulated today. I wish I knew what it was like for you.

I wonder did I cross your mind today? I feel like you genuinely do care about me. And I know this relationship has been transformative for me. I just hate times like this, when you're away and I need therapy. I need you today, not a week from now. Sigh.

I have texted you wayyyy too much. Way tooo much. I apologize. I'm apologizing here because you don't accept my apologies anymore. I hate it when you go away like this. You're still here and I know you think about me. In fact you accidentally dialed me while in a session today. Meaning my number and/or contact was pulled up or easily accessible I was waiting to hear you talk so I could hear your voice, but your client was a talkative one, I couldn't understand what was being said but felt horrible listening so after 1.5 seconds I hung up. 1.5 seconds is quite surprisingly a long time. I'm tired of crying. Random bursts of tears. Tiny panic tremors at certain things. I wish you'd respond or acknowledge me. Is this part of therapy when a client is a thread away from I should stop needing you. I should stop writing you. I should stop texting you. Because when you back away like this because you can't contain your feelings about me it hurts me. I don't know how to deal with it. I don't understand. Please don't abandon me today.

Dear T,

Thank you for today. You shook my hand as I apologized again (but this time in person) for my lame comment last session. Glad that was cleared up once and for all.

The best part of today's session was when you read out loud to me my note to myself. You didn't give me a hard time about reading it - no drawn out Q & A as to why I needed to have you do it. You just jumped right in. Hearing the words in your voice made it more real to me, and helped me feel the emotion that I wasn't able to hear when I read it myself. Your kind offer to record yourself reading it made it even nicer.

Then, when we moved on to why the note was weighing so heavily on me, I opened up to you about the topic even more than I had before. I felt like I could talk to you freely, and share many more details. (I'm not sharing in depth here b/c of triggers).

I didn't ask you to share positive comments about me this session because I felt like I got some of that through our discussion. You have such a kind and gentle way of reacting to what I'm saying. You even say things that make me feel like I have abilities that no one else sees - or acknowledged in me when I was younger. If I'd had the right set up at home, I could have gone down a totally different path in life.

I am very lucky to have found you, and you are currently my main beacon that keeps me from drifting off too far from solid ground.

Dear current T,

I'm already feeling a bit nervous for school. It won't start until September. But it's now official that I can attend college. There's no reason not to go. But I'm scared. I'm afraid I can't do it. I'll mess everything up again. I'm really not suitable for life.

Tomorrow I'll see you again. I wrote down my thoughts about other T. I should talk about that. It isn't getting better. There are a lot of angry thoughts, also hurting/sad thougths. I'm afraid to show you all those angry thoughts. It's a lot. It's angry. I'm afraid you'll think less of me.

Dear T,
I wish I could tell you things that are on my mind but I just can't. I feel so disconnected from you and its not your fault its mines. you look at me every time we meet and wonder what I'm thinking. you ask me what's new and I simple respond "nothing really. just same old same old." there are so many things I want to get off my chest but I remain silent and still. you don't poke or pry at me like the others did, you simple observe and wait patiently. you joke with me and try to make things less awkward and for that I thank you. just be a little more patient and I may just spill my guts out one day at random.

From,
Me

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I want to text you but it's so late and I don't know what to say either. The little-me has taken over now and she's in pain and I can feel it. But I'm still very bad at taking care of her. I try to think of what you told me to do but it's like reading the theory behind some sports but not being able to play at all.

I think I might have just realised that I haven't processed my leaving old T at all. I have just buried it like I buried everything else. Maybe we could work with that.

Very Long & Very Dull

Dear T
I saw my Pdoc today and as I was entering the parking lot, the thought entered my mind, as it usually does, that you were just across the lot from me. So close, yet so far away. However, today it is not only literal, it also feels symbolic. I realized that sometimes, I feel the same way when I am sitting five feet away. I know this isn't your fault, but I'm still struggling to understand how and why things have changed. Obviously, it's a mixture of my feelings of vulnerability and my intellectual, "rational" mind. Perhaps I favor my intellect because my thoughts makes sense. You may argue that they only seem to make sense because my rationality exists in strictly black and white thinking. Well, you would say something like that anyway. Maybe nothing has changed and I'm starting to see things more clearly.

