Dear T: I need to tell you something....Part XXIV

Hey T. I was all over the place, and hyper today. Sheesh. Sorry.

Sitting in my car at my work parking lot and having a phone session is better than waiting another week. Better than nothing.
who cares
i'll just die

actually, screw this. I am not sitting in my car in my work parking lot. I've done it in an emergency, but this isn't right. I already told you i cant do that day of the week..over a year ago..Surely my needs can be considered with the scheduling too rather than just your needs or your prime patient needs?

i don't have a slot.-the hterapy doesn't exist anymore. im going to have a breakdown. it feels like your trying to push me into a breakdown, to a mental hospital so you can say-see, it's not working. and it's all my fault for taking a 2 day break. now i don't deserve a session because i did that

thats why you said for me to send you times rather than you send me times. so you can say none of the times i can come work for you. if you don't have times i can come than i cant come anymore. your doing it to get rid of me. im going to xx myself

Hugs, Skies....any chance of finding a new T?

you had to know how not having a regular time would affect me. it's been weeks since you gave away my slot-how come we still don't have a regular time by now? you knew this would happen and it would cause a breakdown then you could say it's not working. hiow could you not know how this would affect me, you had to of. why didn't you send all the times you had to me so i could pick one that worked? why did you have me send you times so you could say no, i can't meet at any of them. how could you be so cruel. you know with my background how much this would hurt me. you had so man yopen slots all the time anytime i asked for an extra appt. what happened to them all. I dnon't havea therapy i'm going to die. i need help, please help me

No, it feels traumatizing. and i could never go to another therapist again if that happens

he emailed me back. We just found a time for every other week, i think. I cant be doing therapy from my car in work parking lot and leaving in the middel of meetings. i was just desperate. i get really desperate when i feel i'm being abandoned. i can't believe at my age how much it affects me. thank you lonesome

Glad you were at least able to find a time for every other week.

Dear MC,
I want to text back and ask if your "No worries" was in response to my text saying we could just talk then and "thanks" or if you were referring to my other text with the comment about how you'd mentioned boundaries and that made me afraid you'd take things away. Hoping it was about the boundaries comment (I think you were driving while I sent both texts). But I won't ask. Hope to talk to you later this week. Though I wonder if you're hoping I'll no longer need/want to talk to you after seeing T. Then again, I'd think you would have said "Why don't you talk to T then if you still want to talk, let me know." I guess I'll just see how I'm feeling then...but knowing me, I'll likely want to talk to you if you're still giving me the chance...
Love,
LT

I just reread his email. It was for this week only. He said "maybe we should look at next week too". Why is he torturing me like this? I don't understand why he'd want to do this.

Maybe people here can learn from me-

Don't ever make yourself completely vulnerable to a therapist. I let down all my defenses with him, revealed all the insides. I spill my heart out in sessions-all emotion. Told him all of my feelings for him, all the very young attachment feelings, longings, and sexual feelings. All my parts came out, they thought it was safe, then had to go back in. It was a very foolish thing to do.

I can't believe i did this. Now I'm weak and drowning and desperate and needy and clingy and emotional and fragile and vulnerable and angry and hurt. Really hurt.

Ugh, I'm sorry Skies. Therapists are basically holding us in the palms of their hands when we share so much with them (I've done an awful lot of sharing, too.) I wonder if there's any way you can repair this with him? I have to wonder how much of it is a counter-transference reaction. Not necessarily romantic, but paternal, or maybe you remind him of someone he knows, something like that?

I know! I handed everything over to him. And i can't get out of it. I realize i made a mistake in letting myself be that vulnerable-but do i have to pay for it every week via torture???? Like purgatory.

Very, very confused about what it is. I've thought maybe i remind him of an ex. Recently thought-maybe he is getting dimentia, but his memory is really good so it can't be that. I have no clue.

I've had a strong need to repair this for some time now but it's impossible when you're not allowed to look at the other person at all. Not comparing therapy to marriage but it's like this...every time-

Lonesome: I felt hurt when you did X.
Your H: Then why did you marry me?

and this-

Me: Not having a regular session is really affecting me.
My T: If only I change, you will change.

Kind of mocking tones. When I brought up my feelings again last week about his giving away my session, he said in a mocking tone "[former session time] is the ONLY time you can do". I never even said that. I'm so confused. Same tone when he said you are the ONLY patient who had an issue with that [giving away my session] in 40 years.



