In Session Today: Part IV

My IST is here (if you wish to comment, please do so in that thread rather than here!)

Session today was...unexpected.

We spent the first 20 minutes on her trying to call the local wellness place to see what the criteria was for getting a bed. According to her I meet all the criteria. Sigh.

Then she was like "I am talking about this elephant in the room that I have let go, but it would be negligent if I didn't bring up your weight loss." She said I could do the wellness place or go to a rehab for an eating disorder. That threw me for a loop.

I told her that sounded mean, and she was like "Because I called you out?" Okay T, yes.

I felt like my world was spinning out of control. I don't know what to think. Or feel.

I had to cancel my appointment on Wednesday due to my work schedule. I called her last Tuesday and she still hasn’t gotten back to me. I had been hoping to get in this week. She probably won’t have anything next week either. I’m starting to remember why I switched before. It’s frustrating but on the other hand she doesn’t know how to bill my insurance correctly and I’ve tried calling billing multiple times. I got told she had billed it wrong, so the bill was way higher then it should be. He said he’d figure it out and call me back. That was at the start of April and I still haven’t gotten an answer. Also I talked to the receptionist in person a month ago about it. She said she’d tell the billing guy to call me. No phone call. I think they are getting ornery with me for not paying my bill. It’s not my fault though. If my therapist could learn how to bill the insurance correctly, and if billing would get back to me, I could do it. I’m not paying over $300 when my bill should be about $150.

I made it right on time for session today. The old elevator to the 4th floor seems like a grandma is pulling us up by hand, but I find it endearing bc I can collect my nerves if not my thoughts.

My mind goes blank in the waiting room no matter what I planned, so I contemplate the Rothko on the wall, and ponder different angles on why a suicidal painter adorns the walls.

You coMe to fetch me exactly on time like alway, and like usually you say oh you ARE here. You look tired and don't smile. There used to be Public Radio on in the office, but when Garrison K got # me too'd, you created your own playlist. You drink black tea from a coffee mug; I drink coffee.

I am trying to feel appreciation for how much you are in sessions with me, instead of taking long breaks, bc we seem to have a metacommunication going about what is therapy love . I think you are trying to show not tell what it means to you, which is not outside contact but sterling reliability with the sessions.

Notes: T seemed tired this morning, but warmed up when we began talking about being close meeting the no more Ambien goal. My intervention was to praise his smiling and being friendly, and making a very clever joke that made my day.

I love getting breaks from dire core issues to just laughs at a great witty remark. My T is funny.

T shows no change in terns of outside communication , but he gives his all inside sessions.

I wish I had more influence or more say. If we build a culture between us, form a dyad, there isn't much of me in the rules. Even with 12 graders, there was a fad to make class rules all together.

I felt silly today.. I go to my T’s office and say I’m here to see Brian ( not his real name) and the receptionist said I’ll let him know you are here. I felt so silly when I get to his office and his name isn’t Brian it is Ben ( not his real name) I mean I did get the B part right but somehow I totally spaced out on his name. The session was sorta fast because I was all nervous but he said I’ll see you in 2 weeks!

So I went in to tell him about my feelings about his response to the father's day email. I said I didn't understand how it was curious when it's obvious I have parental feelings about him.
He said he had said it was curious because it was unexpected. He thought if he was going to receive something from me it would have been on a Wednesday. He said it stood out to him, in the context of being on holiday. I said why put an autoresponse on your work email then read it anyway? He said "i check it because..." and I interrupted him and said "you don't have to justify that to me". I said I had thought he felt it was out of place and he had confirmed that. He said it didn't seem out of place. I said "you said it stood out. How can something stand out if it fits nicely in place?" He said in the sense he stopped, thought about his response, thought about me for a while, which was different to the other things he did on holiday - okay in that context, but it wasn't unwelcome.
I said that sending that email was the moment I realised he just wasn't there. I welled up with tears as I said it, and wiped a slight tear away.
I said I ****ing hate therapy sometimes. He said because it hurts? I said because I don't want to feel these feelings. I know they are there anyway and I've carried them for a long time but it hurts to feel them. We discussed how they feel stagnant and don't pass through me. He mentioned that I'd emailed about my anxiety this week. I said I hadn't found his email useful, but didn't want to sound ungrateful, that I did appreciate him trying. I said the anxiety is a symptom of the deeper feelings so a technique to rid me of the anxiety would just leave me with the rest.
We started talking about when I had welled up earlier in the session. He said what happened? I said I welled up but couldn't cry. He said what did you do? I said I wiped my eye. He said "your breathing also changed, it became staccato rather than fluid." I said that happens a lot. He said that's something you could work on. I told him about my dentist saying don't grind your teeth. If it was that easy I would. He said you can practice by just consciously focusing on your breathing a few times a day. I said "are you sneakily trying go get me to meditate after years of me resisting it?" He found that funny and said No! Not meditation, just focused breathing.
I said "why would my body want me to breathe staccato?" He said "perhaps it thinks that the feelings would be too overwhelming" I said "So you think if I hadn't breathed like that I would have cried?" He said "quite likely". Massive lightbulb for me. I never knew why I couldn't cry before - here is a massive physical reason I can work on, that I've never been aware of before.
He said it probably wasn't safe before. But it is now.
I was quite affected by that. Nobody ever told me I was safe before. He smiled, i asked what that look was for, and said "I dont THINK I'm sneakily trying to get you to meditate!"
I told him a few things I've been up to, and said I am quite productive, I'm not always a gibbering wreck just waiting for the next session. I told him about one thing I did online this week and said I was going to send him a link but I didn't.
He said did I not want to show him? I said I wanted to show him but I didn't want to bother him. He said "send it to me, I want to see. You're not a bother". I said thanks and we stood up and hugged. As we walked to the door he said "do you feel like a bother?" I said "sometimes. I know I'm not the world's easiest client". He thought, smiled and said "No, probably not". We said seeya next week and I left.

