Dear T: I really need to tell you something XLVII

↳ how on earth did I think I'd be able to get through this on my own, without you? I would have seen you today. J called as well. I'm a wreck. But I'm holding it together.

Dear T, 24 hours can’t come fast enough.

Dear Temp T,

Thank you for getting back to me. Thank you for saying you are glad we get the chance to work together. Thank you for still having my session slots even after 2 months.

I'm looking forward to seeing you. I'm looking forward to just having a place to be me again. To just try and let things settle inside of me. I'm looking forward to you helping me navigate this path, even though we don't know what it looks like.

I'm looking forward to being able to look forwards again. And I'm hopeful that whatever we are doing here will be for the best in the long run.

I'm so determined, so driven, that sometimes I don't like the feeling of not moving forwards, but like my boyfriend once said to me "doing nothing is doing something, if doing nothing is what you need in that moment".

Right now I need to stop. I need to stop digging around in the foundations at a time when the whole world seems to have suffered an earthquake. I need to just figure out what this new landscape looks like. I need to find my feet again. That takes time. I didn't give myself enough time, but I am now. And next spring, maybe, I can go back to that if it still feels like where I want to be.

See you next week, I hope it feels as comfortable (admit ever can do!) As it did before.

Thank you

Oh goodness L. I'm not crying and stuff anymore but this morning I have the urge to call you today just to make sure you understood the stuff i emailed on Sunday, and to also say that I didn't start realizing ANY of it til I was driving home from your office on Friday. I forgot to mention that little tidbit in my email which is rather important cuz you're probably over there thinking omg why didn't she talk about this on Friday? Well I would have had I realized any of it. Part of me wishes you would please respond to my email. Most of me knows that you won't and understands why: a) you don't do therapy via email which is kinda what it sounds like I want (but is not what I meant at all) and b) I made my bed and now I have to lay in it, as the saying goes.

But even if you could just respond with something as simple as "We will talk in December" would be better than nothing.

Please???????? I need to know that you are willing to work with me through this transition.

ok nevermind. it's ok. i'm ok. I got this! i posted that stuff above before i logged onto work. but now that i'm working and still feeling it i glanced up and saw my little poster of the mood elevator tool and decided to use it once again. damn good tool this is!! I see myself low on the elevator at insecure, worried, anxious. the best way as always for me to get to curious is to ask myself 'what can i do right now to make this situation better?" and i realize that I can counter the worry and insecurity by remembering that our relationship has survived ruptures in the past, has survived your getting temporarily frustrated with me and me getting temporarily upset at you, etc so there's no reason to think we won't survive this. I can counter the anxious feelings by remembering that it's my decision to stop, so if you decide you don't want to see me in December as scheduled (so we can talk through this), that you'd just be giving me what I said I want. Maybe not the way I wanted it, but what I want, nonetheless. I don't get to decide how you give me what I am asking you for. And the biggest of all I need to remind myself that I don't want to play the victim role on the DDT anymore - I don't want to be anywhere ON the DDT anymore at all - I got out my TED worksheet "Making the shift from drama to empowerment" and instead of focusing on "I screwed up! I'm so broken! Fix me!" I'm CHOOSING to focus on "Yes, I made a mistake, I accept that I am not perfect and it's okay, because I am dedicated to continued growth and sometimes hiccups like this will happen while I'm growing." I am choosing to move from the place of merely reacting, to choosing - I choose to feel inspired and energied to use this mistake to further my growth, and I am taking responsibility for my actions by not contacting you again and trying to further get you to hold it for me. It's not yours to hold. It's mine and I accept it.

I desperately want to be part of your family. My heart is breaking.

That session wasn't the greatest was it?

I know you give me all you can and it's so much more than most T's would give. I'm thankful beyond belief. But I'm also heartbroken because I so badly want there to be more - it's like you dangle a carrot and it's just unbearable knowing I can't have it.

I feel as though it's time to let go and stop feeling the way I do about you but how can I even do that? I love you so much. I'd do anything for you.

