he came back. he was nice. let me prattle on about work and stuff. near the 'business' end (the wind down) he said he had been thinking about what i was saying before, and he said he thinks he understands now.

that he could let me set the pace.

so that was nice.

now that he has said that (and humoured me all session which shows that he really did understand what i was saying before) i'm sure i'll be able to push myself a little more next time.

its hard. its hard to let him in 'cause if i let him in i feel like i'm being ripped apart when he goes :-( and that undermines my functioning. i'm not strong enough :-(

[Mouse_]

Think of the seperation like a muscle, the more you work on it the stronger it gets. If its left unattended it will turn to fat.

i dunno... i feel abandoned and terrified and like i'm being ripped apart when he goes.

will it help to talk about it? probably not. will just result in my feeling upset. i know it hurts 'cause my dad left etc etc etc.

but the reason why my dad leaving hurt me so much was 'cause there was nobody else to play that role in my life.

i'm self-object hungry... just need him to feed my narcissistic needs. i expect that the more he does that over time... the more internal strength i'll have...

one day i'll be stronger when he leaves. but i don't know that talking about it with him will help. he knows i was really upset (it takes a lot for me to take valium). but i don't see much point in dwelling on it and feeling like %#@&#!.

[Mouse_]

Well those feelings will keep coming back up in other areas of your life even if you weren't in therapy. My birth mother left me. She laughed as she handed me over and said "thank god thats over" those words have haunted me and I feel that is what T is thinking when she takes a break. No correction, I use to think that, its got better. It does get better.

[Mouse_]

oh this is so wierd, after I posted the reply to you AK I realised that I was trying to stop you feeling your pain, despair. Its the first time I caught myself doing that. I guess something about your despair is triggering me. I dont want to feel that despair! yes I know how your feeling and it hurts so muchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! hurt away ((AK))

[Perna]

But it does get better, as Mouse said. So, hurt with hope?

hey. i'm actually... not hurting too bad. not anymore. part of what was hard was that a session or two before he went away i started emotionally withdrawing from him. i mean that in the sense that i didn't want to talk about my mother or my father and i didn't want to feel any of those old hurts and pains from the past. i needed to be telling him about my work and the good things going on in my life. needed to refocus on the things that are important to me now so that when he went away i could keep up with my focus on that and not fall apart.

and then in the last session we had he was trying to call me on avoiding and dissociating from that stuff. and i fended him off, of course. and tried to explain why i was doing that. and he didn't understand.

and this session i needed to tell him about the work i got done while he was away. i needed to persuade him (persuade me, really) that i coped alright while he was gone. needed to take some time to reconnect at my own pace.

i fell apart for a day or two or four when he went. i surely did. but i managed to pull myself together and soldier on. i know that i need to work on this stuff, but i need to set the pace. i need him to accept that sometimes i can talk about it and feel it, but that sometimes i need to focus on where i am functional and feel pride and acomplishment and good about that. its just what i need to do.

and i think he gets that now.

i'm sure it will get better over time. but slowly slowly gently does it...

[Divaluscious]

you are a very strong person alex.

i don't understand the 't' relationship ... but i think you are way bigger than feeling upset over him .... which you seem to be quite a bit.

i know you have had parental issues. one thing i have always wanted to know is ... well

i lost my mum at 17 and i have always wondered if it's worse to lose a parent or have them leave.

at least yours are still alive?

not trying to upset you ... just putting something out there ... i'd give anything to have two parents.

[Mouse_]

It isn't a case or whats worse or being bigger than that. Its a case of feeling the feelings, no matter what they are.

[Perna]

My mother died too and I've wondered also, Divaluscious, which would be/have been(?) harder for me, divorce or the death, but then I also use to wonder as a child, if one of my parents had to die, which would I "choose" to have left (my father or my stepmother). I think we wonder such things according to our individual makeup/situation just to "practice" since life threw us a difficult curve "early".

Hey. Thanks for the responses guys. I'm not quite sure where to even begin on the 'which is worse' thing. There are lots of pretty ****** things in life, I guess. Yeah, my parents are still alive, but I really have very little to do with them. My dad left when I was 7 and I didn't see a great deal of him after that. My mother is emotionally unstable. I spent 7 years of living just with her with her punishing me for all sorts of (sometimes imagined) things. Spent most of that time in my room or acting out at school, really. Social Welfare put me in a home when I was 14 because of how she was treating me.

Mostly its about... Me idolising my Father in hindsight. I was about seven so I'm not sure how well I remember, but I'm fairly sure that I wasn't all that very upset when he left. But then my Mother deteriorated severly. I guess that is when I started feeling really upset. And some of that took the form of pining for him, I guess. Since he never hurt me. But really... He was never really there for me. Just easier for me to idolise him in hindsight and think like he was and think like he loved me and think like he would come get me at some point. He would... He would... But of course he didn't. He didn't want me. And my Mother wouldn't let me go (Social Welfare had to make her give me up to them).

So... Which is worse... Dunno. Things can be ****** all round.

My therapist starts to remind me a little of my father. He doesn't intentionally hurt me. But he will split when other things come up. Other things that he cares about more (like how my Father came to care about other women etc and didn't seem to care or even notice how they treated me).

I dunno.