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

Had a phone call booking me in for another transoesophageal echocardiogram (this time under general anaesthetic) next week - Thursday 6th. This is good news, but I feel weird and bad.

Yesterday at the hospital all they did was weigh me and check my oxygen levels with one of those clips on my finger, but my heart started beating like crazy when they took me into that white, sterile room. So many bad memories now. The medical trauma is piling up.



Apologies as usual for the melodrama. I'm really glad I'm seeing you tomorrow, even if it means we have to talk about my pathetic, stupid attempt to give you a gift.

17 hours, 4 minutes and 38 seconds

Do you love me?



EDIT:Non drama. Creepy guy asked me if I wanted to go to the supermarket 15 mins away, with him. I said okay. But in the store we got separated, I paid and left because I couldn't see him anywhere near the checkouts. I didn't wait because I expected him to leave without me. He came back to knock on my door, he wasn't happy. I kinda wish he would leave me alone and stop knocking over stupid things instead of just sending texts I could ignore. I wish you would leave me alone too. Your stupid and I hate you.

Dear T:

I would like to be rescued from the people who think their skepticism is evidence of any kind of truth, but I know it's yet another opportunity to accept that I see things differently than many people. There is no winning and losing, only moving closer to my goals or not.

I feel good after seeing you today. I felt connected and warm. I think we may have hit upon something here. Connecting at the end of the session might end up being what makes this work bearable.

Dear T,
So that was maybe a little awkward—especially the guy interrupting to make sure I was OK! Oh and your initially calling me an hour early—but I think it overall went well. Yeah our voice sounded a little different on the phone, so it’s like it took me a few minutes to sort of comprehend that it was you, but when you laughed at something I said, that kinda confirmed it was you and made me feel the connection. Even though I was mostly doing OK on the vacation, some helpful stuff came out of the call. And it will make the wait to see you Tuesday more tolerable.
Love,
LT

Okay a bit of sadness now. Probably just tiredness. I'll try for some sleep. Love you

Dear Former T....I really miss you. I miss your voice. I miss knowing that you care about me. You probably still do but you aren't "there" anymore. One more phone call and then it's goodbye. I'm not ready to say goodbye but I have to. I wish you hadn't gotten sick. Dear Tony the Tiger T...the 8th feels too far away. I wish I were on weekly sessions but I think you have too many clients for that.

Dear T: I am quite grateful for the session today. I noticed how easy it was to say what had been bothering me about your offhanded remarks about how I've probably heard this story before. I liked my straightforwardness and your lack of defensiveness, which I would have expected even if I bungled or accused or tried to mind read or over interpret what you have been saying to me. I like the way I was able to raise the issue with you, linking it to my social network and some of the ways I've been upping my honesty with them, inviting people to check out what I think or believe and refusing to let them mind read me. It was helpful to me to hear myself be so clear that I wanted to know what this was about, that I didn't think it was about me, but that I wanted to check with you.

And I am sorry about the answer, as it relates to the changing of your memory and a fear that you have told the same stories like an old person. I wish you didn't have to feel that your memory is not as good as it used to be, even though I think it is very hard to remember who you've told what story to. Like last year, when a friend I catch up with on the phone every year or two stopped me mid story and said, "what? [Your H] died?" I was sure I had told her and the idea that I went three or so years without telling her seems impossible to make sense of, I am sure I assumed that I had told her or I remembered telling her.

But of course what you said was about you, not me. Of course you weren't thinking that I should run along and stop wasting your time every week, or that I should switch to a therapist who had new stories to tell me.

I feel like something has shifted inside me, like I've grown an inch or two, that I've matured into a person who can keep a relationship without freaking out about one thing or another. I've ditched the drama and am more interested just in making things work and learning more and more about how to talk about difficult subjects in a way that honors the relationship. I used to think I sucked at relationships and now I think I'm pretty good at them. Today's session let me understand in a concrete way that I like who I am in relation to other people, I like how I treat other people and I like who I am when I am with other people. Maybe I've turned into the person I've wanted to be when I grew up. Thank you for helping me do what I've wanted to do.

