While Waiting For Reply From T

Don't you just hate how waiting for an email from your T feels like it takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r ?

It's like time suddenly slows down and every hour that passes feels like a day....

And you start wondering if they are going to reply at all.....

Then you start thinking they're not going to reply because they don't care about you at all...
That you are nobody anyway...
That you are pathetic...
Your life sucks....
You are such an idiot,so stupid...
You start thinking screw them,I am quitting therapy,they don't care anyway,I am not putting myself through this anymore....

And you check..and check your email...even check your spam folder because maybe somehow their reply went there...it didn't...

You tell yourself you are so pathetic because you keep checking...

Then you start thinking maybe they are real sick,maybe something happened to them,they have always replied before...

You have all sorts of worse case scenarios running through your head...
You wonder what you would do if something serious happened...
Would you go to their funeral?...
How would you manage without them?...

You check your email again...refresh...refresh...refresh...

You wonder why they haven't replied when you are trying to go to sleep...
You start thinkjng they don't care...
You can't sleep because you are such a loser,why would you expect anyone to care?...

You check your email in the middle of the night when you gotta go pee...

You tell yourself that's it,you are not checking again...
They obviously are not going to reply...
You tell yourself you don't need them anyway...
Maybe you shouldn't have emailed in the first place,you're fine now...
You can make it on your own without them...
Maybe you don't even really need therapy...
Yeah,I am fine,I am doing so much better!!

Then you get the reply and you're like Yay!
They do care!

And then you feel stupid for all that you put yourself through waiting for that reply.And you swear to yourself you will never email again...

...Or is it just me that does that kind of stuff?

Except,unfortunately I haven't received a reply yet to be able to say yay.

I used to think this way, but slowly over time it changed (years). My therapist promised to always respond, so I find comfort in that now, knowing she's so consistent. Even if it's a "we'll talk about this in session"

Literally went through this today. Emailed T about wanting to cancel tomorrow, T replied 4 hours later saying I shouldn't and it would be better to go with on whatever I have going on with T, I emailed back caving in and saying okay.

So yay I have a session tomorrow :/

Nope, that was my Friday night... into Sat morning. By time she replied I was at the I don't need anyone stage. This time, I didn't get that yay moment. I saw her email come in and thought.. F*** you. Then I read it and all I saw was typical therapistese. It sits there in my inbox and I see her name and I want to delete it. I don't even know what I'm feeling about it.. just something negative. (this is a first for me, does it mean anything?? progress or regression?)

I don't think I really experienced those yay moments either. The reply times got longer and longer. Sometimes there was n reply at all and when I got to the session she would come up with some story about how the town she was in lost reception and there was no way to communicate. I was waiting for an excuse like aliens took her phone next. I'm almost sure that we were working upto that excuse. Then I got the ice had enough of your email session and that wa a that. No yays here.

I rarely email my T as I am still unsure of her policy surrounding it. The first time I emailed for something other than scheduling (I asked her if I could send her some reflections I had after the last session) she said it would be better to discuss it in session. I emailed again last Friday night about something because I was desperate and she replied first thing Monday morning saying it was no problem and she looks forward to discussing it further in session. My T is very prompt but confusing when it comes to emails. I will only email T as a last resort because it is too stressful!

I sent T a message and am waiting for a reply. i know she will but waiting is horrible.

The waiting can be horrible. Luckily, I usually email my T at night, and when I wake up, I have a reply. The longest I've had to wait is a little over 24hrs, but that has only happened a couple times.

I definitely do this--a bit with T--though she often won't respond--and usually with marriage counselor--he usually does respond, though it can take anywhere from just a couple hours to a few days. Or sometimes, he hasn't had a chance to read it before our session. So you're not alone! It's gotten a bit better, unless I send something where I'm pouring out really personal thoughts/feelings or saying that I'm upset with one of them. Then that worry about rejection is still there...

Oh boy I can definitely relate - have run the entire gamut of the original post I can't tell you how many times. And after "Then you get the reply and you're like Yay!
They do care!" for me comes

"Then proceed to read response at least a hundred times."

