In Session Today : Part III

Had a very interesting appointment with T. This was my first appointment since meeting with EMDR t. I had emailed her the day after the appointment to tell her it went okay and all that. I told T about the appointment and how EMDR had answered some of my questions about concerns T and I had. I also told her that since that appointment I realized I don't know this other T how could I trust her with the biggest secret of my life. I reminded her that we dealt with the safer problems for a couple of years before I felt comfortable telling her. However with EMDR T that is more an option. At my next appointment we are going to to the preliminary work and the dive right in the following appointment. T reminded me I am a different person now and reminded me of times recently that I put trusted people in ways I had never before. She also told me that she would ask about EMDR at all our appointments however if I don't want to or can't talk about she wants and expects me to say so. I felt relieved because one of my biggest concerns is that she wouldn't want to discuss weekday happened with other T. Back when I was considering EMDR she said something like if issues came up about my abuse she would refer me to talk to EMDR t.which I interpreted to mean she ani would not deal withmy abuse. Which scares the he'll out of me.

Then I brought up the fact that alcohol is starting to become an issue again. She was awesome, as always. We discussed how seductive it is and easy to fall into the trap. She asked about severity and I explained it is not nearly as bad as last time but I don't want to go there. So we will start working on figuring out the pattern as there seems to be one but not sure what it is.she also said if EMDR t called she would not discuss alcohol with her and that we would first discuss anything she would say to EMDR. I told her to say what she thought will be helpful and beneficial. I told her the main reason I mentioned alcohol to her was that in all the paperwork for Emdrt I did answer some questions about alcohol so just in case she mentioned the topic i wanted to tell her first. At that point I asked if she wanted me to sign a release for Emdrt. She said you sigmed on for her so I am fine with that. Then she said how she is horrible when it comes to paperwork and one day she will get sued. I promised i wouldnt sue her.....besides she has been doing this for about 40 years it hasn't had issues yet...

Just finished a session with current T -- told her about seeing the other Ts.

She was rather calm, detached and chill listening to that -- didn't try to ask me to stay or get emotional. Just said "I'd like to continue to work with you" and left it at that. Somehow I found this detachment to be one of the most authentic and comforting things she's done.

I called her out on her responses to my anger -- that "authentic" didn't mean they weren't screwed-up. I specifically asked her if she'd tried examining herself (she said yes) and if yes, what had she found -- she got irritated and said "It seems you want me to give you a dissertation on how I examine my own stuff". I must say I was rather pleased that I managed to provoke that response -- it would've irritated me no end if she'd started being syrupy sweet just because I'd said I was looking to quit.

So, I pushed her some more on her responses to my anger -- she tried doing some (weasel-y) stuff like "I don't remember what I was feeling" etc but then when I pushed some more, just said "Yeah, those times felt really primitive and I didn't feel like myself. They were not my finest moments". She continued that apparently whenever I told her not to be therapist-y (all of those times basically), she got irritated and decided "Okay, now let me really show her". And, that yeah, her stuff does come in (she didn't say what and I didn't push -- I really don't want to deal with that but wanted to know that she did / was). Also, she (at least seemingly genuinely) acknowledged how her responses to my anger would've distressed me and that it's something she needs to work through.

I think her acknowledgment of screwing up repeatedly was super important to me (although yeah, it's far from a proper apology). And, that she didn't seem to bend over backwards and kowtow but just took it in stride that I was looking to switch.

Long story short -- I've decided to give it another go with her for a while and see where it goes. It gives me some confidence that if things get awful again, I can always get out and see the other therapist (now that I've identified a solid alternative).

I haven't had a session in over a year and am terrified to ask if I'm still a client.

I talked alot, he didn't get many words in. We focused on fear and recent ptsd episodes associated with medical people and hospitals. Had terrifying body/dissociative memory of being suffocated, which is from a time when I was tortured as a small child. It lasted a long time and I couldn't breathe. T sat there and looked at me when it seemed like he should have comforted me. But he won't have jury duty, so I was glad that is over with.

Talked about projective identification he thinks I've been doing lately but he used an example of my recent email. Only he misread it and mischaracterized it, which leads me to think he was projecting on me this time . He didn't admit his error and proceeded to use it as an example though he attributed qualities to it that didn't exist. Now I'm not so sure about the PI. Not the first time he was wrong, but I've still been trying to figure it out, if there's a pattern, so we'll resume the discussion.

T seemed crabby today. Maybe it was the jury duty.

I had a good session with T yesterday. I want to write about it but I'm feeling lazy. Maybe later. I got a long warm hug. He's gone for a week

In session today I told T although I do love him, I'm not "in" love with him. He had his back to me, I had my arm around his middle and we sort of squeezed. I sat cuddled up to him for a while, it was lovely. I was afraid of hurting his feelings but he assured me it was okay. We hugged and I kissed him on the cheek and then left. It's relieving to know we're okay.

^ wow he allowed you to kiss his cheek

Good session with EMDR T , check on the body scan I was feeling sick. So I'm trying to get the feeling away from me. Here , universe , transmute this for me. I feel slightly better now.

Can i write about my dentist appointment today? I thought it was going to be horrible, because a molar has been bothering me, and at the dental school they usually go sooooo sloooooow. But the molar was fine by the time he cleaned my teeth! And he cleaned my teeth in under an hour! Amaaaaaazing! So all in all it was good, and we have a good rapport. He is sooooo cute. And italian. I told him i have an italian dinner party to go to in a month and i want all my teeth functioning for that. He showed me a dinner he made for his gf last week, a mahi salad it looked beautiful.

