Dear T: I really need to tell you something XLVI

I have to say the last 2 sessions with the tech issues have made what has seem like mostly a waste of time even more of a waste of time. I know it is not your fault. Maybe we should just cancel those sessions. I don't know.

Hi T. I have this fear suddenly that something terrible happened to you on vacation, or your family and I'll never know. Friday feels so far away.

T,

Are you going to punish me for those emails?

i understand you said what you did to provide info /a heads-up. but it way back fired with me. saying more T's left and you were "dumped" with more clients......
well that is just making me doubt myself and just 'backing' away. i don't want to be a bother or take up space that others should use!

[so instead of reaching out to you now, i'm going deeper into the cave - oh well]

Today I have let the small scared part choose what we’re wearing and she’s chosen rainbow dungarees, and they have a big enough pocket to take the baby whale with us which I’m really hoping will help with how frightened she is about taking R to the gym class. I’m trying to tell her I’ll be there too and I will hold her hand and protect her and I’m hoping it’s enough to prevent a switch and a meltdown, I want to be able to do this today so badly. R will be so happy if I manage to take him. I think you would be proud of me, maybe I will tell you tomorrow. The whale will keep us safe until then.

Ugh, I can't sleep. Had awful nightmares last night. Maybe I'm subconsciously resisting sleep to avoid the unpleasantness.

Made it to my favourite place today. I felt my shoulders assume a normal position for the first time in over a year. Feeling like I can handle whatever waves may come tomorrow.

Still looking forward to speaking with you on the 22nd, though.

I’m feeling angry and resentful tonight, not at you, but you’re helping me process it and put it into words finally. It still feels too big to handle on my own sometimes. Like an amorphous creature that wants to be let out, there’s parts of it I still don’t know what to do with. I wish I could drop it off with you for a few hours, like a daycare service for negative emotions lol.

Dear R,

I'm so very sad right now.

Total study time for today 3h.23 mins.Exam in one week from tomorrow and i know I haven't been at the top of my game.

£445 saved though.

I wish you knew how much I need you right now. I am not coping.

I love you and stuff but I'm beginning to think that maybe you have been wrong all this time, in saying that I'm not broken. Because I am broken, L and I can't fight it anymore. trigger for religion

I wish I could go on holiday from all this too. I have no idea what to do anymore. I feel so disgusting and I can tell that M doesn't feel good either, but nothing I do helps at all. My eyes are burning. I dreamed that a huge shadowy ghost ship was coming after me last night, and then I was matching up patient details for Broadmoor hospital.

I will understand if you just want to forget about me for a few weeks. I am a nightmare.

Dear T,
I'm supposed to call my mom today. Of course, she emailed while I was in the session with you (probably at the exact moment I was saying, "I'm surprised I haven't heard from her since Sunday"). Feeling pretty anxious about it. I'm still trying to decide what I'd be comfortable doing in terms of meeting up with them. And don't know whether I'll actually be able to say any of what we talked about if she gives me pushback or seems insensitive to my anxiety/agoraphobia. I know I can always have that conversation with her later, too, like we discussed. Which makes me a bit less anxious, that it's not like "now or never." But still, anxious.... (well, more anxious that usual).
Love,
LT

I was sorry to learn that you are tired of holding the responsibility for my mental health. I was not aware that this dynamic was present in our therapeutic relationship. It hurt to hear you say that.

I feel angry, in part because that’s my knee-jerk response when I feel hurt, and in part because a part of me is going, “isn’t it a therapist’s job to hold some of the responsibility for the mental health of their patients? How was it therapeutic for him to share his resentment towards me? Isn’t this why I am paying this man so much money, much of which is not reimbursed by my insurance?”

Maybe there’s something I can learn here about how to be in relationship with someone when I feel hurt by them (i.e. how to maintain one's sense of self when the other reflects something other than complete approval).

(As an aside, I can’t help but wonder if there’s a part of you that is trying to get me to fire you so that you can get rid of me without having to endure any guilt related to initiating termination yourself — like you’ve said to me before: you’re intelligent; you knew how that comment would land with me.)

