[RaineD]

My therapist has been out of town, and I haven't seen him for 11 days. It hasn't even been that long, but he's starting to not feel real to me.

It's hard to describe. It's a feeling that maybe he's not a real person or that our therapy sessions are movies I watched instead of events in real life. Like maybe I made him up.

The feeling is slight, and it comes and goes. (I first noticed it yesterday.)

It scares me because it's a failure in reality testing. I don't normally have feelings of unreality. When I was a kid (before age 10), I used to get this disturbing sense of unreality after getting out of a movie. It would take me a few minutes (10-15) to regain my sense of reality. But this hasn't happened in my adult life.

And I can go weeks and months without seeing friends and not feel like they're not "real."

Perhaps this is an inherent feature of the therapeutic relationship, circumscribed as it is (confined to the consultation room, with no existence in the real world). Or perhaps there is something wrong with me.

Has this ever happened to any of you?

[Elio]

Not exactly as you describe; however, if I don't see or have contact with my T for, I'd say, more than 5 days, the relationship doesn't feel real anymore. The connection I have to her seems to be gone and she becomes just a name on a piece of paper. I still think she is a real person, but I don't know who she is - the essences of who she is and why she matters so much to me. The sessions do seem like distant memories, and unreal... maybe movies but that doesn't seem quite right for me.

I don't think you are alone and I don't think it is a failure in reality testing. I do feel it is an inherent feature of some therapeutic relationships and modality.

Yeah, I've that feeling after watching movies. Like I'm in a kind of daze and reality still feels unreal.

I get that with T when after about 14 days. We're supposed to meet once every two weeks but she's often so booked, I have to wait a month.

My therapist and I used to live in the same area. But then she moved, and I moved. So we live in different countries.
I happen to have DID. I have a few young alters who think that the person we talk to on the phone/ skype is not our real T. They miss the real T. When we see her in person, THEN thats real T. they dont quite understand the phone/ skype T and "real" T are the same person.
We only see T about once a year. So this makes it very hard on all of us.

[Daisy Dead Petals]

This happens to me, too. It's scary. I feel ashamed taking to my T about it.

[Swimmersusan]

I don't have exactly what you are describing, like I know she's still real and our sessions are still real, but I find my feelings seem to change over the week between sessions.

The first couple of days I feel the safety of her, I feel the connectio, support she offers and the trust, I feel close to her and that I can be open with her, but as the days go on I lose this, I seem to forgot the connection and safe feelings she offers and it's replaced by uncertainty of what to expect the following week. I kind of convince myself that she doesn't care. These feeling stay with me right up until I see her again, and then someone it seems to fall back into place again, and so the cycle continues.

I don't understand it, because It's only a week between sessions, and I go a week without seeing many people in life, yet I don't have these feelings with others!

[captgut]

Yes. All the time! I told him about it

This has happened to me, and i think it relates to object permenance (like how when a baby plays peekaboo they are completely amazed because when they can no longer see the other person they believe they cease to exist).
For me it is indicative of very young feelings at play and fits with the nature of my attachment which has an infant-like quality most of the time. T has called these things 'clues' that we are dealing with preverbal issues.

[elisewin]

No, actually I'm the exact opposite. The longer the break the more real it feels and I miss her a lot too during longer breaks :/

[88Butterfly88]

For me after I return from a break I worry my t has changed. Same thing happens if they get a drastically different haircut.

[RaineD]

I had a spiral of negative thoughts last night about how the relationship isn't real and I'm just deluding myself.

I care so much about him, but why and for what?