Lately, it feels like you are reevaluating me or maybe you aren't and I am getting better at seeing through the subterfuge or you just being more obvious. Why does it always come back to the same
problems?

Since I found out I got into grad school, you seem to have switched gears. You seem really worried about how it will go. It feels like you don't have faith in me and you see me as some little fragile thing. I'll admit there are parts of me that have broken. You've asked me multiple times if I was okay with discussing this or that issue. What's worse, these issues have been comparatively minor. You must think I'm going to fall apart at any moment. I'm wondering if you've had second thoughts about my ability to achieve my goals. Maybe you have changed your mind and you don't think I'll make a good T anymore. In all truth, you don't seem to be as interested in me anymore, but maybe you were never as interested as I believed. I'm an idiot. No amount of therapy can change that. I look back and ruminate about all the times I....opened myself in emails, journal entries, and sessions. I told you about some of the things that have happened to me, things I never even considered sharing with anyone... ever. I expressed my feelings and fears about you and our relationship. I became completely vulnerable and completely pitiful. At the end of the day, I am just another pathetic patient. There isn't anything significant or special about my therapy, even if it felt that way. It's been a singular experience for me but for you, it's what you do, what you've done for twenty years.

Regardless of my pleading for openness and honesty, I often sense you holding things back from me. Sometimes, I feel sure that I know what you refuse to say. You think I can't handle your honesty so you say the "right" things, even if they conflict with the truth. It seems clear that you have been overwhelmed with pity for me. I've been so needy. I didn't know it was even possible for me to feel so needy. I think your goal has been to be my support system, my friend, and my Mom. Then again, perhaps you never intended to be any of those things and I pressured and casted you into those roles.

Anyway, all of this comes down to a trust issue. Once again, I don't feel like I can trust you. When I think back to the numerous times I have stripped my flesh off, confiding in you some of my most distressing experiences and my uncontrollable, terrifying feelings, I instantly fall head first into a panic attack. My heart feels like it is braking into a thousand pieces and I see the pitiful, pathetic loser I am. However, in this situation, I'd rather remain a loser forever than to repeat my insane attempts to......Being a loser isn't nearly as heartbreaking as being an insane idiot.

None of this changes my feelings or appreciation. They are as true now as they ever have been, and even though my vulnerability has filled me with shame, I don't regret the experience at all. I know that seems nonsensical, but it's true nonetheless. It is what it is....Right?

You have done some things that you believe would ruin or end our relationship and my therapy if I ever found out. One thing in particular could easily be considered a serious breach of trust and you are likely resolved to never speak of it. I know about this because you have inadvertently dropped a few puzzle pieces here and there and you already know that [one way or another 😜] I absorb everything that is said, everything that isn't said, where, why, and how things are said. I linger on the chosen words and the tone. When the pieces came together, it was clear. But would I end therapy? NO. It does spike my shameful, panicked vulnerability, but I know you well enough to know that you had a good reason, even if I wouldn't like it. I have desperately wanted you to confide this situation in me. You would really have to trust me. I have even committed a couple overt actions that I hoped would even things out a little and instigate a discussion that would result in you coming clean. You really don't trust me and....that makes it so, so difficult for me to trust you.

Lately, I have been more lonely than I have been in quite some time. I am so happy about the realization of my goals. However, I am very sad. I feel like I've lost something very precious. There are moments I am overcome with grief because of the loss of my trust for you and our connection.
Honesty means everything to me.

If only I could tell you.
If only you could hear my silent words.



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Dear T, I have a new addiction and it's not good. I don't think I will tell you it is too shameful.

Dear t,

I hate you right now and probably canceling tomorrow's session. I don't understand You didn't want to mess up the relationship but you bailed on me. How could you not see how damaging that is?

Dear T,
Such a good session today. But can't believe I went on and on about how I feel so needy when I contact you, but then I emailed you 20 minutes after session ended, then again an hour after. I get that this is my attachment issue rearing its head, but sheesh...Sorry. I really did feel like we had a good session today. I know you won't respond to the last email, and even though the primitive part of me is throwing a fit and feels upset, the more evolved part of me knows you are a skilled practitioner, and you're just adhering to your boundaries.

