Dear T: I Really Need to Tell You Something...Part XXXIII

OK. Still horribly inappropriate and clearly sexual harassment.

Please report him. You probably won't be the first to have made a complaint about him.

I texted his boss

I watched a bit of the 2009 movie Enid about the English writer Enid Blyton. I cried at this one scene where the baby was crying in the office and the father picks her up and tries to comfort her. I want you to comfort me because I am like that crying baby. Maybe I am just acting out for the sake of acting out, but after our last session I just left feeling a lot of shame. Ashamed because of how deeply I love you and you treat it like it's nothing.

I'm super proud of you for taking that step!

It's been 3 weeks since I saw you. I'm in a place right now where I'm missing not you, but 'us', the relationship we had that was so confounding to me at times. I'm finding that it's kinda irreplaceable in 'real life' because of the one-sidedness of it, talking with my longtime girlfriends this past weekend comes the closest except it's not the same, because I get to be there for them, too, and they don't really understand how I feel about leaving you... sigh... I know it's just going to take some time for me to grieve the loss of our relationship, even though we ended on my own terms it was still an ending, still a loss. I love you.

Sometimes there are certain questions that I want you to ask me. Because I feel like maybe I should mention it or let you know, but I don't feel like just bringing it up out of the blue, and there's no space for me to interject it into the conversation when you're asking specific questions about other things.

-I want you to check in with me on sleeping and eating habits. You've asked about sleep in the past, but sometimes it changes and I have weeks where it's hard to sleep and/or where I want to sleep too much.

Dear T:

I am still working on my daily life intentionality and find it's so easy to slip up. So easy to ride the wave of what others want or need from me than to stand in the water and go the direction I'm aiming for. I'm not sorry I'm trying, though.

My friend's visit reminded me of what it costs to put something into a relationship and whether the b.s. is worth it. I can answer that in some cases but not in others. Relationships are not bean counting but there is some aspect of cost/benefit.

Really quite a lame chat today. Sucks when you are distracted but at least you still check in. That thing you sent me though, is still making me giggle, I think it will hold me over through my weekend and maybe you can do more before your break so I can laugh when you are away.

Well that was interesting.

Sorry I told you I’d be safe until I see you again but I don’t think that’s actually my intention

I do hope everything is ok. Do you see now why I might be worried?

Dear T,
Thanks for responding to me and being understanding that it's hard for me knowing you're away. I wish I had just been able to talk about it in session, but the whole car thing threw me off. And I was already nervous about talking about that, because of what happened last time you were out of town, when you just didn't seem to understand at all.

At least you seem to be getting it more now...like the whole attachment thing. And accepting it more. I appreciate you saying I could reach out to you while you're away if I need to, though I will do my absolute best not to bother you. Like, only if it's crisis-level. (well, I will send a very brief thanks in response to your e-mail, since you said at one point that if you reply and a client doesn't acknowledge your response in any way, it bothers you. But beyond that.)

Be safe,
LT

you used to be around so much more

it's painful still

it will always be painful I think

but like I told you... it's never ever ever ever enough

Remember that saying? If you start something you better know how to finish it!!

I went to a party tonight and had a great time. I hung out with people I kind of knew and made some stronger friendships with them. I had two beers, which is more than my usual water & green tea ways. I felt like you- being so social and drinking until past midnight and laughing a lot and being surrounded by people. I wonder if that’s what you’re doing tonight, though after your long vacation last week you might be staying home instead of going to (vacation home) this weekend. You must think I’m such a loser for being a homebody who drinks tea and works on my art and isn’t going to (vacation home) gatherings all the time with my fabulous friends. My friends are nice but not fabulous or interesting or social at all. That’s why I tried branching out tonight. I know you don’t really think I’m a loser, but... how can you not? I wish you’d write. It’s 2am and I’m wired and can’t sleep and I’m reading through these online forums, and I’m too apathetic in this moment to feel sorry for what I did, but I do know it was foolish.
You were inattentive, but you were earnest. You spoke without thinking, but you were generous. You came to incredibly incorrect conclusions about my life, but you did try to listen. You think I’ve never learned how to say a proper goodbye because my life has been full of them— but that’s exactly why I know how to say proper goodbyes. I’m sure I’ve said goodbye to more people than you have— you’ve lived in the same place your entire 67 years, you haven’t been coming and going like I have. What we had was a terrible goodbye.
Why didn’t you ask about the other maternal figures in my life? I even prompted you, wording the question for you. But you never asked. I think I am better without you, and that makes me so sad. I hope I’ll go back to you, and that makes me sad, too. There’s something about you that makes me so sad. I think of you in your thirties, married to a man, with two toddlers at home, questioning your sexuality. I think of how your son was in a terrible accident and during that time your relationship with your wife ended. I think of how you wear a wedding ring now but I’m pretty sure you’re not partnered. I think of how you cover yourself in precious stone jewelry because you think you’re being strong but you’re actually afraid of a lot of things. I think of how all these parties you go to now are ways to live out parts of yourself that you didn’t live for a really long time. I think of how hot your ex wife is (and successful and loaded)! I think you’re wonderful but really not worth my jealousy. If we were colleagues, I’d like you enough but... eh.
But it’s the house in (vacation town), I think, that really gets me. I selected you at random from an online database of therapists because my ex-relationship was so bad I was crying every day at work, annoying my work best friend. I went to your office very determined to hate you because I’ve always thought therapy was a scam. I still do. I can’t belive that, in you, I finally found a woman who met all the criteria for what I fantasized about in the woman who’d see me as the daughter she never had. But people don’t think that way. No one is out looking for the daughter they never had, and that includes you. And you go to that (vacation home) every weekend and I’m here, trying to make new friends, trying to fall asleep at 2 in the morning, wondering where you are tonight. If I’ll ever have your kind of money to buy my own house there. Wondering if I’d even want to. It’s the idea of it more than anything. The concept of you discovering yourself and being able to follow your heart to a place that nurtured you. In a place that became your community. You have so much you could pay forward to me in terms of stories and knowledge, but you won’t becasue we met in your office, which refuses to resemble real life.
The party was good tonight. I don’t know if I’ll ever finally fall asleep...

The longer this goes on, the more doubt I have that I will handle your return gratefully, or gracefully. You dropped the ball when I needed you. Unavoidable, yes....but this is intolerable. You are the only person who would understand why pottery tutor's comments about that topic, and staying there, would affect me in the way that it has.

Remember what I wrote about misplaced trust in that poem?

My parents are arguing over skype right now. It won't be any better when I get home.

And a gem from this morning:

Those comments aren't jokes imo, they amount to bullying, intimidating, abusive harassment. I'm so sorry you deal with that

Dear T,



-Butterfly

Pang of missing you

Dear T,
I was thinking about something last night, with the whole imbalance in therapy. And how one of the things for me is I wonder if you understand what it's like to feel really vulnerable, like I feel with you. Because you seem like such a self-confident person most of the time. So I was wondering...could I ask you to share a story with me of a time when you felt vulnerable or really anxious or exposed? I'm not talking about "I was nervous before a sports competition," but something other than that. It could be from childhood, the present, no real details needed. Or, if you don't want to share an actual story, even just for you to assure me that you have indeed felt that way at some point. I may not actually ask you this, could just talk about my feelings of being vulnerable. Or say "I wish I could ask you this but you probably wouldn't answer."
Just some "while you're away" thoughts...
LT

am i dying