Dear T : I Need To Tell You Something, but Don't Know How... (Part XXVI)

How could anyone be so cruel to my sister? The community gave out brownie points to those who tormented her. I am beside myself and you don't understand. How could that be?

I'm ****. I don't know if we're still building trust and then I'm undoing it outside session. Anyway it's my fault I know. I waste your effort. I waste a time slot.

You've so many other clients who are worthy. People like S need to see you but have problems like finances. They probably don't waste your effort like I do. I'm probably hopeless. Lousy client.

I waste your energy. You should give up on trash like me. I don't deserve therapy, I am a weak pathetic loser who's probably hypochondriac.

Other people have real problems. I'm just whining and wanting attention because I'm disgusting.

I failed with ex T at CBT because I'm a stupid attention seeking, help rejecting complainer.

I hope you're enjoying your vacation
but I miss you

Hi T,

I've been more or less sleeping the past 18h. I miss you. I need you. I should go back to the crisis center but it didn't help. I feel utterly confused. Not sure where or what I am. The xanax. The xanax made me confused. sleepy. tired. i need your help. stupid nightmares.
No, stop. I need to get myself together. study. 2 more exams. study. I can't. how am I supposed to study if I feel... Me and not me. how will you react. i doubt I can keep anything I'd learn now. back to bed. but there are the nightmares. guilt, shame.

S (ExT),

Sigh. Yeah.

TMC

---

C,

Please help today. I hurt.

TMC

Hey Luv, I havnt posted in a while, I see your hitting those bumps in the road pretty hard.

I can't be sure but isn't your T kinda young and inexperienced, and doesn't his school of training NOT believe in transference? Or not believe in processing it?

I know he wanted to give it a go, I still think it's obvious he has no idea what he is dealing with.

But please remember just because he isn't malicious doesn't mean he can't be just as damaging through ignorance.
I know you know all this, my intention isn't to be patronising just to try and remind you where your standing.
Once again relieved that my pdoc is such a*s.

Dig in girl, if anyone can see there way out of this mess, even if it's not a way you really want to consider...you will.
Take care, as always.

I think about you all the time and fantasize about what I wish we could do. I want you to hold me close to your chest and tell me nice things and wipe my tears away. I love you and wish our sessions could be more intimate.

I guess I still somehow thought that you might do it. There was still some hope. Some part of me thought that you might say something, something that told me that you understood, that you were really there with me. But you didn't, you just sat there. You didn't say anything. Then you told me there was nothing to say.

There could have been.

There are a million things you could have said.

You said nothing instead.

T I talked this weekend about my attachment to you with my girlfriends. I cried as I described how painful it can be to them. They didn't judge me at at all, one of them came over and hugged me as I cried, it's kinda as if speaking of it out loud with them might have taken some of it's power over my emotions away. Fascinating!! I'm glad I told them I mean of all my friends I trust them SO much and it was such a therapeutic weekend.

Dear T,
Were you implying today that I'm in a dependent-codependent relationship with MC? Or at least you were concerned it would become that? Because I find it odd you didn't just say "dependency" with your concerns about me, like being too reliant on him...but also threw out "codependency." (You're a T, you know what those words mean.)
And I still don't think you understand why it's difficult for me when you're critical of him...
--LT

C,

Hi...

Yeah, I'm a mess. And have been since walking out your door. I thought about calling, because I want to pay you for your help, for your time, and because I don't want to be alone right now. But, I'm not ready for you to hear or see me cry like this.

You know, I also wish that I felt towards you as I feel towards S. Actually, I wish I felt that way towards you and not towards S. Because you're actually here. And feeling this way towards S only hurts with no relief. But, I can't make myself feel that way towards you, and I can't make myself not feel this way towards S.

Completely my fault then after all? :-/

Some of this will be the same as above.... copy/pasting the actual email I wound up sending C.

C,

Hi...So, I wrote this last night. I didn't want to "spend" my weekly email this early, but I'm not feeling any better this morning, and I don't really know what to do, so I'm going to just use it now:

I'm a mess. And have been since walking out your door. I thought about calling, because I want to pay you for your help, for your time, and because I don't want to be alone right now. But, I'm not ready for you to hear or see me cry and fall apart like this. I don't know what to do.

You know, I also wish that I felt towards you as I feel towards S. Actually, I wish I felt that way towards you and not towards S. Because you're actually here. And feeling this way towards S only brings pain with no relief. But, I can't make myself feel that way towards you, and I can't make myself not feel this way towards S.

I know you're probably tired of hearing this repeatedly, but I miss S. I miss S so freaking much. I want to call him right now. I want to call him in tears and ask him if he is still there, if he still cares. I want to tell him that I love him, that I am not ok without him, that I can't stop crying and need him so much. I want him to be here. I want to hold onto him while he hugs me. I want his strength and his warmth and the comfort of him. I honestly don't know how to keep resisting this urge. It feels pointless... because I doubt he'd even answer the phone if I called. I doubt there would be any comfort there for me. I think he cut off his own attachment to me. I keep thinking he's probably so relieved to be away from me. He probably prefers it. He probably doesn't think of me. He probably doesn't care if he ever hears from me again.

I just want to be over this. It would be so much easier if I could just hate him.

I realized I didn't have time to ask you what you thought of what I told you today. And, that is worrying me, I guess. I generally think and feel that the things from my past are not "bad enough" to merit my reactions to them. Like... I should be over it. I've had my time. It's time to grow up and move on. And, really, I am over a lot of it. Although, a friend speculated that telling you everything may be the reason why I'm falling apart and really want S. I don't know. I said "I've told it so many times," but the truth is, I haven't. Aside from my husband and S (and, to a lesser extent, J), nobody knows.

