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

Dear T,

It sucks that T's have their vacation during the hardest time. Normally I wouldn't mind not having therapy for 3 weeks. But now. I'm not doing well. I have no one to talk to.
I don't know if seeing PrevT is good for me. You think it is good to talk about it and all that. But it isn't doing me any good. I only feel worse.

Give yourself some grace.
And, give yourself some time.
Addiction doesn't go away after 5 weeks. In fact, after the first 4-6 weeks, that's when it can sometimes become the most difficult. (Reality sets in and all that.)
You're doing something insanely difficult. And, you're actually DOING it. That is incredibly strong. You are incredibly strong. You are doing something incredible.

I craved Klonopin for a solid year after getting off of it and only just this past weekend (after 2.5 years off of it) was able to bring myself to flush the rest that I had stashed -- and really only because my husband was watching and insisting I do it.

You're doing an amazing thing. You are amazing.

Why can't you see your T for so long? And, is there someone else you can talk to and work with in the interim?

Update:

c: [is quiet]
pdoc: what?
c: i don't think we have time to get into this.
pdoc: go ahead.
c: i'd really rather not.
pdoc: well now you have to get into it--that's how this works, you have to say the things you don't want to say
c: i know, i know. *sigh* i'm worried about how i'm going to manage while [t] is away.
pdoc: well, you and i will be meeting every week [usually i see t once or twice per week and pdoc every two weeks so that i see one or the other of them twice per week]
c: yes. and... i don't always find our interactions to be especially regulating.
pdoc: *starts to grin*
c: well you can't deny that! you know how this tends to go!
pdoc: well, let's at least schedule our weekly meetings

[scheduling negotiations]

pdoc (ironically): see now, look at that--you've got me scheduled once a week. isn't that nice?
c: yup, you and the ED [this is a dig at him because unlike t he doesn't allow outside contact so my emergency plan is to go to the ED]
pdoc: well, this is at least better than the ED
c: true
pdoc: not that that's saying much
c: no, it isn't

at least he has a sense of humor about it...

Sorry.

You didn't need that, just before you go away.

I said I didn't believe you that I was welcome, but I do now.

I wish I could have told you that, and that I'm going to miss you. But I couldn't. Oh well.

See you in twenty-one days.

Hi T... I’m in this place of... I don’t care... just kill me already... there’s nothing i want to do, nothing that’s worth living for... just meh...

Back and forth back and forth I love you I hate you I want to come see you I never want to see you again when does it end??

V,
I like you well enough I guess. You're never going to be RoboT, but you'll do.

Still going to stay on the waiting list at the other place, though.

I've just received an email from a performance group I used to be a part of - they're performing at a place you are a trustee of next week. Imagine if I had still been performing with them! How would we have managed that? Perhaps you will meet (or perhaps have already met) one of the other great paternal figures of my life. The leader of that performance group. You two are two of my favourite men ever <3 I hope you enjoy it if you go. I miss that group.

Dear No. 3,

I just woke up from a pleasant dream about you--I don't recall the details at all, but when I opened my eyes I knew I'd been dreaming about you and it had been a good dream instead of the usual nightmare.

So right now I am feeling rather kindly disposed towards you. Won't last, but maybe there is hope.

ATAT

Did you ask her to ask me to hang out

T. See? This is the **** that lies within. You didn't sign up for this, did you? it gets worse T. It gets so much worse than this.
And this is where I know I don't have the right to exist and that one hour a week isn't enough to contain it. And I know there are only two possible solutions... do what should have been done at the very beginning, or shut up shop and go home.
Its too big, its too nasty, its too impossible, and I'm sorry.

Hi T. I know there are a million reasons why you haven't answered my e-mail yet. I just really, really hope you have an opening on tuesday.

Hey FM,

Do you realize I was pinned in a corner speaking with you when you were going at it to sharpen your turkey knife against the sharpening steel in your other hand. They were pointed directly at me. What if the knife or the steel flew out of your hand. Think Idi Amin. No wonder people say it is not okay to befriend former therapists/clients.

Were you playing with me? Testing me? I don’t think so, but its a scene that could be in a horror movie and I don’t like horror movies, but the memory makes me smile and laugh.

In my past life, every time I saw a huge knife like that I would have left the room. I am scared of big knives…I have just come to realize that is a big reason why I stay out of the kitchen. But, in your kitchen at that moment, in that corner I felt safer than I ever have in a kitchen before.

Thank you for the strange experience.