Sometimes I wish I could

Highlight from my session

Was walking with T and we heard children screaming. He said someone's getting killed. I said probably. I said I don't like that noise. He pointed to some mud puddle on the ground and said do you like that? I said yeh. I like that. He said yeh me too

I would really like it if I could be brave enough to ask L about her response to my anger recently.

What do you have to lose, really? Just ask.

Worst case scenario, she'll deflect or something. Am sure even if you were to call her out on it, you'll be much nicer than the arsehole that I am about stuff like that.

Best case scenario, she's honest and you have a good exchange.

Middling scenario, you get there part-way with some glimpses of what might be going on and prefer to leave it at that rather than go further.

Any which way, you'll be further ahead than where you are now?

Then again, whatever gives you peace, I say.

Today we left half way through the appointment. We are not going back.

Do you wanna talk about what happened? Hugs

I don't know what happened. I was seeing her and then I wasn't. I have DID. It is all mixed up. There is perfect calmness and acceptance and there is also terror. I don't want it anymore.

It was an odd session in a way. I didn't have anything especially on my mind & told him that at the beginning. He said we could do a check in on my progress. He asked me how it made me feel having to pay him for the sessions, which I found odd. Then he said that although it's lovely to have a 'chat' he wanted to make sure he was doing the best for me. He wondered if maybe it was time to be a little more challenging. I wasn't aware of just going & having a 'chat' & said that sometimes when we were talking lots of things just came up. He then said, when you come in & say that you are feeling good & don't know what to talk about today (again) he wonders if he is actually doing the right thing by me. That confused me & I said that I often come in with stuff I need to talk about, but sometimes when things are more settled, I don't necessarily have something on my mind.
Having thought about what he said in session, I'm not sure what he's trying to get at? Does he think I'm wasting both his & my time, or maybe he thinks I'm boring? I'm feeling a bit like I've done something wrong, but don't know what it is?

Yes, not for the first time. Often it's while sat side by side and I have my nose on his cheek kinda nuzzling. I think it's probably one of the reasons I had to be clear about love Vs in love.

I haven't posted here in a while. My life has gotten complicated which is leaving me feeling like I can't be of support to the people here at PC... which in turn tells me not to put myself out there because I won't receive support back. I know some have followed my story so here is a truely brief description of this weeks sessions:

Monday - deep dive into abandonment issues around my mother and uncle, and how those issues played out with T's vacation. I used a book called "you go away" by Dorothy Corey (https://www.amazon.com/You-Go-Away-D...=UTF8&qid=&sr=) to talk about the separations. I can't seem to find a video of this one. I felt very weird during the session, distant. So mild disassociation to a bit more before grounding back to the present. Then I spent the last 1/3 of the session talking about things with wife (the new complications).

There was lots of sadness and peace through the session and after. On Tuesday, I had one of those sad weepy days where you are just sad that something happened in the past, not anything particular and nothing else complicating the emotion. There was some peace with it too. A healing moment? don't know but it felt like maybe.

Yesterdays (Thursday's session) - I took games and a snack in. I wanted to just be with T, in her presence. We played scrabble. Since we agreed not to keep score, we played more cooperatively than competitively. T did not eat of my snack though I offered it to her. I was not upset at this but wondered if she didn't like my snack choice. At the end of the session, she confirmed that she doesn't eat them as she doesn't like them. About 1/3-1/2 way through the session, I told her about how Monday effected me and how with the help of friends, I started feeling better towards the end of the day. Then I asked her why it was ok that I email her. She talked about this or that, I didn't get an answer that really answered the question for me. When time was up, I got really sad. I didn't want to leave. She let me linger and leave at my pace. I'm not sure how much over the hour I was.

Please don't think you can't reach out to others. We all totally know where your coming from. I'm sorry you are having a tough time at the moment & I too get frustrated with my T when I don't get a concrete answer. Do what you feel is right for you & if that's emailing, then email. Look after you.

At this point, nothing. It's over and I'm accepting that. I think I'm going to because I just really want to. Thanks!

I'll just say that I'm really grateful I saw him today. I really needed him to be just the way he was.

What happened? How long had you been seeing her? Is she much older than you? Are you "attached"?

Sorry for the all questions...just curious.

Simply put....

There was a lot of crying. I texted Duchess and asked her why I feel empowered after talking about what we did. Her response, "your sadness was connected to all the guilt and shame from those past events. The empowerment is connected to the truth that you didn't have choices to those events so there is no need for guilt and shame concerning them. Your responsibility now is to move forward with that new perspective."

Basically, I feel re-newed and okay, which is a new and rather odd feeling for me.

We'd agreed on ending in November, then we had this huge blow up because I was angry at her and she didn't take it well, we tried to work it out, but it's not and things deteriorated very rapidly after that and 9 days ago she said she needed a break so we took a month off or longer or forever I don't know. The ball is in my court to call her or not after a month break. Yeah. Been seeing her almost 6 years. She's 12 years older than me. And yes very very attached! And realizing in the past 9 days through a lot of work on my part that I had been emotionally dependent on her for a long time... that's the short of it....