Dear T: I really need to tell you something XXXIX

Why can’t things settle down?? Why did you have to choose to do that today? Didn’t you know it would freak me out? Didn’t that matter enough to you? I know you did lots to ease it, but didn’t you know the whole thing had flipped me out? How come after every session now, I’m in panic mode and tears? How do we fix this???

See you on the 29th.

Not too far and not too close.

last session as i was struggling to suppress my tears i realised i expend a great deal of energy doing this and crying really did feel ok.

I miss you. I want to see you.

Thank you for your email this morning. Picked it up just before getting ready for work...don't know whether that was by design, but it means a lot.


Now to put your advice into practice...the self-kindness thing is hard.

Oh L. I'm in a place now where I'm still thinking about you/our therapy relationship and wanting so much to talk to you, to tell you why I can't come back, to be able to say goodbye. It feels wrong somehow for me to just disappear without explanation after 7+ years. I'd put this in an email to you except you'd likely ignore it as you did that last one and that would hurt too much so I won't. Maybe I'll just write it in an actual letter-letter and mail it. Of course you'd ignore that too, but it's different than with email. Sigh.

i believe that you are ethical enough to say if you really thought this is waste of time and i was not not making progress, so our previous conversation has confused me. Are you trying to persuade me to go? if so why did you propose another strategy?

Self-kindness is really hard, but also really important. And yet really hard.

I mean that.

I hate you

Hi T. Hi. Just Hi.

Dear T,

I had a rather wild night last night that left me with some questions about my life and myself. I don't feel your judgment has been the best lately to help me with this so I think I am going back to t shopping. In the meantime, not really sure what to do with these feelings and questions other than journal.

-Butterfly

I didn't miss you today, but I am sad.

The reality of what we discussed in session the other day has been hitting me in waves. I don’t even know if you fully understand. But I guess that’s not the point.

This is really hard, all this stuff coming up out of nowhere. I don’t know what to do with myself.

I hate you so muchhhhhh but I really don't

Dear T,
Love you and miss you.
—LT

Four more sleeps...

Dear T (you've been upgraded from HWMNBN... don't let it go to your head),

Thank you for telling me that I hurt your feelings. (Thanks for giving enough of a crap about me that it's possible for me to hurt your feelings.) Thank you for emailing me when you got worried that telling me that had freaked me out. (It hadn't, but thanks for giving enough of a crap about me that you worry if you think you've freaked me out.)

Anyway. Even though I hate you less, and actually appreciate a lot of what you've done recently,


I just wish I could regulate my moods like a normal person. This shirt is effing *exhausting*.

-c

P.S. Btw I think you've got it in your head that there's some element of erotic transference going on. I personally am totally unaware of having any erotic feelings for you, so if it's going on it's completely unconscious on my end. (I hope to God that there isn't any erotic countertransference going on... I would never put it like this to your face but *ick* *ew* *gross*.)

I don't feel like calling B. What if she wants me to go to the hospital? I don't want to and even if I did, I am paralyzed in this bed.

Why did I text you? I feel so dumb. I'm incapable of taking any actions whatsoever beyond typing on my phone.

I am a worthless excuse for a human being. I feel like quitting therapy and giving up on medications, too. I'll just stay in this bed until I die of dehydration and my dog can eat my corpse.

Dear T,

I really really really want to call you.

-c

Even reading fiction by you people makes me hate your profession even more than I already do.

T, I wish you could believe me when I say you aren’t going to trigger me... ok, not by anything you do with me. Today I’m triggered by the thoughts of what you are doing this week. I don’t like thinking about you like that... like where my mind goes, not your actual actions. Today you are getting transference from N. T and it sucks because you know N. T so I feel guarded talking to you. N. T was always worried I would talk ***** about her outside of session. T, I’m afraid I am letting you down, that I am not being a good enough client. T, this week I went exploring about you... now it’s like you are suddenly in 3D. I saw you through someone else’s eyes, someone a lot like me just not a client. I didn’t expect us to be so similar but now I understand some of the looks you give me. Now I know you are being real with me and authentic. Tonight I want to sleep on the couch in your waiting room, close but not too close... and because it reminds me of home. T, can you stay home for a while? Can I see you every week and sometimes twice when I am feeling shaky?

Sorry how long this is PC - trying not to journal to T. It's been a week.....

Would it be possible for me to purchase furniture covers for your new furniture and have you use it for my sessions? I really dislike your new furniture from a textural and practical standpoint. I mean, I know I just started sitting on the couch 2 or 3 weeks ago rather than the floor. This might push me back to the floor before I am ready.

And I realized that another thing I hate about this space is it feels like you are further dividing yourself ... on this side of the room you are Dr. S, pDoc... on that side of the room, you are a real person. I struggle enough with my reality that this is going to cause me a problem. You know I didn't really realize how much I struggle with the nature of my reality until I started seeing you. No wonder I don't have friends. For me, they really do become strangers/different people when behaviors are off and I have to reset my understanding of them within my world context - they become person A... before said behavior and person B after.

I'm not sure about seeing you tomorrow. I'm not sure how I feel about you buying a puzzle. I know it was your idea. But you're buying something for me. I guess really is for my therapy, like any other therapeutic tool. I don't know. Still feels wrong. And when we are done with it, am I to take it home? btw, what are we going to do with all these puzzles. The 2 we already have finished seemed ok, the 3rd we just did and now we'll have 2 or 3 more and you said we could do as many as it takes. You talked about us building something while doing them... what will it mean to take them back apart and put them back in the boxes? I know with the one under the couch, that means I am put away. I wonder how I'll feel about the others. The one we just did feels like if we take it apart right now, it is only showing me how easily something we build can be demolished or deconstructed. Is that the message you want to teach me? Perhaps your thought is that with each puzzle I'd learn that things ebb and flow. The problem is... is that dividing of you. Each puzzle the build is with a different you, not a new thread to the same you.

Oh well.

I have a lot to talk about tomorrow. I really wish you’d break down at give me twice a week. I’m not used to not getting what I want.