[Merope]

So I’ve noticed that even if I get peace of mind about something that I agonised over, sooner or later, I still end up feeling anxious about it. This is particularly true in relation to emailing T. The first time he didn’t reply to one of my emails, I convinced myself, over the course of 6 days, that I had crossed a boundary and annoyed him, or that he would chuck me out of therapy. It got to a point where I genuinely thought I was going to throw up before the appointment. Of course, no such thing happened. In fact, quite the opposite went down: T said that he welcomes these sorts of emails but that he won’t always be able to reply. Initially, I took that to mean that I can just email him (within reason) without worrying that I’m bothering him or that I’m pushing on his boundaries. Besides, I only tend to do it once every six weeks or so.

I recently sent him another pretty vulnerable email to which he didn’t reply. Although I keep reminding myself that he’s ok with me reaching out, I can’t stop thinking that maybe this time I went too far, that maybe I said something weird, made him mad at me somehow. I realise I’m reacting like a little kid scared of being reprimanded/abandoned by a parental figure, but I don’t know how to be rational about it. I don’t want to stop emailing him when I feel the need to because I think it has the potential to be a healing experience (opening up to someone and not being rejected), but waiting for some sort of acknowledgement is literally killing me.

I know there’s been a lot of posts about emails, so please feel free to ignore. I think I just needed to rant.

I could have easily written this. I HATE that feeling. I have started either explicitly asking for a reply (or, more accurate, reassurance because 99% of the time that is what I'm looking for), telling her not to reply and that we would discuss it later, or asking for just a confirmation that she recieved it (a simple "thanks, got it" works well). It helps me not to obsess and I think it helps her know what I need.

[Lrad123]

I also could have written this post. In fact Im waiting for a response right now. He typically responds by 9:00 but hasn’t yet so of course I’m thinking I’ve gone too far this time. I must seem pushy and needy and he must be thinking “oh not her again.” I do like the idea of asking for a response or confirmation. Then at least you know what to expect.

[DP_2017]

I can relate. Hugely why I no longer email. I was sick of all these feelings.

I do experience this with another issue though. Sucks

[nottrustin]

I worked with T for 10 years and aways worried about bothering with emails. Quite frequently I would appologize for emailing. I'm the beginning she told me I didn't need to apologize. Then we just moved on and I dealt with it as I could tall my self through it.

[Merope]

Originally Posted by nottrustin

I worked with T for 10 years and aways worried about bothering with emails. Quite frequently I would appologize for emailing. I'm the beginning she told me I didn't need to apologize. Then we just moved on and I dealt with it as I could tall my self through it.

It’s just really frustrating isn’t it? One minute you’re super secure in the therapeutic relationship and the next the anxiety hits and you start doubting everything. I had a nightmare a while ago that I somehow found his notes about me and they were super critical and mean. I woke up feeling like he hates me or like I annoy the hell out of him. Even though I know it isnt rational (he is always very nice to me, sometimes keeps me over time by a generous amount) I couldn’t shake it off for ages. It’s like I constantly expect him to give up on me, or like I constantly expect to do something wrong that will make him fed up with me and terminate. It’s exhausting.

[nottrustin]

Originally Posted by Merope

It’s just really frustrating isn’t it? One minute you’re super secure in the therapeutic relationship and the next the anxiety hits and you start doubting everything. I had a nightmare a while ago that I somehow found his notes about me and they were super critical and mean. I woke up feeling like he hates me or like I annoy the hell out of him. Even though I know it isnt rational (he is always very nice to me, sometimes keeps me over time by a generous amount) I couldn’t shake it off for ages. It’s like I constantly expect him to give up on me, or like I constantly expect to do something wrong that will make him fed up with me and terminate. It’s exhausting.

It is. Then T started dealing with a chronic illness so I worried about her being to tired or me being to need so that I would push her to retire

[Lrad123]

Originally Posted by DP_2017

I can relate. Hugely why I no longer email. I was sick of all these feelings.

