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

That red nail Polish is no joke man

Thats a good point. If LT is reenacting the scenario of her dad, with MC, its not the reenactment of a failed scenario but now with a "magically delicious" ending that heals.

Its building a NEW relationship (like with T) that never goes down that reenactment path to begin with. My t likes to say, "when you come to a fork in the road, take it!" (He loves Yogi Berra. But now i get why he likes this saying of his!)

But its those little forks that BUILD a DIFFERENT relationship AWAY from the usual reenactment path. Once youre on the reenactment path, theres no resolution - theres only walking away.

You crack me up / i love you. Sometimes you get me like nobody else here does.

Funny, as I was driving home from session (more on that in a bit), I was thinking something similar. (Oh, God, I'm thinking like Una...Good thing I see T in the morning!) That maybe resolving transference is NOT having a relationship with a male authority figure where I don't end up getting abandoned (not that my dad physically abandoned me--that's more with some others in my past, like that teacher from my dream). Because, i mean, there's no real way to prove to someone that you'll never abandon them, except, I guess, to be standing there at their deathbed or something.

So maybe resolving transference for me is different. One thought I had was NOT letting the authority figure have all the power over me. Yes, this could mean me leaving first so I don't get abandoned. But in a more healthy way, sort of using the relationship to become more confident in myself, and seeing that person as almost more of, say, a mentor, a coach than a capital-A Authority Figure. Like maybe he could help guide me, but he doesn't decide whether I'm worthy of not being abandoned (I'm sure I could word that better). Or whether I'm good enough (or smart enough or...) Damn it, now I want to e-mail him about it, but I said I'd do my best not to e-mail. So I will talk about it with T tomorrow and tell MC on Monday. Or type up an e-mail that I won't send.

Hm...perhaps I'll make a thread about this. Hoping the mods won't move it to Romantic subforum, because this is paternal stuff...

This is the philosophy I have embraced and so far T has gone with it too within her boundaries that is.

Dear MC,
Thanks for today's session. It really felt like *you* in there talking to me, like the old you. Or at least as close as you could get to that person at this point... And I appreciate the preemptive reassurance at the end. I'll just try to hold on to the way that you were looking at me and talking to me when you said that, because I could tell you really meant it. So when I start freaking out about our session later tonight or tomorrow or Saturday, I can remember that things are OK and safe between us. And thanks for keeping us over extra time to say that (and other stuff). Maybe I can be OK with the bereaved version of you after all...
I love you.
LT

Dr S, I see you in 2.5 hours. My mood has bounced all over the place today. I wish I had this morning's excitement back. Right now I've moved to dread. I have no clue as to what I will talk to you about - the big open cavern of all my crap is sitting there for you to see and I just want to walk away from it all. Can you lead today? - me

Dear T,

I am so overwhelmed! I have been overwhelmed since July and I just can't stand it.

If you knew what I was doing to cope you'd hospitalize me. I'm praying the situation resolves soon or I will just crack in two.

T2,

I wish I had an appt with you today so you could have warned me about that idiot text I sent to A (as in, don't do it). I should have seen his response coming from about a million miles away, because of course he pushed me away, because we have talked about that is what he does. So now I feel like an idiot again (even though I know I actually am not, but still, wthhhhhhhhhhhh).

(Oh, and he completely contradicted himself again. How can I be interested in someone so inconsistent??)

Pre-I sincerely hope there is something that can be done to resolve your situation. Can your T help with that? Can we?

Hugs, JD. I know you need support IRL. But hugs anyway.

Dear MC,
I think I know why I reacted the way I did to you putting the trash can in front of me for the tissues. Because it was a caring, paternal thing for you to do. (And sorry for using up the last of your tissues, though they were already on the yellow!)
Love,
LT

If i allow myself​ to lie here thinking about what I need to say to you, i will lie here awake all night. I have so much to say, and I don't know how I'm going to do it.

Thats what i felt with your two books. They were like forks in the road. They were surprises. Roads not taken.

When i read my old books and find forgotten passages, those are connections and synapses that were never completed because they were too painful and emotional for me to face on my own ( a lost kitten!). I had no way of knowing they would resolve successfully in the book - stuff in my life did not.

Is there any way to erase from your memory a session... because I don't want that one to have occurred.

Kashi you indulge me too much. Sure I was feeling crummy after the homework assignment but I'm not in crisis. Still I love your attentiveness. I don't need it but but I want it.

This is SO hard.

T helped me draft an email to my brother for help. I haven't sent it yet. T is supposed to read it one more time and help me with the final draft.

