Dear T: I really need to tell you something XLIII

Thanks for your email. I am glad you're on board with the conversation we need to have tomorrow.

T,
I wish you were here. I wish I was seeing you instead of new T. I brought photos of me and J to therapy yesterday, thinking I would show them to new T, but I didn't. Showing him the pictures would have been too intimate a gesture, and I'm just not there yet.

T, you would have liked J. I wish I could show you the pictures. We're so cute together. I think you'd agree.

I often tell J about you. He's a bit perplexed by our relationship, but he listens. He remembers your name. (Well, it is tattooed on my arm, lol.)

I miss you!

Hey ex-T, it was nice running into you in the store recently. The best part about it wasn't the actual seeing you, which surprised me, but instead was that I didn't fall apart with wanting you again. How refreshingly wonderful that was. We done good work, you and I. I haven't started with a new T yet, and maybe I won't. I'm feeling pretty good these days.

I'm having more of those nightmares, but I felt like I didn't really get what I needed the first time I brought them up and I'm reluctant to do so again.
I think I just need to feel connected and to get some validation that it really sucks and my distress is understandable.

I want another transitional object, something a bit less impromptu and, y'know, sticky. Can you please just give me a rock or something? I don't care where you get it from. I just want something to have when it's midnight and I feel like a scared and angry little kid.

I don't know if I will ever get past this. I don't know if I can ever allow myself to feel your care in the same way again. And that breaks my heart.

Dear T,

Haven’t seen you for a month. It’s been too cold...or I’ve been busy with preparing the house for sale...or I’ve felt too exhausted.

You didn’t chase after me or volunteer we could speak on the phone instead as in the past.
You would have let me phone you, instead, if I asked. But I didn’t.

It’s been a rough month. Thankfully, being able to see there will be an end to it has gotten me though some sui thoughts.

I need a lot of rest. Thank you for saying you quite understand my need for rest after the horror I’ve been through for the past four or five years. My experience of these past four years is beyond my ability to describe it.

I think I may actually like it here.

Plus, I left my mother’s home. When I was alone there, I tried explaining to her, outloud, what was happening, where I was going, where her things were going, and I love her and asked her to please come with me.

It’s been hard to stay and hard to leave.
When your parents are gone, they are gone for a long, long time.
I wish I could have been more help to her in the end. I was SO tired. But she didn’t know that.

I plan on coming tomorrow.

Dear T,
Wish you could be in the IEP meeting with me today. My head hurts, and I'm stressed. I thought about emailing you last night asking for words of support regarding the meeting, but realized I can manage and don't want to bother you while you're on vacation unless really urgent. I did hold the stone for a bit yesterday and thought about some stuff you said in Thursday's session. That helped a bit.

There's this part of me that doesn't want to show I'm OK during the week you're gone, because then maybe you'll think that I don't need you so much at all. But then I thought about it, and I've, say, managed to take care of D while H was gone the entire day or evening. But that doesn't mean I'd want him to be gone *every* day/night or don't want/need his support. So, I imagine it's similar regarding you. Right?

Love and miss you,
LT

Every time I think of that concerning look you gave me yesterday I feel like flooding my basement.

Dear T,
Made it through meeting, went fairly well. I think having your stone in my pocket helped it feel like you were there with me.
Love,
LT

Thank you for your support today. I stepped back from the edge because I needed to.
Something tells me I am also going to need to cry at some point.

I hurt.

Dear T,
Well, I made it a week without emailing you, that's something, right? I'm going to say that it is.
Love,
LT

What am I so afraid of? Feelings are normal and natural, and it makes sense that mine would be even more complex...given the way that Chris' death contributed to the impossibility of the situation in which I find myself. I am scared of going over the edge.

I'm cold and miserable and that was a terrible session yesterday.

Is this when everything changes, is this when I realise deep in my being that I will never have what I want with you and from you? Is this when the pain of that really sets in and makes me not want to even turn up for sessions because of the fear of greater pain? This is not an avenue I have ever gone down before. I have never experienced such a horrible desperate longing for something so close and available to me and yet so completely out of reach. I actually feel as though I hate you. I hate you.

Today I told you back then I didn’t know what I needed. As a parent, looking back, I don’t know if I could have parented me, as a child, either.
I didn’t know what I needed then.

I don’t know what I need now.

I’m not clear on what’s wrong except I’m sensitive, ‘innocent’ and, too often, I assume I know something I really don’t know.

I can’t tell you what made everything go wrong.
I can’t tell you what i needed.
I can’t tell you what I need.

I'm stuck in my mind right now, so I can't really say what's wrong. When you ask how bad things are, you can't actually trust my answer. My mind is like an endless maze right now, and won't let me be totally honest. I don't want to say what's going right now purely because the practical repercussions will make things more difficult. I'm sorry for being so vague and evasive. I hate that I won't be straight right now. I'm not ok and wish that someone would just read my mind because I feel so paralysed.

Dear T,

I really hope you can do online therapy when I move.

Dear Dr. S,

I think I've decided to believe (make my narrative) your statement about being in a different place too and us having a different rhythm to mean that there was some accuracy to my perception when things went bad. It might not be the real reality, I think I can accept that it might not be real. One thing I think therapy is teaching me is that it's ok to make up our own narratives to some degree and especially if they help us get through the day.

Love, me.

Come and find me.

First world moping:

I did the rescripting exercise. I wrote it all out. I wish this was the kind of thing I could text you and tell you. I want you to be proud of me.

I've said it before but I will say it again (although never to your face) - if I could be half the person you are, I would be doing amazingly. How do you make me feel so much better after all that?

You will probably think I’m insane when you hear I spent $230 in 2 days stocking up on food, hygiene products, and cat supplies.

I'm feeling really abandoned right now. For no good reason, but still in classic borderline fashion I didn't let that stop me from acting out anyway.

It probably doesn't help that you didn't realize on Friday that we don't have any more appointments scheduled. I know you're talking to my insurance company Monday so it's not like you're forgetting about me.
Idk. Maybe I feel like I'm digging up all this stuff from how I felt when I was much younger and just like back then I'm left to deal with it all on my own.
I wish I had a reason to text you about scheduling or something. But it's Sunday anyway.

Remember when we didn't shout at each other in session? When we were civil and almost pleasant?

ETA: oh yeah, neither do I!! hahaha, etc