[confused4ever]

I jsut heard from my T, he thanked me for my consideration on skipping this weeks appt, and rescheduled me for next week!!! Says that one of the things he has to do is stop working on his days off, no more clinical stuff on his time off!!! I have pushed him away!!!!! I responded apologizing for the crap I have caused him, and maybe we should take more time off between these next sessions, and for him to email me with a date for our next session!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So feeling abandoned right now.........again!!!! that is my life story!!!!

[Perna]

Confused, your therapist's burnout is not your fault! You did not push him away, he has "management" problems of his own. You are not his only client so his overwork involves more than just you needing him.

If he doesn't e-mail a date within the next couple days, you e-mail him and remind him and tell him "not too long inbetween or I'll feel abandoned" :-) or something similar so he knows it is an issue.

[MissCharlotte]

((Confused)) ((Perna))

Hey, I am having similar feelings of abandonment and communication problems with T.

One of the things I realized was similar to something Perna said. Whenever T uses certain words, or questions me in a certain way, it feels like an attack. I feels exactly like something my brother used to do in an abusive way. T had/has no way of knowing this without my discussing it with him. So I have and I will again tomorrow. Yes, it's such a difficult and duplicitious position to be in, having to tell T our needs while feeling they are not meeting our needs!

Confused, you did not push him away, it seems that he feels close enough to you to be open with you. Please let him know you feel abandoned and need his responsiveness right now. How about asking for a short phone call in between the two sessions to sustain you?

I had a similar experience in which I learned that if you don't tell your T what you really mean or what you really feel, he might not always know. So he might just go along with what you say..... and then you end up feeling really, really crappy and abandoned.

Back when I wanted to do two sessions per week on a regular basis, I couldn't really tell him that I wanted to. Didn't want to admit that I needed him so much. So I sort of expected him to figure it out. Never told him I wanted the two sessions from that point on. So he set our next appointment for a week away and I left feeling horrible, hating him, feeling abandoned, all that stuff.

I later realized that all he did was exactly what I told him to do. And that he can't always know what I need unless I tell him. And from then on, not tell him it's okay when it's not.

I don't think you pushed your T away at all. I do think you will need to share this with him and maybe keep exploring how it feels to convey your needs to him. It's hard, I know. I hate doing it. But I found out that once I did tell him everything I need he was very accommodating... so it became safer. I stopped being so afraid and it saved me a lot of abandonment feelings.

I know how you feel confused. Sometimes I push people away when I feel vulnerable b/c I'm afraid of needing and not getting what I need. I hope you are able to reach out next time.

[confused4ever]

I don't know,I am feeling abandoned and pushed aside. He said he would make our appt for next Wednesday our usual time and if I needed to talk to him in between to call or email. Isn't that exactly what he told me not to do on Saturday, because he is feeling over worked!!! So I will not go there, I don't care how bad it gets!! If he truly wanted to help would he of canceled my appt for this week?????????? Wouldn't it of been easier to just ask me to try not to email or anything in between if I could help it!!!!!! So he could get himself back together!! I am feeling the brush off coming.......and if he drops me as a client because he feels he cannot go into inner child work with me, then I don't think I will go any further in healing.....I CANNOT start this process over again, and live through it!!!

(((((((((((((((Hugs))))))))))))))))

[Fuzzybear]

((((((((((((((( confused ))))))))))))))

[sunrise]

confused, I'm confused! I thought you told your T you wanted to skip a week. And it sounds like he agreed that would be fine? Sounds like he was accommodating your request, and it fit in well with his own schedule too. So, a win-win situation? But now you have decided you do want to go after all? I guess you could always tell him you have changed your mind and ask whether he still have your usual time available this week.

I hope you can get it all straightened out.

[confused4ever]

I told my T that I hoped he felt better and relaxed over the weekend, and that if he needed to cancel me this week and reschedule to go ahead.............I guess part of me was hoping he would of said no............part of me didnt want to go, and part of me feels that by him saying a break from therapy is good, I feel like it is my fault he feels overworked.............so ok.......I am not right...........a jerk

[sunrise]

confused, you're not a jerk! I think you just weren't sure whether you wanted to go or not (you have another thread in which you state several times you do not want to go), and when your therapist took you up on your offer to skip a week, it suddenly hit home with you that that was not what you really wanted at all. I think it is hard to know what we are really feeling sometimes. I know I am that way. If you really want a session this week, go ahead and call and ask for one. And it is not your fault your T may be overworked right now. He is a professional and responsible for setting his own schedule, having a certain number of clients per week, etc. These are not your responsibilities. ((((hugs))))

[confused4ever]

I know, I don't want to go, I don't know now if I ever want to go back, I feel responsible or guilty for relying on him so much these days.......I have never been able to share any of this before, not like this........I trusted him, totally and now I feel like by him saying he is overworked that it is me.......even though part of me should no better.........gawd I hate depression!!!

[pachyderm]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
confused4ever said:
I jsut heard from my T, he thanked me for my consideration on skipping this weeks appt, and rescheduled me for next week!!! Says that one of the things he has to do is stop working on his days off, no more clinical stuff on his time off!!! I have pushed him away!!!!!

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Sounds to me like a pretty straightforward and honest statement by the T. And no, I don't think you pushed him away. Take time to find out what the real situation is... If it's bad, then you can jump away.