I also realized that I didn't fully answer your statement/question about whether I perceived my life as a story with a beginning/middle/end: I do... but, it's a fractured line. I can tell that the pieces go together, but they are not quite connected. And, a lot of my "perception" is intellectual -- I can tell it as a story from beginning to end, but internally, I do not connect to them as being "my story." And, a lot of the beginning comes from what I've been told happened, not real memories.

Also, ok, so I keep trying to think of Labor Day as no big deal, but the truth is, I'm anxious about it. I'm at the beach over the holiday - coming back that Tuesday... I keep wanting to try to not ask... but... I guess I'll just ask... do you have any openings at all during the rest of the week? ...I'm off work Wednesday, though I've got group therapy 11:30-12:45 and see J for a termination session from 1-2. I don't know. I feel like it should just be no big deal. But, I guess, for me, right now, it is. Which scares me, because it was always really hard for me when S went on vacations or whatever... and I was hoping to not feel that way again.

I want to survive till your birthday but this is too difficult.
All I want is to cry. To hug you and cry.
Every day is a reminder that I'll never be "normal". I'm just a freak for everyone. I can't stand it anymore, T, I can't.

Please help

C,

Thank you for responding. It helps to know you were hoping I'd connect with you, because, honestly, the primary reason I didn't email last night was because I just do not want to overstep and overwhelm you with my emails and neediness. A question for you, because you've mentioned text a few times: Do you allow paid-for texting in lieu of paid-for calling during times like last night? Because, that would be easier for me right now until I'm more comfortable with you seeing/hearing me fall apart...

It's instinctual for me to hold tears and vulnerability back and release it only in private. S is the only person who has ever seen it. (I'm not even comfortable breaking down in front of my husband.) When I was an infant, when I cried, my dad would scream in my face. As a kid, he would not let me talk to my mom on the phone when I was staying with him if I cried for her. He'd threaten punishment for crying at other times. Plus, my dad and stepmom made fun of how I look when I cry. So, basically, I guess I'm afraid that crying is going to lead to harsh words, criticism, punishment, or losing support. I (intellectually) understand that's not typically the case, though, before S left, there was an incident where we went out to dinner/paint night, and when I began crying, he completely ignored me because "that's not what the night was about for him." And, admittedly, that's taken me a few steps backwards in the "crying is OK" lesson.

Yes, losing S feels like a piece of me has been torn off. J suggested I come up with a visualization that represented separating from S. The visual I came up with was splitting strands of DNA. I'll let that speak for itself.

I was supposed to be working with S on being able to tell "my story" while emotionally connecting to it. We were going through it piece by piece using the timeline. There are pieces I have processed, I believe, completely; but, there are large pieces that I have never connected to or felt my way through and would like to process in future.

My goal for "how I'd like to feel" when you are not available is that I'd like to feel like just because you're not right here doesn't mean you are gone and never coming back. I would like to be able to take your vacations/holidays in stride, knowing I'll see you again and don't need to worry over losing you/your care/our relationship while you are away. I would like "away" to not equal "gone" for me.

OK this was a lot longer than I meant for it to be. But I really do appreciate your being here. Thank you for everything.

S (ExT),

Well, I know where you're working in AZ now. And finding that via Google hit me like a freaking shitcrapton of bricks, so. Just. Whatever.

...

Hey you. Y'know, if I could repeat this past weekend 4 times a year I mightn't need you anymore.

Thanks for all the amazing friends I've made because of you.

Even if you did nothing else for me. I guess you sent me here.

I'm so fickle. One moment I love you and the next I don't. In this moment, I'm glad the attachment isn't terribly strong. But I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back. I guess I'd compare it to the tides. Now the water is fine, but the tide will eventually swell.

So for now I wade in the water. And hope that the high tide is calm.

Dear Info,

Never tell me something is a story I'm telling myself about my mother and reaching out to her (or not). The burden to express love and caring isn't on me to ask for it, but on the person whose job it is in the first place.

You've known me 8 hours. I've known her almost 39 years. I know what I'm ****ing talking about, and it's not a "story."

ATAT

C,

Thank you, thank you, thank you
For your emails
For existing
For being so different from S - not overpromising, not overtly comforting... you seem steady and reliable... so far
Just... thank you
Finding you has actually given me hope for things getting better

But, no, I will not be telling you all of these things
I'm not ready to show you my vulnerability
You'll have to earn every ounce of my trust

But I'm still really grateful

oh and my dearest t, i do realize that it is all the deep work with you, that taught me how to go and have the same kind of deep conversations that were had at my girl's weekend. I've never in my life opened up so much with anyone but you as I did over this past weekend (I mean in person - I share a lot of stuff on PC. In person is SO hard for me.) But I've known these women for literally almost 30 years - no, I don't see them much and sometimes it's years in between being in the same room together, but I'd trust any one of them with my life and they trust me the same way and so I shared some stuff with them including talking about my attachment to you even!! A couple of them got it too - they asked almost in unison "That's almost like a breakup, huh?" when I talked about how hard it is to leave you because I'm so attached. They got it, and did not judge me at all (like h does). It really was group therapy Saturday evening when we sat around the living room talking, sharing, laughing, crying, taking turns getting up and hugging someone when we were so moved - for a good 5 hours. I am so very, very, very blessed and I need to remember that the next time I start feeling sorry for myself for some stupid reason.

Ugh, T!!!

As I obsessively checked my e-mail today despite wishing I would not, I convinced myself that my e-mail I wrote last night was TOO MUCH. I was too open with my disgusting thoughts.

I checked again just now bc, I am ridiculous...and you wrote the nicest email.

The kindness is too much. I don't deserve it.