I do experience this with another issue though. Sucks

But by not emailing don’t you also end up with bad feelings too?

[DP_2017]

Originally Posted by Lrad123

But by not emailing don’t you also end up with bad feelings too?

Nope. It was my choice. I like not having the anxiety over it. We had many misunderstandings in email. I journal now or text if urgent.

[maybeblue]

I can absolutely relate to this. I am the exact same way. I really, really want to email because I feel like I'm going to burst if I don't, but then I feel guilty and am terrified that she is going to be angry at me. And waiting for a response is the worst.

Have you talked to him about your fear? One of the things that my therapist does now that I really appreciate is that she will email me a very short response saying something like "Thank you for the email, I'm looking forward to talking with you about it next week." It takes her maybe 5 minutes and saves me days of agony. But even though this anxiety seems to be very, very common with clients, I'm not sure all therapists get it.

My T has encouraged my to write because she says sometimes it makes people feel better to get things off their chest.
And I eventually said, “I don’t like writing to you because there’s no point. All you’re going to do is say, ‘Ok. We’ll talk about it Tuesday.’”
And she was taken aback and said, “I’d never just say, ‘Oh, we’ll just talk abut it Tuesday.’”
And since then, she’s done it twice (I’ve only e-mailed twice)
Granted, I guess these were things that could have required a more thorough response and she didn’t want to bother writing what could be better said verbally. But..... still.
E-mailing mostly reminds me that she is this distant person who doesn’t want to think of me outside of the office because, like many of us, she doesn’t want to take work home.

[Merope]

I think for me it’s also a case of having a lot of guilt. I feel really bad for having snooped on him on google and finding out stuff that I probably shouldn’t know, so every time he doesn’t reply to an email, I feel like it’s punishment for that.

[Merope]

Originally Posted by maybeblue

I can absolutely relate to this. I am the exact same way. I really, really want to email because I feel like I'm going to burst if I don't, but then I feel guilty and am terrified that she is going to be angry at me. And waiting for a response is the worst.

Have you talked to him about your fear? One of the things that my therapist does now that I really appreciate is that she will email me a very short response saying something like "Thank you for the email, I'm looking forward to talking with you about it next week." It takes her maybe 5 minutes and saves me days of agony. But even though this anxiety seems to be very, very common with clients, I'm not sure all therapists get it.

Thank you for this. I haven’t explicitly talked to him about it. I thought that him mentioning that it’s ok to email would be enough, but apparently it isn’t since I still get really anxious about replies. I don’t know if I can request that though, I feel like he’s already doing lots for me by, for example keeping me in session for longer than he’s supposed to. I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I know he probably wouldn’t think that, but I worry so much about doing something wrong, something that would make him dislike me, that I avoid any sort of boundary talk. Maybe I’ll muster up the courage to do it, but I don’t know.

[maybeblue]

Originally Posted by Merope

Thank you for this. I haven’t explicitly talked to him about it. I thought that him mentioning that it’s ok to email would be enough, but apparently it isn’t since I still get really anxious about replies. I don’t know if I can request that though, I feel like he’s already doing lots for me by, for example keeping me in session for longer than he’s supposed to. I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I know he probably wouldn’t think that, but I worry so much about doing something wrong, something that would make him dislike me, that I avoid any sort of boundary talk. Maybe I’ll muster up the courage to do it, but I don’t know.

I really can understand your fears. They are so similar to mine. I have this horrible panic sometimes that my therapist hates me. I have had that feeling with other people too...which makes it something worth bringing up in therapy.

I actually talked about this thread with my therapist last night. I wanted to talk about how sometimes I don't think therapists realize how much what they say or do or don't say or do affects clients. So I mentioned how much a therapist not responding to an email can play into a client's fears, and that I appreciated that she always does respond.

She told me that first of all she remembered a long time ago that it really bothered me when I didn't get an email response. That was so long ago that I didn't even remember telling her. I must have though. It does sound like something I would say. But also she said that it just seems professional and courteous to respond when someone emails you. And it's true. I always do at my job.