Monday's IST is here

I didn't write about my session last week. I was going through one of my "no one cares about my story or what I have to say" moments, but then I realized that while I do want support when I post about session, I also use these posts to refer back to previous work to measure progress toward my goals. They allow me to see growth.

There's one relevant portion from last week that's relevant for my session from yesterday. I had something that I wanted to discuss with him, but didn't remember what it was until the end of the session. So I didn't want to discuss it at the end of the session with him, and I struggled to say it out loud, so I wrote it down on his notes.

Yesterday I came in and we discussed my physical appearance for a couple of minutes. He wanted to know why I dyed my hair. I said it was a physical promise to myself. It's borderline professional looking, so I wouldn't allow myself to go to work right now. This way I am giving myself time off. I've worked hard for it. I deserve it.

He asked me how I was doing otherwise. I said not well physically. I was nauseated and had a migraine. I'm in the middle of a round of hormones for fertility treatments, and this is how it makes me feel. Today I feel like I'm being punched in the ovaries, but anyway. He said he was surprised to hear that I had started treatments again, because last week I sounded ambivalent about starting again. I said ambivalent wasn't the right way to think about it. I'm conflicted. The treatments suck, and I'm trying to protect myself from getting hurt, but I really do want to start a family. I said I didn't expect him to understand. He can't.

Then he asked if there was anything else I wanted to talk about. "No, I don't have an agenda."
"Well, I do."
"Of course you do." He was referring to the note from last week. He had said when I had written it that he didn't understand what I meant. I sighed and said that I wasn't looking forward to this conversation because I'm not a huge fan of confrontation.



He said that he'd respect my boundary, and then asked how I felt about the conversation. I said that there was the intellectual part of me that knew that's how the conversation would go, but the smaller, more vulnerable part of me was scared and anxious to assert the boundary. I was told from a young age to be seen, not heard.

I got quiet.
"What's going on up there?"

I said that I felt alone. In that moment, even though he was only a few feet away from me, the space between my couch and his chair felt like hundreds of miles.

"Is that a feeling that you feel a lot? Hundreds of miles away?"

I nodded and started to cry. I began thinking about when I felt the most alone.

"Do you want to go with that?" I looked up and he was holding the EMDR tappers. I nodded and took them in my hands. It was a slower tapping, so not actual processing, but I just let my mind wander where it wanted to. Most of the following I didn't tell T. Just sat there and cried.

First, I thought about the moment I realized that my bio mom had left and the absence of feeling that I had. That led me to how sad it was that I couldn't allow myself to be sad in that moment. That I was never sad when I thought about that moment. That it was just the acceptance of fact. Why? Then I thought about the memories I had of my mother before she left us. I don't have any good memories of her. Frankly, I don't have many memories of her at all from when I was young. I do have fond memories with my father around the same time.

How sad, then, that I have no fond memories of the woman who birthed me. Why? I thought about the moments in which she told me that she didn't want to have children. How all of her children were birth control babies. So she didn't want me. Then why tell me that you took me to live with you for a month instead of abandoning me? I spent so much of my life angry at my father because I felt like it was his fault that I didn't have a relationship with my mother. I hurt her because I wanted to live with him, so she distanced herself. None of that was true.

But then why bother defending my father? He never wanted children either. So no one ever wanted me. No one wants me. No one loves me. No one would miss me if I were gone.

