Texting between sessions

I have seen this T for about three years. She has been great. About six months ago, my 23 year old son was arrested for a pot DUI. He had to spend a night in jail, have an ankle bracelet for a day, go to court several times, drug classes, you get the idea. We hired an attorney so had excellent help.

The weird part is that my son and I share this T. He was suffering with depression about a year ago and she was the only T I knew that could get him in. They struck it off and it's all been fine with us sharing her. She is very careful to keep things separate.

Since the DUI, I have been flipped out with my bipolar. The stress has been exceptional due to the never ending things to cope with. I talk to my T a lot about this in session.

When my son went to jail, I texted her as I was quite upset. I texted her during the ankle bracelet thing. While we were waiting for the court sentence I texted her. I did it too much. I felt guilty and told her to charge me for a session as she had helped so much through text. She charged me (I self pay with her).

I feel really guilty and out of control with depending on her. She was easy to text as she knew my son and the situation quite well. But now I want to cold turkey off of talking to her outside of session. I want to depend on other support so she doesn't view me as a "pain".

Any tips on cold turkeying off of her? I'd strictly like to text just for scheduling, etc.

Can you afford to see her more often? My guess is that if your texting increased after your stress increased it was because you needed her more. I expect that as your stress decreases you will need her less. It is her job after all and you do pay her, so I don't think you need to feel guilty about needing her more right now. And it might be easier to not text between sessions if you see her once a week rather than once a month.

But I can understand wanting to be more independent and not rely on a paid relationship entirely. Will it help to journal and then share it with her? Or to post on this site when you feel like texting her? I think that is what a lot of people use the "Dear Therapist" thread for. You won't be being a pain there, because you know we all "get it". Real life friends can be helpful, but sometimes they can be unhelpful too. So you have to think carefully about who you honor with your trust.

Sorry you're having such a difficult time. I'd suggest you talk about this with her--the fears of feeling like a pain, wanting to stop the contact, etc. Does she have suggestions on how you can deal with it, for example? Also, would she have charged you for the texts if you hadn't asked her to?

I had issues in the past with contacting my ex-T and marriage counselor too much (to the point that they asked me to reduce contact). But they never charged for outside contact (even, say, a 45-minute phone call), so in a way, it was like they were doing me a favor. And also it felt like there was no reason to limit it, since for a while, both said the contact was fine (till they wanted me to limit it--but this was a year or more with each of them). The individual T I'm currently seeing charges for outside contact beyond texts for scheduling or a very brief e-mail. If it takes longer than 15 minutes, he charges (and only uses text for scheduling...though he has given me a little support over that within the context of offering me an extra session, like saying he was sorry I was struggling). He generally has an open enough schedule that he can offer me an extra session (or half session) when needed--I've taken him up on this 3 or 4 times in the past 5 months (been a rough few months!) And that's been really helpful. So might be something you can discuss with your T?

The other thing is that he did send me a long response to an e-mail on a Friday evening when I was struggling with something that had happened that day (I'd texted him to see if I could talk to him over weekend or see him Sunday, but he was going out of town.) He offered me e-mail (charging $45, 1/4 of his hourly rate, for reading and responding). And he wrote a very long, helpful response to me. I thanked him for it next session and said I felt bad for taking up his time. He said I was paying him for it, so it was part of his job--he wasn't just doing me a favor. That felt...I don't know, safer to me. And I'd apologized about one of the extra sessions, saying I wasn't normally this needy, but he said something similar, how as long as he has the time and I pay him, it's completely fine.

Sorry, that got kinda long, but just giving you some ideas of things to discuss and possible solutions! If you need more support right now and your T is willing to offer it, maybe just take her up on it? (whether paid or not). And set limits for yourself, if you want?