Ah, I have felt so pathetic off and on during this thing they call the "process"!! It does get better though. I don't email t as much as I used to, and it's not as crazy-making waiting for a response as it used to be.

I still haven't received a reply.

I am making progress though,I didn't check my email in the middle of the night when I had to go pee.

I tell the woman not to reply. Usually I just want to tell her something to get it away from me. Her reply would never make anything better for me.

I can relate to this from early on in therapy, but over time it has gotten easier, especially since my therapist doesn't reply to everything and I don't worry that there's a deeper meaning to it. When she replies, it feels great. When she doesn't, I feel okay knowing that she at least probably got my email and that's enough. It's her stability over time that helps. How long have you been seeing this therapist?

I relate to eagerly waiting for responses but not to speculating that something might be wrong about the T or our relationship (the latter rarely occur to me even in ordinary relationships, I don't tend to doubt them beyond what I see and have evidence for, which can be another kind of problem if extreme). My last therapist very effectively conditioned me for not being obsessive about emails though by engaging selectively and in a controlled, quite minimalistic ways. One of my biggest successes with this round of therapy as the obsessive virtual communications were really causing me lots of problems, mostly as useless distractions. As I said I was never paranoid about what others thought of me and our relationship when they did not express it directly, but was really hooked on just talking about whatever with people online, for years. This last T made a big difference in that annoying tendency.

He's been my T for 7 years,it's been 4 days since I sent the email,and this has never happened before.He always responds.

But I didn't specifically ask for a reply so maybe he didn't feel one was necessary.

(I am going to go with that excuse,otherwise my mind will stay stuck on "he doesn't care,I am nobody")

i struggled thru this. my T told me i can text him all i want, just dont always expect a reply. i text him less now, he seems to respond more. go figure!

And I've started the wait again with an e-mail to MC after session today because I was upset with how he ended session really abruptly. Sigh...

The thread title inspired me to write a poem:

While waiting for a reply from t
I did a load of my laundry.
I shined my shoes and watered plants
and cooked a pot of spaghetti.

Ironed hubby's pair of pants
Read some PC poster's rants
took the dog out for a run
then tried a couple relaxing chants.

Wonder what I can do for fun?
Fix my hair up in a bun?
Go for a walk, play a game instead?
Oh, I hope the wait will soon be done.

But nothing yet. I go to bed
and try to sleep, while in my head
voices say “she doesn't care”
in an endlessly repeating thread.

I finally sleep, and when I wake
to the computer a beeline I make
to check for a reply from t
No internet?! I just might break!!

So now I have to find my phone
(oh please be charged, throw me a bone!)
The long-awaited reply is there…
but how many words? Count it, ONE!

Really? That's all she had to say?
She made me wait an entire day
and night for just one single word?
Now I feel stupid, without delay.

My little poem has come to a close
I could email my dog instead, I suppose!

I saw a therapist for 8 years and this pattern didn't go away. We worked on finding better hypotheses if I didn't get responses (from him or others). So instead of thinking 'he doesn't care' - I could think 'he hasn't managed to check email OR his email isn't working OR he has had emergencies to deal with..

It helped a little but not a LOT - and I'm still sensitive to people not responding. A therapist with a different (more depth psychology) approach pointed out that the fact that I wasn't responded to much (emotionally) as a child might be at the root of it. A baby knows it exists because it is reflected in mother's eyes - but what if the mother (because of her own pathology) cannot actually SEE the infant as its own little person? Not sure if being aware of this will help though :/

Haha,that poem made me laugh.

That.Really hit home for me....

I am glad! 'Twas my intention!

(I really did get a one-word response from t one time, actually it wasn't even a full word, it was one LETTER!! She replied with: 'k

as in, short for okay. I was like really t? really?!)

Yes, I'm sorry Not getting a response can feel like a negation of ones very being - a complete devaluation. I used to find it devastating in every way.

I got that a few times from my T too! LOL! It was all that was necessary, but still a shock!