Dear T: I really need to tell you something XLV

T,

I know you don't usually reply a second time in an email chain, but I really hope you can this time. I could really use some kind words and reassurance because I'm jittery due to unresolved trauma.

I feel like I did outgrow you.

I could have stopped in August, but I wasn't ready then.

When should I tell you how unsure I really feel, how much I am fighting with myself. I feel like that is false, a lie of some sorts. Maybe I am just trying to be manipulative. How do I know?

Dear T,
Thanks, that really helped. (Though the discussion on my sadness being near your office felt a bit...unfinished.) The main thing is that it felt like you were really present during the session. That you were really listening to me and trying to understand. And that you were...you. Not whoever you seemed to be on Wednesday.

I wish you weren't seeing more clients now. And you seem to wish you weren't as well. But I get that you felt you needed to help people in need of mental health in our area. I just selfishly hope that need will start to abate soon, that maybe they'll stop seeing you as much. But it's also good to know it's not about me at all, the not being able to offer the earlier session yesterday, the not responding to my email till 10:30. And it also helped to know that you expected I wouldn't be satisfied with your email reply. And that you had given it thought.

It feels like you're still there. Just stretched a bit thin right now. I hope you can hang in there and take care of yourself as well as your clients.

Love you,
LT

Hi R,

I wanted to share another song with you. It's probably the most contemporary music I listen to, even though it's unconventional.

Hot On The Trail - Steam Powered Giraffe

'It was foreign, pouring
I've been storing this for a long while
Consumed, felt doomed
Sung a new tune, eventually in time...'

Makes sense in relation to my situation.

I just wanted to tell you here that I spent the first 35 minutes of what would have been my session today if we hadn't started to space them out more, reflecting on the past 9+ years and I wrote it all down to share with you next week.

I feel really guilty for having lied to you yesterday, but I can't say I regret it. I don't think I've lied to you at any other time, but yesterday I just really wanted to get my hair done more than I wanted a session. Of course, now I'm stuck with waiting for 5 days for our session.

I kinda feel a bit like I jumped the gun on things. I think that is normal though when anyone makes a big decision. But I am still also glad about my decision and moving on. I’m not stressing about my move anymore. I still want you to be worried about me so I think the transference is still going on despite the recent developments of things. Honestly therapy is the least of my problems right now anyways.

Hubby are on our weekend away. As you know U love the little resort town where to live. I gave hubby thr go to nook whatever location in our state, he chose your town. Based on things you have told me I believe I am about 2 miles from your home. I will never go there. Since we discussed my family vacationing her last summer I know you would be fine if we run into each other. We have been her many times but I have never seen you. Right now I would love if we did more than ever.

Hi T. The one good thing about a pandemic is since your kids are in virtual school, you didn't have to cancel bc of a snow day. I'm so glad.

I finally did the Active with the irish pub dream. I have no idea why I was resisting it so hard. And I actually won at Scrabble tonight, miracle of miracles.

Your prediction or wish of lots of snow is coming true... Why did you have to be right????

I don’t want to write that email about why I don’t want to talk with you about stuff pertaining to intimacy between the BF and me. I just don’t want to talk about it with you, ok? Can you just leave it alone?

I'm sick of ****

I never told you any of this, but around the end of Jan I began chatting to someone online. She is almost 25 years older than me. but I've been beginning to feel like she has been playing that mother role for me which I always craved from you.

I didn't come to session last week, because for the first time I didn't want to see you. My friends here said they were proud of me for asking for help and emailing for an appointment with a psychiatrist, but instead after I told you the first thing you came up with was me sneaking behind your back and cheating on you like my father did to my mother. Don't say I didn't tell you that I was struggling, because I did and saying you wished you could help me more didn't help me. I know I stayed longer then I should have, but it stopped feeling right in august and I tried to ignore it and hope that we could fix it, but it was the last straw and I can't save this anymore.

Dear T,
I think we need to talk about how you've taken on a considerably larger number of clients than you'd prefer to have right now, because of the mental health need in the area. Part of me feels guilty for taking up 3 slots when you could be helping more people. Part of me also feels guilty for taking up that amount of your time, because maybe if I dropped to twice a week right now, you wouldn't add another client, and then you'd have an extra hour to yourself each week. But then part of me also hates that you're less available now, like for extra sessions or responding to email. Like part of me feels like, "Hey, I was here first!" And then there's the part that worries you're going to get burned out seeing this many clients and either provide less-quality care or just suddenly be like, "OK, I need to take 2 weeks off starting now." Well, and I worry that your personal health and well-being will suffer, too, even if it doesn't more directly affect your clients (including me). You just look so tired lately. I hope you're OK and doing enough self-care.

So, yeah, those competing thoughts in me. Plus the fact that my rate is supposed to go back up to what it was on March 1. Do I mention that? Do I ask for an extension or some middle ground between that and my regular rate for a month or two? Would that be terribly selfish of me? But then if you're seeing a bunch more clients, you're also getting more income (though I feel guilty thinking that...). Like, could I just get one more month at that rate, so I feel better about doing 3 times a week (from a financial perspective), while we see what happens with schools, in the hopes that, if things go as planned, it takes a huge weight off of me? And gives me more time to practice self-care? Or do I just suck it up and pay the higher rate because you deserve it, and I figure out financially how long I can do 3x a week? I mean, it's not a case of whether I could technically manage...it's how much I'd have to give up to do that. And that means I need to figure out exactly how important/vital this is to me vs. other things.


The other thing is, you said a month ago how if I drop to twice a week, then realize I do still want/need 3x, you'd be able to fit me in. But I worry if that's still the case? I suppose I could just ask you... I guess I could go with some sort of middle ground and do 2 regular and 1 half session a week. Maybe I try that in mid-March? I think I need to talk about all of this with you, but when I've asked before about transitioning from 3 to 2, you said you weren't sure how it would be best to do that. But maybe we can talk about it again?

Love,
LT

Hey L. Well, so far so good on the 2 week thing, at least in theory. Unless the nightmare night before last is trying to tell me otherwise. I do wonder why this low self-esteem thing has decided to come back with a vengeance as we begin the house-buying process in earnest. I can't help it, I feel guilty and greedy and other kinds of bad for going along with h on this and wanting a newer house than the old one we live in now. I had been dead-set against it at first but the more we look at new-er houses the more I want to move, actually am getting excited about it, which further fuels the guilt and anxiety about it all. Which in turn makes me feel like a spoiled ****ing princess wanting your help with these feelings when so many people have so much worse problems than mine. Maybe I should cancel Friday. I don't know what to do. But then I hear you talking about how each of us doing our individual work is important to the world at large and I know I won't cancel.

Dear T,
Why do you give me so much? I don't deserve it...
Love you,

LT

I don’t want to mess up tomorrow by being sick or being in pain or whatever. I want to have a good productive session. But it’s tough right now. I wonder if what I’m feeling towards you right now is that transference thing. I mean if we have to end sooner because I’m sick then we have to end I guess.

After some more thought today prompted by a dear person here on PC who shared her thoughts with me, I am very much looking forward to my session on Friday.