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

Dear Dr S. Thank you for not apologizing today. You did nothing wrong. Thank you for taking what I said with patience and a willingness to hear me out. Thank you for normalizing my experience. I love you. - me

Hey t. It's Spring. Wear some bright colors for once, would you? I'd love to see you in lavender or maybe a light yellow or something. Why always black??

Oh also I'm looking forward to wednesday.

Hope you're enjoying your holidays. I miss you. But I'm glad I've stopped crying everyday. Now it's only sometimes.

T-

I am running out of energy to fight. I mean what's the point really? Life as I know it will change probably by this summer and I will have lost a huge support system, a family I never had. Taking away the stability my kids have.. and will I have to gain? I will be vilified, or seen as deceived. What's the freaking point?

I feel like im going to die from lack of sleep. Wish you would help me with things. I feel so alone anymore.

You're back at work today. I want to contact you. I need you. I need more of you than you can give me. I hate this.

If I told you that I loved you, how would you respond?

I keep randomly crying. It's so unlike me.

I hope your T responds well. I'm still so amazed at how you figured out what you needed in a T and interviewed therapists. I wish my T was like yours, WB.

Thank you QM, and thank you for remembering that! It certainly wasn't an easy process but I did just know, and I was very lucky that I had Old T backing me, believing me, telling me it WAS out there. I just had to have the strength to keep going until I found it, which I very nearly didn't. I also had to be very, very honest with all those people upfront, and just walk away if they didn't seem 100% onboard with everything, which most didn't.

I am fortunate also that I am in a position in life now where I can afford to be choosy, both in time and money ways. I have not been in this position before, so therapy before this, for me, would have been a lot more limited I think, and possibly would not have worked for me.

Lots of factors to consider there but I still do think that if people believe that they know what they need, and have the resources, they should look for it. That is a big reason why I post, because had I not had old T telling me this, I would not have kept looking. I would have given up, and I think that would have been a real shame.

Thank you, and I do really hope that one day you too can find something in this crazy world that really helps you, deep down.

Dear XT, your on my mind and I don't know why. I didn't shed a tear when we terminated though for a bit after, I did want to come back. I don't know why your on my mind now after all these months but I want you to get off my mind. Why don't you go intrude your current clients thoughts? Run along now. Yea, I'm blaming you for me thinking of you. Ridiculous, I know. There hasn't been contact in months, so I shouldn't be thinking about you.

In 24 hours our session will be done and I will be facing three weeks without you.

T-

Trying to email you, I just don't know how to put it all words.

"Everything today has been heavy and brown,
Bring me a unicorn to ride about the town."
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Dear T,

I might email this back to you but I am unsure.

I do want to trust you, so badly, and I do, to quite a big extent I really do. It is a real struggle to explain it, so I am not going to try, but I need you to know that I do believe you. I would never, ever let myself be as vulnerable as I am with you if I didn't believe you and if I didn't trust you. We are just, together, working on changing the instinctive reactions, the deep rooted beliefs in me caused by years of not being able to trust anyone, of not believing that anyone was there for me, just because.

Something in your email did not sit right with me and it is the statement "I am only walking besides you, helping you to read some of the signs."

I can assure you that, whether you know it or not, you are doing a lot more than that. The word "only" has no place in that sentence. Me allowing somebody, and somebody wanting "to walk by my side" is such an enormous thing that "only" is not a word that fits there.

That's all for now,

Me

OK, so that didn't take long to decide. Sent.

This was always going to be confusing, strange, awkward. The good and then the bad, the positive and then the negative. But the good and the positive will be back. Ebbs and flows. Waves. Muddling along. As I said. We are OK. I know we are. I just need to accept the fight inside me and look back on the past year. Well, a year on Friday anyway. Maybe, as well as what I have planned, we can just sit and remember the past year. It really has been quite a year, hasn't it. Quite a walk, as you say, and yes, I have enjoyed it.

I do love you, you know, with all of the wonderfulness, as well as the complications and tough stuff that comes with that.

We are in the middle of it and we will be ok, even if my inner voices choose to tell me otherwise.

Hi T,

This soft,caring voice you had in the last minute of our session, when I tried to stumble out what I had wanted to say the 59minutes before... It hurt. Your voice hurts.

I agree with you on the word "only"... maybe that is what she is seeing from her point; however, I can see how much more your T (my T) does from my side of the equation. Maybe the "only" is there because they are not doing anything but be allowed to walk beside us. What I mean by that... is that it is us doing the work, doing the risking, doing the trusting .... ... ... granted I could just as much argue how much more T is doing "than walking beside me" that is helping me trust and believe in her.

I think it is ok to tell your T that she is much more than "only" someone walking beside you and how these other things that make her who she is and what she does... has allowed you to become someone you are comfortable with being beside you and you believe that she wants to be beside you (yes I see the difference here too). And even tell her that using the word "only" felt like it minimized, or something, her role in your life and your relationship.

I think it is ok to tell her in whatever form of communication that would be comfortable for you... email, card, letter, ... in session.

I think it is ok, as well, to just sit with the knowledge that she is much more than that regardless of what she thinks/says.

Guess I shouldn't have paused to make lunch while typing up my last post.

Oh, and talking of things changing, of things being taken away, I see we have changed the standard operating procedures around texting when we send emails. Three emails from you sin e you got back (which I massively appreciate by the way) and no texts. Are you aware of that or not. I will ask you, and if you are aware, and there is a reason, like the last time you made a change without telling me, I will call you out on it and I will ask why you didn't just tell me.

But then, I imagine, that there will be no malice intended, that maybe the reason for not telling me is just that in the grand scheme of things, and given the limited time that we have together, it didn't seem important. Well, it is important, because of my fears. Just saying!!

Thank you, Elio, that means a lot, and it is beautiful to know that someone else understands. No matter how amazing my T is, it is hard, hard work trying to get her to understand me, but I do see the benefit of this in the long run, as it means s I have to be open with her. I have to really work at sharing, which is what I need to work on IRL too but some days I would just love to have my Old T back, because she just seemed to get it!

art T,

I feel hopeless and devastated. I might just jump ship tomorrow and leave this group I didn't want to join in the first place. Not sure though. A tiny part of me still holds a little bit of hope that things might turn around eventually. That I might be able to enjoy the group and to profit from this setting.
It doesn't feel like it's right around the corner though. And in fact, at the moment it feels like torture. And I'm still angry like h*ll that you are the one who inflicted this torture on me.

I know, I'm a free person. I could just get up and go. But the truth is: I can't. There's unfinished business between the two of us and I know myself well enough to realize that this would haunt me for a long time to come.

So if I get up and leave, it needs to be from a place of resolution and closure and not out of anger. Will you please help me get there somehow? You'd better damn well...

c_r

Dear Dr S, just over 27 hours until next session. It is good to finally be back to 2x week. I will be happy once you move to private practice in July and you'll have a lot more freedom in your schedule. But will that mean that you'll start taking vacations? (note to self: ok, don't worry yet about that)

No emailing you today, cuz the only reason to email you is to say, Hi, I love you. Well, which I do ; however, I'm trying to break the habit.

Love,
Me

Dear T,

Thank you. I think you do get it when I explain it. I am glad that you can see it and I am glad that I can see that you can see it. I will leave you alone now, until Friday, on here and IRL. I think it may be time for me to start my art journal again, especially given the next phase that I want to move towards.

I think that you will be as intrigued as I am by it. Feelings, get ready, we are coming for you.