It was at this point that I threw up my hands to tell T to stop. I wasn't willing to let my mind go there. I want to live, and there were only 15 minutes left in the session. He said that we would continue to work, and there would be a point at some day where those ideating thoughts wouldn't feel as scary as they did now.

I laughed. "I look forward to putting your future children through college."
"I don't think it'll take that long."

He asked why I was afraid of thinking those thoughts if I knew I wouldn't act on them. I said that I didn't feel predictable right now. That the meds I'm on tend to ratchet up all of the feelings past where they would normally go, and that the thoughts before I started to ideate were very painful. Again, most of these thoughts I didn't share.

We talked about the difference between VDay and the session thus far. What was the difference? I said that I wasn't on any treatments on VDay, but that my cycle was getting ready to start. Versus yesterday's session I have these artificial hormones flowing through me. Both feel out of control. The analogy that I used was that it was two sides to the same coin. So I didn't want to risk putting myself in an unsafe place.

Then he complimented on how good of work I had done in session. I rolled my eyes and said that he said that every time. Because he's said it so much I don't believe him anymore.

"That's okay," he said. "You don't have to believe me. What if I told you that I think you come in here every time and do a good job?" I just don't see it.

We spent a few minutes at the end talking about business things. Next Tuesday my session will be at the new office. He's splitting from the practice he's with now, so I have to do all of the BS paperwork again. He'll e-mail me everything in the next couple of days. Also he's going on vacation. I'm not pleased about it. Thankfully, though, it's only a week. That I can cope with.

LT, you know I wasn't saying you can't post your IST here, I was more talking about the way people were responding to you. I was trying to protect your right to post here without feeling like you would be scrutinised, not exclude you from posting.

Aw, thanks! I just felt like my posts ended up taking over a few times, so didn't want others' posts to get ignored as a result!

I think it's fine to respond to people in this thread (unless the poster specifies otherwise of course), just if it's a lot replies then a seperate thread is probably better. It's hard to judge how much reaction a post will create though.

LT, I think if you’re okay with getting responses on this thread, I don’t see why you couldn’t continue to post here.

And, at any point, if you don’t want further responses, you can always say so — even if initially you hadn’t said so in your post.

In general, I think it works best if folks speak up for themselves on what they find to be okay or not.

And, I also think any community sort of thread — such as Dear T or Dear Client or this one — should be open to however the community chooses to use it (by responding or not responding) as long as of course, all are respectful, mindful of each other’s boundaries and so on and so forth.

Tears leapt into my eye when I got here. So layered.

I'm sorry. Parents can be terrible, can't they?

I’m totally open to responses. One time I said I didn’t want opinions on whether I should leave or stay with T, since I’d made up my mind, but other thoughts were fine. And people respected that (still commented just avoided the leave/stay topic?

Yes. Xoxo

Daisy, I teared up at that part too because about 20 years ago my mom told me she only had me cuz she felt pressured to. Not cuz she wanted kids. I'll never forget her saying that a nd it explains so much of my childhood. (((Daisy)))

In my second session with the therapist, I felt just as enraged as the first. This therapist is quite sneaky and manipulative in her commentary. C doesn't seem to notice or care.

Despite the fact that I had informed her at our last session that I had never been abused, the therapist once again chose to speak about my supposed abuse. I lost my temper and shouted at her that I had told her that I had never been abused. She said she thought I was confused. I said no. Then a few minutes later, once again, she asked me what had happened to me and I told her nothing. She smugly responded, "I think some things have happened to you." I thought my head would explode.

The therapist also likes to tell me I'm smart, which I am, but is a very transparent attempt to manipulate me. I don't like it and I don't trust her.

I rarely write about my sessions but our most recent has me a bit overwrought and I won’t seem to process it in my journal. I wanted to talk about my urges to self-harm, which are a source of confusion and pain for me. Whenever I discuss it with T, he is very accepting of the urges and of my feelings about them, but I never seem to feel like he “gets it” enough.

I don’t know what I want from him: sympathy? To describe my experience is so I know he understands?

I think because I get frustrated during these conversations, he is very careful to not jump in and direct the conversation too much for fear of aggravating me, but I experience that as creating distance and not caring.

Obviously I will discuss this next time and we will probably resolve it as we always do. But it is so frustrating to not be able to connect (or to FEEL connected, probably) with him on this thing that gives me the most shame.

@skeksi Is it possible his being "very accepting" feels a bit like he doesn't care, or doesn't recognize the pain behind the behavior or urges? I'm not sure I'd feel great if my T was overly accepting of my SI.