My brother will help. I don't know what will help. Maybe he will have better ideas.

I hate being a burden.

It's complicated. Something good needs to happen, fast.

im sorry. and im sad.

Dr. S,

-me

T,
I'm struggeling, immensely so. Last night was not good. I hardly slept. The feeling that I need to annihilate myself. Still triggered and in flashback mode.
Will I call you? I'm not sure. My younger parts are scared. They are not sure that you are on my side. This uncertainty is enough for them to withdraw. Because it feels unsafe. Besides, you will come up with the same old question "what do you need from me". And telling me, that my anger (at you, at my partner at the rest of the world) is projection. You might be right. But right now I need you to see, to witness my anger. To let me know that I'm "allowed" to be angry. and furious. At the moment, if you question this anger you question my right to exist. We can come back to projection mode later on, can we? Are you able to hold back and just let my anger be? To give it the space it needs? Can you bear that?
I'm not sure...

desperate and doubting, c_r

Dear T-

So you responded, and as I suspected you were on vacation. Good for you for taking sometime, but next time could you warn me you are taking the week off and that includes not checking email?

Anyways, I am surprised you agreed with my assessment of the current situation. Though, I think you think things are much worst than what I really think they are. I know that you will being the issue up right away, but I go back and forth on whether or not I actually want to talk about it. So, as always be patient with me.

I am also kind of surprised that after 5 1/2 year is therapy, where I am back in this place of depressions, feeling like I can't do anything, I am not worth anything, stopped taking my meds AND presenting with a new problem why you haven't given up and said it's obvious after 5 years you aren't helping and it's time to find someone new. Or is that conversation coming soon?

See ya Friday!

Btw- thanks for turning around and smiling and waving at me after you let you client in the door yesterday. It was friendly, and unexpected because I don't see you a lot when I am there for son's appointment.

Dear Dr. S, Thank you for your reply this morning. -me

PC - might as well update you with details rather than these cryptic messages, least I become unaluna. Topic discussed in last part of yesterday's session had to do my anger and then turned to my violent intrusive thoughts. She's known I have them - yesterday I told her that what worries me isn't that I'll act on them, but that I like them, that if I started I wouldn't be able to stop. (I'll put something in the In Session thread later today with more details.)

Monday night email sent to T:
Tuesday morning email sent to T:
Reply from T:

Dear MC,
I think I *may* have figured out what I'm REALLY afraid of, in terms of whether you've changed as a result of your loss. I mean, yeah, fear that you'll lose empathy, fear that you won't be as caring, definitely. But there's another thing that just hit me.

I've said before that it's like you understand me in a way that no one else has, at least not in recent history. So in some ways, it feels like you, out of anyone, have the most potential to "fix me." Yes, I know that ultimately I have to fix myself, but, between your understanding of me and your psychological training, you seem uniquely positioned to give me the tools and support I need to do that.

But how can you fix me if you're broken yourself? Because I think maybe that's what I'm seeing in your eyes (and understandably so). It's like this line in a Sunny Day Real Estate song: "How I long to heal your wounds. But I bleed, myself."

I think you'll manage to fix yourself again. I mean, you'll still have some cracks, but you had some before, too. And that's part of what makes you such a good therapist. So maybe I just need to give you more time...because I saw a glimmer of the "old you" in your eyes when you were giving me that preemptive reassurance at the end of the session yesterday. So you're still in there--I think I just needed to be reminded of that.
Love,
LT

Dear T,

That was very timely indeed! Who would have known that you would offer that, and that the amount now meets the budget I have set for this month, and means that I can still see you twice a week, like I want to. I really appreciate you respecting our work, my work, in that way.

I also really appreciate your words today. I heard them. Take what we can have together and really run with it. You do it because you can, because we have both worked hard to find out what works, what I need. It is there because we have worked on building that as a base. That is is there in this way, as long as I need it, I guess as long as I want it. That the mother bird won't push out the young when/if she realises that they can't fly.

I like that.

I also liked making that game up with you today. Maybe we could do more of that. It meant that we had to really interact. I needed that. I am glad that we didn't push looking at your notes. I am glad and thankful that you made them. Really, and it may come back up if it is important. Like today's writing did. It just felt right to bring that and share that, and I am so very pleased that I did.

I think I have come a long way. When we first started, I never would have told you I was hot. Maybe one day I will even be able to say more than just "hot"!! I never would have been able to suggest a game, let alone make one up for us to play. I never would have wanted to look you in the eye, let alone achieve it for about 3 seconds.

So, thank you so very much, and yes, I will try to sit with everything and not worry.