I sometimes think about the time you became over-animated and showed me your finger, shouted (literally) that you were married and that you and your spouse did not live in the same house. (Plus up until recently I hadn't realized you had just gotten married and that it was the second marriage for both of you.) So perhaps that is why you became so completely over the top excited. But why you thought it would matter to me because I also did not live with my partner is still beyond me. It is not like I thought oh yay me and that whackball therapist have something in common. And surely you never imagined I held you up as a beacon of normalcy. I feel certain I would have immediately disabused you of that notion.
What on earth were you trying to do at me with that sort of stuff? What reaction from me were you trying to elicit? What was the point of such shenanigans?

Today I am also more glad than usual that I see things from a different perspective than some.

P.S. I don't need you to rescue me, of that I've always been clear. Thanks for not doing it.

It amused me that you both said you enjoyed working with me. The first even said she missed me and how unique therapy was with me. And you wonder why I consider you all liars.
Fortunately, my sense of self/ boundaries were not compromised by either of you.

Hey Info, I’m mad at you. Quelle surprise.

After Piaf, our relationship improved, then tanked again without us even seeing each other.

ATAT

I can believe that!

me too

Ughhh wrong thread. Oops.

I hope you're doing okay, and I hope I get to see you on Saturday. I really miss you.

If you ever have to quit/back away, please let me know verbally or in writing. If you tell me that you need a break, that you don't want me to text, I won't. Please don't change things without telling me/helping me understand. I just need to know. I think I am too much for anyone. Previous T kept getting irritated with me but didn't, until up to one point, didn't tell me his plan. And it was so much more damaging. Thank you.

Maybe a possible trigger.




I really just wanted to pick a fight with you because I know the weekend is coming and it would be easier to go into if i was angry at you. I had this dream about you and my sister walking in a forest I see you walking ahead of me. She's little less than a year old and still a slightly pink and squishy baby dressed in white and with a little hat. You're looking at her- really looking at her like you're seeing her for the first time and her eyes are open and staring back at you. Then there's this was water log ride and she's with me. In at the front and my other sister is at the back and we have our own segregated seats but she falls out and so does my other sister. Then she's lying face down in a pool of water and I pull her out. I say she's allergic to the water as she's also coming out in a rash. Then she's in an incubator with wires all over her and I can hear the machine beeping. Then the scene moves to my the old room upstairs, I'm little again but just cleaning and trying on hair products, my mother pulls out this bag with my brothers old stuff. A magnet, a toothbrush a toy, a handwriting book and i say some of this stuff is 18 years old and I'm surprised that she kept it .

I don't know what we're doing
I don't know what we've done
But the fire is coming
So I think we should run
I think we should run, run, run, run
Run, run, run, run
Run, run, run, run
Run, run, run

I'm really ill right now. I woke up and cried first thing in the morning at 5 something and now it's not even 9am yet.

I know this insurance debacle isn't your fault and you've been really really good about trying to get it sorted out and checking in with me, but hoo boy is this bringing back my abandonment issues and feelings from when you terminated before I started the IOP.
And I never know how to respond when you ask me how I'm doing/if I'm ok in that concerned voice, because it's not a session and those boundaries are important for me, but I also made a commitment not to lie to you.
What am I supposed to say? "Actually it feels like I'm backsliding and undoing some of the progress and I'm having really strong urges that I might end up giving in to." There'd be no good way for you to respond to that.

Hi T,

Yes, I'm aware that people use me. I'm aware that people manipulate me.
I'm too scared of people leaving me if I stand up for myself though. Talk about abandonment issues, eh?

I'm sorry if I worried you with that statement. I had the impression that it made you sad too.

Hi T
How are you?
I love you
It's so sad that you hate me

I asked for an extra session on friday, I guess I just felt rejected. I think you said something about me challenging the frame and how an extra ad hoc session created stress and even took up time from our current session because we spent time talking about it. I'm not minimizing the fact that you have already been here for me twice already this week, but I feel like I'm crying out for you to save me and trying to tell you how much I am struggling.

20 months of therapy and I'm just a stupidly and hopelessly dependent fruit loop.I think from next week I'm going to try to just stick to one session a week. With no more emailing on the weekends.

Ya I had to make my own boundaries too. It sucks but I think it's helped in long run. Sorry you were told no though. Rejections from t are the worst.

I actually thought of you typing that post up.



And some Adele thrown into the mix "Next time I'll be stronger, next time I'll be my own saviour standing on my own two feet".