I guess I'm thinking of what would be a reasonable thing to ask of any professional. I would probably not think it was reasonable for my therapist to respond to me in an hour, especially if I'm up in the middle of the night emailing. I wouldn't really expect a response on a weekend. But I would expect a response within about 24 hours on a weekday. I would not expect a therapist to do a lot of email therapy, unless that is something we negotiated and I paid for. It takes a long time to craft a good therapeutic response to someone. But it does not seem unreasonable for her to give me a little reassurance that I didn't make her mad...even just by saying "thank you for the email. It's helpful and I'm looking forward to talking to you more about it during our session."

But really, even if you don't feel comfortable asking for anything, I would encourage you to just tell him how you feel. "When you don't respond to my emails, I get worried that I did something wrong and I made you mad." I kind of bet he doesn't know. I think you could also lie a little and say "and sometimes when I don't get a response I get worried that I accidentally sent it to the wrong place, or something happened." Maybe then he will offer to respond and you could reassure him that you aren't expecting a book in response...unless negotiating for email therapy is what you want.

I can understand feeling guilty and like you are being punished, but I don't really think the universe works that way, and your therapist doesn't even know what you found out, right?

I relate. I wasn't originally conflicted about emailing a T and would not worry much if he did not reply, I thought I just wanted to get my thoughts out. But he handled it awfully - all over the place between encouraging emails and making me feel bad that I did. Sometimes very unpredictably, his reactions were clearly his, but making it sound like he tried to protect me from sabotaging / self destructive behaviors. I think he grossly misinterpreted why I emailed him, infused it with generic, dogmatic perceptions. This carried over into my work with my second T, who welcomed emails and never said anything wrong about it, even after seeing how conflicted I was. I still have ambivalence about reaching out to professionals at times outside of formal appointments - for example, most recently with a lawyer, who encouraged me to contact him, ask questions etc many times and always responds quickly.

[Merope]

Originally Posted by maybeblue

I really can understand your fears. They are so similar to mine. I have this horrible panic sometimes that my therapist hates me. I have had that feeling with other people too...which makes it something worth bringing up in therapy.

I actually talked about this thread with my therapist last night. I wanted to talk about how sometimes I don't think therapists realize how much what they say or do or don't say or do affects clients. So I mentioned how much a therapist not responding to an email can play into a client's fears, and that I appreciated that she always does respond.

She told me that first of all she remembered a long time ago that it really bothered me when I didn't get an email response. That was so long ago that I didn't even remember telling her. I must have though. It does sound like something I would say. But also she said that it just seems professional and courteous to respond when someone emails you. And it's true. I always do at my job.

I guess I'm thinking of what would be a reasonable thing to ask of any professional. I would probably not think it was reasonable for my therapist to respond to me in an hour, especially if I'm up in the middle of the night emailing. I wouldn't really expect a response on a weekend. But I would expect a response within about 24 hours on a weekday. I would not expect a therapist to do a lot of email therapy, unless that is something we negotiated and I paid for. It takes a long time to craft a good therapeutic response to someone. But it does not seem unreasonable for her to give me a little reassurance that I didn't make her mad...even just by saying "thank you for the email. It's helpful and I'm looking forward to talking to you more about it during our session."

But really, even if you don't feel comfortable asking for anything, I would encourage you to just tell him how you feel. "When you don't respond to my emails, I get worried that I did something wrong and I made you mad." I kind of bet he doesn't know. I think you could also lie a little and say "and sometimes when I don't get a response I get worried that I accidentally sent it to the wrong place, or something happened." Maybe then he will offer to respond and you could reassure him that you aren't expecting a book in response...unless negotiating for email therapy is what you want.

I can understand feeling guilty and like you are being punished, but I don't really think the universe works that way, and your therapist doesn't even know what you found out, right?

Thanks so much for this. I think I will mention it to him. I hope he won’t have a go at me for it (an irrational thought, I know). But yes, I like the idea that it’s polite to acknowledge someone’s email. Sadly, not everyone thinks this is necessary.