AesB

Hmm. I didn't mention the thing I am concerned about today. Then again, not sure it would have helped, anyway. It's just something I have to get through, hopefully unscathed.

You said to me today, when I was deep in my memory and so much a small girl, shamed and made afraid by her father...

"What would be like for you to look at me?"

I didn't respond, but I heard it...and it meant so much to me that you even noticed my inability to look up. In that, I felt taken care of.

My heart hurts tonight. My everything hurts tonight. I feel like a young, hurt child, and I just want to hide in you and be safe.

Dear T,
How have I only been seeing you for about 3 months and a week? It feels like so much longer... I feel more comfortable opening up to you than to ex-T, who I saw for 6 years... I'm not sure if that's more about you, her, your respective genders, or some combination of those things. Part of me wishes I'd started seeing you ages ago, but maybe I wouldn't have been ready then? Maybe I would have been upset by your clear boundaries with outside contact and self-disclosure? Rather than now, when I appreciate them? Maybe it's like that thing you said about how some relationships just run their course--maybe the corollary is that sometimes people don't come into our lives until we're ready for them?
LT

PS--As much as at times like this I wish I could send you a long e-mail, without being charged for it, I think it's probably for the best that I can't. Because if I did, maybe you wouldn't respond or would send something other than what I was looking for, or that I'd misunderstand, and then I'd feel bad. Instead, better to hold on to the warm feeling from session and just wait till I see you Tuesday...

I really wish you weren't so weird and squirrelly about out-of-session contact.

It's okay for you it seems to text me out of the blue when you think I need it but you get all freaked out at the idea of my contacting you on my own.

But, somehow though, from all you've told me, it seems you have other clients who can and do contact you when they feel like it.

I'm too tired to even get angry about that.

It's just that tonight's one of those times I really wish I could email -- I'm not quite sure how to get to a point when I can fall asleep (and then hopefully wake up only after the ABC opens).

Hi Dr. S,

Thank you so much for today. I know I did not get through everything I wanted to on this topic, it feels good to have talked to you about it. I have a few more questions on it. Lots of things are feeling good.

With love,
me

ps. I've been playing with my meds again. I like me better like this.

MLK,

I still haven't bought the other ticket. I don't wanna....

Okay, I'll adult for the New Year and buy it Tuesday. Public commitments are more often followed through with so you can read it here plus I will send you an intent email and then a confirmation email that I'm good to go. See you Thursday.

Hi T,

I have no right to feel the way I do. I don't have a right to see you as often as I do.

Nothing bad ever happened to me, and here I am, struggling with the easiest things... I use my struggling as an excuse to not do things, doesn't that mean that the struggling isn't real in the first place?

So I had a dream, you were in it but you wasn't your usual nice self! Never seen anything but nice from you so I don't know why I have dreamed this.
I know a dream is a dream but it's seriously not helped with trying to feel that secure connection whilst on a break!
I have wrote it down though and will probably show you when I'm back in session.

I am so *******ed sick to death of being attached to you!!!!!!! I ****ing hate every second of it. Attachment, and the ****ing fear of loss, is the center of my ****ing life, or lack of a life. You have been so ****ing kind, caring and compassionate, and i have needed that to get better, but it is like a drug. I don't know how to detach for fear of feeling the massive traumatizing feelings that are completely overwhelming. It is a deterrent from getting better. I am entrapped within myself. My self hatred is of the essence and is growing day by day. I knew you weren't acting the same and yet you denied it. Guess what happens when i sense you are different? The attachment intensifies and i become more focused on the relationship. Welcome to the real, self-serving me. I don't have one ounce of respect for myself, my competency at work has gotten better while my competency at being the horrible, horrible me has dwindled and it approaches zero. Do you have any idea what it is like to be so afraid of abandonment that you become an ingratiating idiot? I am not the kind, caring person that i portray irl. How humiliating. How giving my power away to save myself from abandonment. This me is a true opposite of the other me. So, no niceties here, i've already spread that on too thick, get it?

Dear MC,
I think today may be the anniversary (or was it yesterday?) I hope you and your kids get through it OK. I assume you're all together on your trip (and maybe with other family?), so you can support each other.
Love you,
LT

Miss you lotsly

I am so ****ing tired. You know this, of course. I feel the compassion from you every time I mention it. I think we are going to have another loaded but focused session on the 11th. We'll start by talking about the song, and then we'll talk about the forthcoming...

Respite is hard to find when there isn't anywhere I can run.