I don't miss my T, I just miss therapy itself

Warning: There is little point or conclusion to this post; nor is there a question. Just this:

It's been quite some time (well, since July) since I quit therapy. Actually, I didn't so much quit as have my T blow out of the city without a plan to return, so when she finally re-surfaced, I decided not to renew the relationship.

So either way, the therapy is over.

I'm not seeing a new T at the moment, and I don't miss the old T, I just miss therapy sometimes.

I miss the structure of it, the space and time it gave me, and the comfort that it brought -- that someone was processing my life story with me. Especially around the holidays, which can be crap-tastic in my FOO.

Life doesn't exactly suck, really. I am finding myself strengthening friendships, which is great, and I have taken on a consulting job, which is helping me with finances and making me feel like I'm really contributing professionally in my community. It's really rewarding.

I've been feeling a bit low lately and two of my closest friends actually NOTICED and reached out to me to say, You Okay?

But I miss the ritual, the feeling of understanding, and the space that therapy gave me.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Yes, I get this. I've actually never done much in the way of therapy. I've tried a few for brief periods over the years. They pretty-much ranged from mediocre to dreadful! The last one I saw was actually the best of the lot. But I got angry about something (not even related to therapy itself as I recall) & I quit. That must have been 3 or 4 years ago now I would guesstimate. I don't miss the therapist. But I miss having someone with whom I can talk through my issues. Now I simply keep it all to myself.

I can understand that. It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. After I stopped therapy with T1 when I was very young, I didn't miss her really, but I missed having that space and time. I get it. I don't think you are alone with this feeling at all. Kit.

Yeah, I keep a lot to myself and oddly, if I do not keep it to myself, I feel like I have over-shared, even with close friends. I guess I don't want people to see me floundering (which I am probably) not or not having my act together. I think that a lot of my issues have to do with wanting to appear a certain way, and therapy allowed me to be more "real" than I sometimes allow myself to be IRL.

Anyway, I feel like there is a hole where therapy used to be in my life. Not even that it helped me so enormously.

I'm a completely different person on the "inside" than the one I have always shown to the world (including my closest relatives.) Therapy, while it lasted, was the one place where I could allow at least the merest portion of that to peek out.

Can you do that here somehow? I personally am interested and, unless the moderators obect, I think it's appropriate to let us know how things are going for you now that therapy has ended. Write a post/update once a week or so, on a regular schedule, if that would help?

That is my logo at the end of your post!!!!

Wow...what a cool idea. I could start by obsessing and then go on to...obsess! Maybe we could start an out-of-the-way thread....

We're listening...

(Not to scare you off or anything! )

I can relate... I had to go five months without my T and at one point I thought I was going to go crazy so on a whim I signed up for the better help website for an online therapist. I only talked to her for about a week, and honestly she wasn't even that helpful, but getting things off my chest in a therapy-like manner made me feel better. That made me realize that while I like my T a lot, it's therapy that I'm missing when I haven't been in a while, not her.

So this weekend, I pushed myself socially and went out a lot. It was HARD. My day job is so reliant on communications and by the end of the day, I just feel like being in my pajamas with Ben and Jerry. But I went!

I have been actually talking to myself (out loud, I seem like a maniac but there's always the chance that someone sees me talking to myself in the car and they figure I have Bluetooth). I literally have to say, "It's okay and if you hate this party, you can simply stay for 30 minutes"

This is the kind of discussion that I would have with my T. Examining my self talk. And realizing how I wouldn't talk to my DOG in this fashion, yet I berate myself this way.

Ugh. No wonder I was in therapy for a million years.