I am better now then earlier. I was losing it. Not having a regular session keeps me on the edge. I forget it about it emotionally, then i fall back into the abandonment spiral. But if I ask him for it explicitly, i'm afraid that will make him not do it. When i ask for things, he doesn't do them; it seems even if it was something he would have done otherwise. Come to think of it-i may have asked him tonight in an email--oh no, dear god!!!

We had a regular session for 3 1/2 years until recently. i have no idea why he doesn't see (or care?) how problematic it is with someone with my issues to have no session from week to week. I am perplexed with everything.

Wish i had the answers. It's like I can't walk away without repairing things but how can you when you can only look at 1 side of the relationship? Then he's sweet at other times. It seems like every other week-one week he's nice, the next he's mean.

I'm still holding up. We'll see when we meet this week. At least ok for now.
Ugh. Thanks for your support. I know it's so easy to say "find a new T". I can't discuss that right now though; can't consider it yet. I've gone to a few while seeing him and they make me want to run.

This is madness!

Sorry you're hurting 😟 But just wanted to let you know you've captured my feelings so well.

Hi t, I'm just sitting here thinking about you and hoping you are having a wonderful vacation. And I hope you have plans for a very relaxing, rejuvenating birthday on Wednesday! You deserve it.
love,
me

M

Thank you for taking me to that place. The aftermath after the storm doesn't sound like a thankful place to be, but somehow it is. It is a calmness here and an acceptance of the storm really happening. It did happen and the little one and I are hanging here together just taking it in.

It's like you said. It's like a tornado went through here. It's splintered pieces of white picket fences laying shattered in a circle. The grass beneath it is a beautiful lush green and the sun is bright and clear. It is so silent. There are no words. There are questions without words, but they are heard between me and the little one.

The sunshine means there is hope and that is all we need right now.

We are just going to sit here together and chill. We will hang here together and see what comes next.

Be both believe that it will be good. Whatever comes we are in this together. Nobody gets left behind.

Thank you!

Trail

Dear Smaug, 2, 3,

I don't know whether it's still the med withdrawal symptoms or whether the symptoms have just gotten me into a cycle of broodiness.

But something crystallized in my head tonight: why couldn't you believe me that I wasn't suicidal? I spent months taking medications as prescribed, I was upfront about whatever I was feeling that was self-destructive, I proved myself...but when the chips were down, you didn't believe me. You believed me - or maybe you were pretending, I dunno - about a horrific sex assault, why couldn't you believe I wasn't at risk, something much easier to believe?

ATAT (aka collateral damage)

Hi R,

I've finished that list of signs that I'm struggling with something I can't articulate. Right now, I'm torn between handing it to you on Thursday, and emailing it, then trying to forget that it exists. Like my friend said 'We didn't make the list, so you can stop doing the things on the list!'

This is where not knowing if your email is working properly yet is helpful...

Two more sleeps

Lost

Dear T,

You seemed different today. Maybe I seemed different today. OK different. In some ways, good different. I asked for this because I wanted it, and you were trying today, I think. More words. It meant it was easier for me to hear, until I started to shut down, that is, then it was hard, and is now hard to remember. The play was good. Sorry for ramming into you like that, I was just really awkward and unsure. I didn't know how else to get out! You didn't seem to mind though. Thanks. You cheated and you looked while I was up and about. You did it subtly though, and in a way I am glad, because it didn't make it seem like some big spectacle that you were gawping at. I think you were just intrigued and maybe a bit excited to see me looking for things like that. I don't know.

Dear T,
You help make it easier for me to talk about the bad stuff. You wait, you never push me, you tell me to breathe & are always there with me. I get so nervous each time, but you always help me get it out. Do you know just how much I need you at those times? I couldn't do this without you!

I want to get up and realize that it was just a nightmare and you're my Dad.

Oh I so feel this too.

Thank you for acknowledging my existence.

Dear T,
Of course you'd text while I was in the shower with a last-minute opening. Probably for the best I couldn't make it though--I suspect my thoughts would have been all jumbled today anyway--well, even more so than usual. Tomorrow will give me time to figure out what I really need to talk about (unless, of course, you have a cancellation later today).
Love,
LT

Dear T,

You have the gentlest of voices. I honestly can't believe that I have never noticed that in a whole year of working together twice a week. How is that even possible. So warm and soft and caring. I am genuinely flummoxed as to how I have never actually heard your voice.

Are you noticing now because you are recording the sessions?