[confused4ever]

ok, so my T emailed me back, and this is what the email said......am I reading into all this??????? Or am I the only one feeling he is abandoning me?????

What I wrote to him:

Sorry for all the crap I have caused, I think I will take time off from emotional thinking for this week anyway. If you need more then this week, just reschedule me when ever, and email me with the date. Hope your feeling alittle better.

Val

His response to my email:

OK,

Thanks.

AS

So I am going to go jump of a bridge now......I cannot even hold a relationship with a T..........talk about being totally abandoned!!!!!!!!!! I hate me!!!!!!!!! hate!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[april15]

confused,

I can't really know what your T is thinking, but I can tell you what I was thinking when I read that you told him he could cancel your appointment if he wants, with the insinuation that he needs a break from you and you are willing to help him out by sacrificing your session for his wellbeing. I was thinking that you were hoping he'd reassure you, rather than take you up on the offer. He might have seen it that way too and you know, it's a kind of manipulation, like a game. So, he may be refusing to play the game by allowing you to cancel, and taking you at your word.

It is not your responsibility to take care of your therapist! He is responsible for making sure he isn't overworked. He knows this. It sounds like you are playing the martyr with him (sorry, I've done it too-nothing to feel ashamed about) by trying to take on the responsibilty that isn't yours, like donating your sessions to give him relaxation time, but then you are upset that he accepts the offer. Maybe he is saying OK because he wants you to take responsibility for your choice to cancel.

In your email, you even upped the ante by saying you would give up even more sessions if he needs, indefinitely. Again, he takes you at your word as an adult and doesn't play.

And you are feeling like he is abandoning you? You are clearly the one who is doing the abandoning here.

It sounds like your T has been overworked due to his own lack of boundaries, allowing phone calls on weekends or afterhours and perhaps he wants to stop doing that.He says he ha sto stop working on his days off. Why did that trigger you to start giving up your sessions?

I remember one time canceling my T appt impulsively because I was angry about something that happened at my prior session. I wanted her to be concerned about it, to ask me to reconsider cancelling, but she said OK. I stewed about it for awhile. I was even more angry and thought she doesn't even care that I canceled when she KNOWS I'm upset. After a day of thinking, I decided to call her and ask if my appointment time was still available. She said it was and put me back on the schedule. I learned something then. she was not going to beg me to come in, or delve into why i wanted to cancel. she was going to take me at my word, and as an adult, I'm free to cancel my appointments. She treated me like an adult. She refused to play the game.

[confused4ever]

your right, don't know what I am doing here! I didn't think of it that way, I just took the blame for his overworked feelings, figured it was my fault. He came into my life and I trusted him, and he was going to leave and that was his way of leaving.

[confused4ever]

ok, so I called my T and we talked it out. He is not leaving me, he does however feel unadequate in helping me through this part of healing. It is not his area and he thinks that a trama psychologist would be more suitable for me. But he told me he is with me until I tell him otherwise, it is my decision on continuing with him or not. I told him that right now I cannot change therapists, and I can work through the inner child work, with him and with my group but I need him IRL to ground me and help me see what is real and what is in my past. I told him I need him for anger release also, and I get that this is not his field, but I need him to stay with me right now. So that is were we left it, and thanks for helping me see what a jerk I am when it comes to dealing with things like this! I am not good at it at all, I always run and just take the blame, talking to anyone in a authoritive place I cannot do, I just say what they want me say!!

[Perna]

You're not a jerk! (or any other such thing) You're not deliberately having these problems, having to learn to deal with them anymore than your T is. I'm glad your T will stay with you and help you as you wish right now.

So, did you all schedule your next appointment?

[confused4ever]

yes next Wednesday as planned. I would be in his office right now, wierd not being there, 14 months I have been with him every Wednesday at eleven......I have never cancelled a appt with him.

I just want to feel healthy, I don't know what that feels like anymore, or if I ever knew, my life before feels like it was fake, I lived in that fantasy place I made up as a child so I wouldn't feel any of this pain I am in now. I don't want this baggage anymore!

[RiverX]

But it seems like you really sorted it out now! He was honest, and you know what you want, - to stay with him.

I had thought that he was stepping in to your offer to back down and give him rest was unfair on you. I hadnt thought of it like April said. Just out of interest, which do you think would have been more helpful to you, for him to accept the offer and allow you to sacrifice, OR, say, if he'd said something like
"I notice are you offering to back down when you have real needs here..........?"

So much that happened to me, in therapy, was me not defending myself, ..............sometimes she'd sort of argue with me like anyone in the street, like "NO, I never!", not
"what is it about this that you feel so stongly about?" or anything. Now I'm confused. I spent all that time just not being able to defend my truth, and getting triggered inside. But, i was also trusting her...............................


I have a feeling I've wasted so much good emotional energy, and didnt ever feel it was resolved, more just dissolved and slid into a slump, ..............and i feel I've lost a lot of the good impetus that took me there, Iv lost my grasp on the passion that I had for the issues I needed to deal with, but I've lost some passion for life too, I feel weak, it could have been so much better.

April, do you think thats what she was doing? is that really the most helpful way for a T. to be??
any comments welcome.

riverx