I think you were getting at the fact that you continually re-direct me to discuss the difficulties that come up with my BF. Maybe I’m not ready to do that work? Maybe that work is difficult for me because I have BPD? I heard you say that this latter explanatory model is a “cop-out,” but I’m not so sure. Do you get to be annoyed at me for having the very problem for which I’ve come to you for help? Do you get to tell me that there is a right and wrong way to engage with therapy, and that I’m doing it wrong? Christ, T; I’m doing the best I can.

Or maybe I just don’t know what the hell to do with the advice that you give me. When you say things like, “it is important to be curious,” or “you have a habit of engaging in black-and-white-thinking“ I hear and understand those concepts but don’t know how what to do about them I do not feel curious about areas of vulnerability in my relationship with my BF because those areas feel scary and threatening. I can't spontaneously generate curiosity — I know this from my time as a medical student; some topics are just not inherently interesting and I can’t make myself feel interested in them no matter what I do. When I felt like this in medical school, I’d force myself myself to engage with these topics anyway by erecting external scaffolding, creating structure. Should I set a reminder on my phone? Pause at the end of the day and write down three things that went badly in my relationship with my BF, three areas in which I engaged in black-and-white-thinking? I could sit down and make a list about all of the things I like and dislike about my BF and bring that list to session? I am not being sarcastic here; I literally do not know what the f*** to do.

I feel quite bad. My limbs feel leaden and I want to cry all the time. I am trying not to fall apart because my BF doesn’t understand why a disagreement with my therapist would make me so upset. Maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe he should f*** off. I don’t know.

I wish I did actually decide to book a session with the other T in advance. He's now booked up until the 27th and only has 4 sessions remaining for that week. I could pretend that I was okay but I'm not. I'm really not sure if seeing you would even help, but I'm trying not to contact you.

Edit:

Just emailed him asking if he had any cancellations for the remainder of this week could he please let me know.

Thank you for giving so much of yourself. You are a gem!

Hey, you deserve a better T. I think I spotted your post somewhere else and please believe me you deserve a better T. My T treats personality disorders including BPD and I have AVPD and your T is really out of line.

I have clinician books on Schema Therapy which specify how BPD is treated and how your T is treating you is messed up in my opinion.

I feel like I've run the gamut of possible human emotions over the past two days.
Some of them I've been playing Whack a Mole with for a very long time.
At this point in time, I am pretty much just feeling worn out.

Thank you for fitting me in on Tuesday, and reminding me to be kind to myself. I am still learning what that looks like.

Trying to go easy on the 'shoulds' today. I had plans for yesterday, but they didn't come to fruition.

Hugs. Which T? Good luck

T...

Yeah, day 3. You probably won't reply. I still check my email multiple times a day like a fool.

Why do I bother. You wrote that I don't have to agree about spacing out sessions and that it can be tested and the barriers discussed. Sure didn't effing feel that you ever said that the 2 times we discussed this in person. You just simply said I wouldn't feel that way when the time comes. I don't feel heard

And you wrote how we (stop that bs "we") need to talk about if I'm using the session frequency in a helpful way or if that is "reinforcing dependency". Yeah, no I already hate how I'm too attached, and again it doesn't feel like a discussion.

Suddenly very bothered about the long ago session where you said a restraining order would be "too extreme" for my case. Yeah, whatever. So he should be hitting or beating me for it to be not "too extreme"?

Like how you think my father is all bark and no bite. You didn't live with him, so I don't see why you think you know better than me.

Obviously it won't help to email that. So I'll be as sarcastic as I want here.

Yeah whatever, don't understand why I'm still too effing attached to you.

Well, T,

I'll find my own path if we can't repair the current rupture. Me and my system will be ok, we're survivors after all.

I had a free intro session last week on friday.

I'm not looking for regular sessions, but I think in general I just want to have a safety net.

Me too Lemoncake!

You definitely deserve a safety net.

Thank you for sharing what you did about yourself, it was super helpful to hear actually and especially to hear how you deal with it when you catch it happening. I'll try that next time I notice it in myself.