Dear T: I need to tell you something, but I don't know how. Part XXV

Hi T,

My dad is being judgmental again about my mental illnesses. He doesn't have any mental illnesses himself, so I guess he feels entitled to make fun of people with bipolar, etc. etc.. :/

I wish I could move out -- I really wish I could. Everything he says is hurtful.

I don't wish my mental illnesses on anybody, but it would be nice if he could experience, for one day, what it's like to have one...

What should I do? I'm at a loss here, T. I'm at a loss.

Frustrated with myself. How many years have I been in therapy? You guys always go on vacations and you always come back. So why is my anxiety out of control??
My vacation follows yours so we have at least a month's worth of erratic appointments. You will not be reachable next week. At all. Which freaks me out. I know I'll be fine. I guess.

Today's session was nice. Your candor is funny but you seem to hint at trouble in paradise. You hinted that your vacation is over scheduled and that may be your wife's doing. Probably not a good idea to go too far down that self disclosure path. It's none of my business. Honestly I don't know how married couples stay together for decades, the concept blows my mind.

You make me feel liked and I'm hooked on feeling like this. Be careful of treating me like a friend. I have to be vigilant because I want you as a friend too, but it can't happen.

Hi R,

Head spinning today...combination of a few factors. I probably won't be able to tell you this on Thursday, but I would like to hear you say that I don't have to hold it together. I know it, but it sinks in more when I hear it. Everywhere else, I feel like I'm duty bound to 'be strong'. What if allowing this to pass through me is my strength at the moment? I've buried it long enough.

Four more sleeps,

Lost

Ur my dad whether you want or intended to be or not

"I put a spell on youuuu
Becauseee
You're mine"

You tell me to have an opinion. To let other people know what I want and what I need. Where my boundaries are

Okay.

So why is it that, whenever I voice my needs, NO ONE DAMN F... LISTENS?

What's the point in caring, in investing the energy to communicate, if it's ignored anyway?

I officially feel attached to you, and I am sorry. I'll do everything I can to push away while still coming to therapy, I need to create a distance. So so sorry. I didn't want this to happen

Dear T,

So no denying I'm attached to you. But cant that be a good thing?

Wish I could call you today. I know you never said I couldn't but its Fathers Day and the weekend.

How do I get thru til session and a work day? Without possibility of getting off early?

It didn't feel like you were being genuine with me at all last week. It's like you talk the talk, but I'm not feeling it at all.

Except perhaps when you said you were irritated (gold star for you) - I believed that. But how is that meant to help me? Isn't that just about you? And wouldn't it be better for you to work that out for yourself? The things I was saying were not at all unreasonable - but you shut me down, ended the discussion, refused to own up to anything.

All that stuff you said about how you enjoy working with me - I guess you intended to reassure me, but like I said ('what if that changes?') you've only done the opposite - you've made this about you - your needs - so I have to keep being good for you or it's all over. You could drop me anytime.

I think you were really quite inept last session. Congrats.

I wish I knew what you were thinking. Really thinking not just some therapist talk. Or maybe I don't?

Okay, I take it back. I don't hate you. But you bringing up your vacation as I'm grabbing my bag to leave? We spent at least 10 minutes in session talking about how freaked out I am about it. I'm going to be working all of 8 days in July. I'm going to fall apart. I'm not strong enough to do this, and it's not even about you not being there. I wouldn't be able to handle this even if you were here.

You're going to come back in August and commit me. I'm almost convinced. Ugh.

Daisy

mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yayyyy I get to see you tomorrow! Not that you'll ever know I May have missed you while you were on vacation

It took me 5 HOURS to organize and clean my art stuff today, but man it looks good now!

I see you tomorrow. It feels like too long. I still really wish I could be in your office right now. I feel more out of control than normal, and I need your stability. I just want to cry sometimes.

Damn you!

Dear T,

I really feel the drive inside me to talk to someone about this yearning that I have for you, and about the relationship that we do have, and about the one that I want in the future.

In my heart I know that the person I need to talk to is you, but my head is telling me to talk to someone else, even though there isn't anyone else that I feel that I can talk about it with.

This sucks.

I am scared to talk to you about it, because I am scared of losing what we have. I am (still) scared of saying or doing something 'wrong' and it having a result that I don't like.

I guess I am also scared that what I want won't be possible. I don't like not knowing, but then I don't want to know if the answer will hurt me!

Oh, and please don't ask me how I know that it is my head or my heart, because I don't know, and I am not caring enough to try and listen, to try and figure it out. There is enough going on up there and in there already.

Dear Dr S,

I don't think I will be able to tell you everything that happened for me around your vacation. I think it is a bit odd how there is this concept that I (we) need to learn how to sit with something when we have all these secrets inside that we sit with constantly. I don't think things will ever be the same between us again. Maybe I'm being fatalistic or catastrophizing it all. How long do I have to feel this way before we can say - nope not fatalistic, realistic; things really are broken? I mean really, do I have to permanently up my antidepressant to feel whatever enough to care if we meet because whenever I take only my prescribed amount, I don't care if I see you or not.
-me

Dear No. 3,

I don't want to see you tomorrow.