T,

I'm nothing to you. You've so many other patients. I want you to think of me, but I know you put me out of your mind as you attend to other patients and the other duties you have in your work.

Then outside of work, you naturally rejuvenate yourself. I doubt you read my letters and messages. It's only me imagining that you do. This one sided relationship.

Six days till I see you. I miss you.

When you said you had seen the film I was going to watch this afternoon I should have guessed what you meant when you said it was a 'hard watch'. It was long, as you had described but I hadn't thought it would be as gory and upsetting as it was. I was expecting a story of survival, of hope etc, like so many out there. Ah well, what is done is done, just next time say 'pretty gruesome' and I might get the message. I don't think you thought I should watch it and I think you were right.

Might be time for a Disney movie now I think, just not Bambi!!

Dear T.. I want to be needy but I so DON"T want to be needy.... I want to be vulnerable.. because it causes me to grow.. but it feels so exposing and difficult.. and makes me think I will annoy you or make you not like me as a person and want to quit my therapy.. i'm so afraid I will do or say something to make you fire me as a patient. ugh.. But you are the best therapist ever.. and ... your eyes.... shoot.. I'm probably blushing and you know .. awkward......

I had the option of texting you and SI but I went for the latter. I'm sorry, I promised to take care of myself but I didn't.

You have in idea how dangerous all this talking is...

t,

the games were fun!! i had fun... you were being silly.
at the end u mentioned to someone else you will be out of town next week. you asked to reschedule my appt for tuesday... i wondered why. now i know ur leaving. i wish you would tell me in advance.. but maybe you want to spare me the anxiety. you know i get paranoid and anxious when you leave and obsess about if you are dead or not. and i dont even know how long youll be gone. now just thinking abt it i feel anxious...

me

Dear MC,
Thinking of you. I'm guessing you're probably sleeping. Maybe I can wave to you in your dream or something.
LT

I didn't forget.

I guess you were expecting a very different kind of session to the one you got? I needed to babble, and I needed to prove to you that I am committed - no matter what. But I didn't forget. None of us forgot. We never do.

I've known for a long time. I saw you from the office window once when I first started this job. I've known since then. Of course, I've doubted myself and wondered if Im some kind of twisted fantasist or something. But Im not am I? This is actually happening.

I'm sure you are both scared of, and curious to know what I think? Are wondering why I haven't confronted you yet? Don't worry - that will come. But I need work out what I think before I can even begin to try and verbalise it. I think I think it all.

I need to understand why. What did you hope to gain? And what did you gain. Should I be scared? Part of me is scared. Part of me is flattered. And part of me has been engaging with you and knowing you and knowing you were there and was most of all... secure. I have felt safer knowing you were there. So a part of me doesn't want to confront you because Im scared I will lose you. I don't want you to stop being there. I like you being there.

But yes, part of me is angry. I compartmentalise as you know. There have been a few incidents - with one in particular, that I am struggling to get over. Most of our issues recently stem from the day I saw you talking to the woman in the car. She was the same woman I talked to you about in our next session. I always knew that.My life is hard enough. I don't understand why you set me up. You totally set me up. I just can't get over that. But I can't confront you because I didn't believe you would ever acknowledge what you did. I thought you would twist it to make it all my fault. Say Im imagining it. I was scared maybe I really was imagining it.

Your acknowledgement means so so much to me. No one ever says sorry. No one ever admits the truth. Its blown my mind (in a great way) that you have communicated so honestly. You've done something pretty outrageous. I must be pretty twisted for not minding, for wanting to stay with you. You admitting this has increased my attachment to you tenfold. Please don't turn into a psycho.

Thank you so much that you are a safe place for me -now. I know in my heart that what you are helping me to find is a safe place in me. That seems so foreign to me right now. I will hang on to your hand for now and trust that I will see and understand that place in its time. We always agree on no pushing. That just causes more damage than good. Right?

I'm good. Right here. Right now. I trust that. And. I trust you. Thanks you!

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