risk

i sent t a looooooooooooooooooooooooong rambly rave. probably a bit too long. i wanted him to understand... we talked about this a bit in our last session... about how i don't cope very well when people leave. he was like 'yeah' - i think he knows that when he takes time off it affects me significantly. i try and be good about it (try not to say / do anything that will make him feel guilty about going etc) but he does know that it does affect me significantly.

i sent t a looooooooooooooooooooooooooong rambly rave about how i really can get intensely attached to someone. and about how when they go i feel like i'm being ripped apart and i lose it for a time. talked about it a little in session, too. said about how when my t's from community mental health left termination would come out of the blue and they just wanted me to get the hell out as fast as possible. he was like 'you mean they only gave you a couple weeks' and i was like 'no... minutes. just wanted me to get out of there quickly before it started to sink in incase i made a scene'. because... i would lose it.

i told him about how i would phone up my druggie mates and they would look after me for a week or so. we'd get high and hang out and do stuff together and i'd come right eventually. i told him how if that didn't happen (if my mates were busy or something) then i'd really lose it... have to be hospitalized for a while. about how they didn't like hospitalizing me because i've hurt myself worst while i was an inpatient (leg injuries and attempts and lots of scarring and stuff).

i sent him an email about how i can let bob go because he is there for me now. about how i wish i didn't need people so much :-( about how i wish it didn't hurt me so much when they left :-( about how i wish i didn't crack up when they left :-(

i hope i haven't scared him by telling him about how bad it is for me when people go. i guess... it takes some time for me to get attached but once i am attached... i hope he isn't scared of / repulsed by my attachment to him. i'll try and be good... but it is hard for me to cope sometimes :-(

AK! Good for you, sending that email! That was a risk and one you should be proud you took!

Thanks. He emailed me last night and said he had a virus so wasn't able to respond to the email and that he probably would have to cancel the session this morning. He txt me quite early and cancelled.

:-(

I feel very small. I txt him back 'ok. hope you feel better soon'. but i feel very small :-(

maybe he got sick 'cause of me? i mean he really did get sick... but 'cause he was worried bout dealing with me?

magical thinking.. but still. i feel very small

oh thats bad timing :-(

You can't get a virus from worry; they're hard-core uglies with minds of their own.

no... but you can worry yourself into a state of immunisation suppression so you are much much much more succeptible to viruses. he said he had been sick for a couple days. that places his sickness soon after seeing me and my sending him that email :-(

i hope he isn't scared that he will hurt me bad. i hope he isn't scared of me :-(

LOL, a T worrying so hard they worry themselves into a state of immunisation suppression? That wouldn't be a very good T would it? I have GAD and I can't think of anytime that I have worried that hard! I'd blame the other clients he saw, one or more of whom was carrying the virus going around. He sees a lot of the "public" and I assume, like me, that he has some clients that go to see him even when they're sick. My T had to go away ever year for months because she had some illness in her childhood and if she were to get sick now, even a cold, it could kill her. So, she had to stay away from all us anxious therapy-goers. Think of schools and teachers; everyone gets sick there about now with whatever is going around.

Alex, you are so brave for sending that email.

I do not think that you telling your T about your attachment issues worried him into sickness. If that was the case, my T would be in quarantine by now.

Since I work inpatient, I see patients when they are sick. I already caught some virus-thingy this autumn. I don't know if it was from someone with attachment issues or not :-)

Seriously, I think you took a wonderful risk. You are really opening up and allowing him to see different parts of yourself.

AK,
I'm sorry to hear that you are having such a difficult time. I can empathize with your fear of getting attached to other people as I do the same.

It's easy to intellectualize about how you caused your T's sickness. Humor me here for a moment, if you will. Think up 2 really good hypotheses as to how you could NOT possibly be responsible for his sickness I'm honestly looking forward to hearing your reply! You're not small, you're not insignificant. Your weakness, I hope you're not offended, does lie in your inability to take a stand on things, an inability to tell others how you feel (yes, I am kidding, LOL). Take care of yourself and don't make me wait too long for your reply

hey ak, why don't you email him telling him of your extra worries now????

i think... people are at much higher risk of picking up a virus or something when they are stressed out. i'm in australasia, remember... the weather is getting warmer here. there aren't any bugs going round that i know of. i don't expect one would last long as a therapist if one kept getting worried sick because of what patients are saying. i'm not really worried about how he does or doesn't respond to other patients, though, i'm worried about how he is responding to me.

i just feel... alone sometimes. like i've been dropped sometimes. i'm really stressed out right now with my mid-term. and then this other stuff... i don't know. have one more session with him and then i'm off for a while... expect that when i get back he will stake his standard one month off holiday. or maybe he will wait until i come back from the US to do that.

could be about three months. i go for a few weeks... then we have a couple sessions. then a break for christmas... then i go to the US for a few weeks... he said he would be around until christmas... i guess means he is taking time after christmas. i need to get out of here, anyway. either NZ or another city for the first half of the year, then to the US the next.

we may as well say goodbye now, really. it isn't fair of me to tell him how much it hurts when people go. it isn't fair of me to tell him i could let bob go cause of him. cause now i have to let him go too and he isn't there for me he isn't.

i don't feel very well.
3 days until my mid-term
i really really really really don't want to do it
i feel ill

Maybe you're getting the virus from him :-)

No chickening out "first" just to beat him to the supposed punch. You'll be back and he'll be back. I didn't see my T for 9 years but we saw one another again. It's one of the best things that has happened in my life; if I'd known I was going to see her again a lot wouldn't have been quite so painful. But now it doesn't matter because we "fixed" all that. The future really has a lot of "power" and hoping that things will come out right "then" is not an insane hope.

(((Perna))) thank you