ATAT

Today feels like it will be a good day. I was listening more to "The Body Keeps the Score." I've gotten to the part about EMDR, and it reminded me about my own EMDR experiences. I really relate to the bit about having done EMDR somehow allowing my memory of the rabbit incident (Edit to add: 'the rabbit incident' refers to a traumatic incident from my childhood) to become just a memory. Thinking about that -- about how EMDR really, in a short time, allowed that transformation to happen has given me hope that maybe the same transformation could happen with my other memories.

It also got me thinking about what's going on with S leaving. There's a bit in the book where the author talks about how traumatized he felt when he started training in EMDR because a bunch of people had suddenly left his life. First, it helped to hear that he experienced all of that as traumatic as well -- and then, he started talking about how he processed it in EMDR and how making all the connections between his intense experience of these people leaving as traumatic really connected to other parts of his past and life.

And I started thinking...possibly, at least some of the trauma of S leaving is really rooted in my past. And, like in the book, I can kind of see a pattern of repetition of the trauma: the trauma of abandonment, I mean -- throughout my life, even now with you going on a trip...some of the feelings I'm feeling about your trip seem to kind of just be...shadow feelings...replays of feelings from my past with S, and not really about YOU or the reality of right now. Maybe the intensity of S leaving is partly related to past memories that are somehow not just memories and not to what is actually happening right this moment -- maybe some of the intensity is like... part of the pattern... it's coming from unprocessed stuff in the past, not what is happening right now.

Like if I could process it the same way I processed the rabbit memory, maybe it would help. I know that you don't do EMDR, but I'm wondering if you have any other ideas that are kind of similar that would allow me to do that same thing --- connecting the dots of the past/whatever comes up related to what's going on now. And if I could even do that with my other past traumas. Just...I got this thought of "what if all of these things could just be memories like the rabbit memory..." And then I realized...that was kind of supposed to be the POINT of my EMDR therapy -- just that therapist and I never got to get beyond the ONE memory. I think it would be a huge relief if ALL of these things could just be memories like the rabbit one...

Dear T,

The last session today was hard, so hard.
These emotions were what you tried I face for the whole last year or even before that...
I've been denying them, till last week...
Then they hit me!
Today was so hard, I asked for an extra session and you said your schedule was full...
Did you lie to me?
Did I scare you today?

Sparky, please write me back!!

I miss you

Again!!!!!

Stop leaving me

I wish you would send me a text saying it will be okay, like you used to. Guess that's over :brokenheart:

I love you and also I hate you.

...and also I like you and dislike you.

Business as usual eh? Sigh.

Come back! Come back! Come back!

J,

Hi again. It's Monday night.
It was a good day, but tonight, S (ex-T) told me that he is probably finally moving across the country this weekend. And, tomorrow, I see him (hanging out as friends) for the last time. I'm also really upset at the timing of all of this -- that S is leaving exactly when you are leaving for 2 weeks. I know rationally that these two things are not related -- that just because they are happening at the same time does not mean that you are leaving for good and that I'm losing all of the support systems I've put into place in the last couple of months. But, emotionally, that's exactly what it feels like. Like a bit of a replay of the trauma of finding out about S leaving. I know that is not what is happening. But, also, I was stupidly holding out some small hope that maybe S would not move after all. Even though, honestly, I also think that him finally moving and this all being "over" (at least the immediate change) will be helpful.

This pain is so agonizing. It feels like the hugest loss of my life, although, at the same time, it feels familiar and old. Like something I have felt many times before...and especially something I felt with life-or-death intensity as a child. I feel abandoned, alone, unloved, forgotten. The lack of control in this decision to lose someone hurts so much. It is a terrifying feeling -- that people can be taken away or leave without my having any control in the matter. I'm afraid of everyone leaving or being taken away.

I keep thinking "I want my mom I want my mom I want my mom" and then I get this thought that "your mom is gone for forever. You don't get to have that anymore. It's gone forever." And then just a flood of memories of S...of sitting with him...of holding onto him. And I want my mom...I want my mom...I want my mom.

I'm angry that S "let" me get to this place with him -- where the transference was SO strong that I feel towards him like he IS a parent to me. I am angry at him for leaving me after "letting" me get to this place without any sort of resolution. But I'm scared to be angry at him, because then he might take away what little I get to still have. I'm scared to have ANY feelings about it, because my being upset about it, my wanting to talk about it, it seems to drive him away. He stops texting, stops talking, falls silent if I try to talk about how much I'm hurting over this. And that just feels like even more rejection, even more abandonment. I'm torn between wanting to feel my feelings and wanting support and comfort... and my wanting to just have even just a little of him in my life still. But to keep him, I feel like I have to cut off my feelings -- cram them down, hide them, even deny them and lie about them. That's not how our therapy was, and I am struggling with it being how he treats me as a friend -- because he SAYS that's not how it is...he says my feelings are welcome, that I can talk to him about how I'm feeling, that he's still there for support and comfort.... but every time I start talking about my feelings, he goes silent. And I'm not talking about my feelings regarding his cancer --- I'm talking solely about my feelings about him moving, our therapy ending, and our trying to be friends. I don't think that's fair. But if I tell him I don't think it's fair, he just shuts me down like he doesn't care what I think -- my opinion doesn't matter. But his opinion is supposed to matter to me (and does).