Dear Ex T,

Maybe I shouldn't have text you, but I was thinking of you and I wanted you to know that. That's all. Just those words, thinking of you, and a picture of a tree in the glorious sunshine.

I hope you reply. I still feel that anxiety, that worry, but I do hope that over time that will decrease. Any transition is going to be odd, going to cause a little anxiety, especially for someone like me who doesn't really like the unknown.

Ah well, what will be will be. All I can do is try. Try to do what, I'm not sure though, haha. Just try to live my best life, like you hoped I would.

Take care K...

Thank you xxx

So much for my earlier feelings. I want to call you SO bad right now. What would you do if I did? Would you not answer? Would you answer, but yell at me? I don't know what to do.

It’s not your fault, but I feel right now like I’m almost back at square one - shutting down emotionally even though I don’t want to. I know why I feel like this, at least I think I do, but knowing why doesn’t always lead to knowing how to fix things. I’m more informed than ever, further forward than last year, but still don’t feel my main issue has been resolved. Is it wrong that I feel I’ve let you down as a client? Maybe this is just a blip and I’m not beyond being salvaged. Right now I’m just a bit numb, deeply confused and afraid.
But not giving up. I don’t want to let anyone down, not you, D, my family or myself.
See you tomorrow, anyway.

Dear T,
Well, that comment really made me think...Though I guess that's the whole point of therapy, right? To make me examine myself? I'll need to ponder this a bit more, see what patterns there might be, what it might be about (though we did start to touch on that). I do still think it could be a sign of progress though.

And glad you didn't seem bothered by my at first using the phrase "lovingly," then switching to "affectionately." I think you knew what I meant, as you smiled.

Love,
LT

Welp, that was definitely a side of you I've never ever seen before. Holy crap.

E: I am sure you just are busy and will write me back. Stupid anxiety.

T: two more hours. i can do it, bring up all the guilt and anxiety from the weekend, to you?

Will I be brave enough to be totally honest with you tomorrow? Probably not. I'm more scared of everything coming out and H's reaction, than I am of you initiating a safeguarding situation.

How do I move forward though if I can't be up front with you? There's so much I've had to keep secret, I don't know how to be any other way.

Sent from my SM-A526B using Tapatalk

I just need to talk to you.

Dear T-Thank you for being your awesome self. I guess I am glad you believe I won’t lose this battle. I almost wish I believed it too.

E-Thank you for your response. I hope I see you next week.

Dear T,

I wish I could hug you, but then I'm still afraid of leaving my apartment and seeing you in person because I don't want to be asymptomatic accidentally and then give you the 'Rona and then cause you to get sick, even though we're both vaccinated. I also don't want to get others sick from the aerosolization, even though I still wear a mask. I also don't want to get the 'Rona either.

I also wish that you could live forever and just be my T forever.

I know it sounds silly and childish, but you know I have child parts.

I don't think I could say this kind of stuff in an email - at least not yet.

It's what I/we secretly wish.

I really, really needed to come to therapy this week but someone else showed up instead and it hurts so badly. All she needed was for you to come and sit by her but you didn’t see it. I know I need to find a way to help her communicate but I wish you just read her right. Because now she’s distraught, again. I heard you offering extra session but how could I risk it when it has the potential to go so very wrong? I need adult me to be as present as possible to get through this next few days. I’m so scared. I wish you would text me or email me to say good luck, and that I can do it but of course I know you won’t, which is right I know…but it hurts too. I know you’ll be thinking of me though, and I will take the baby whale so I’ll feel like you’re with me.

I really miss you T. Please keep yourself safe on your travels. I know this trip was important to your wife. I'm so jealous of your relationship - not that I know much about it, but you do unselfish things for her. Being petty I have not done any of the homework we agreed I'd work on during the break. Only 7 more days till I can see you.

I slept like a log last night and am at peace this morning with what we decided on the phone yesterday. I am trusting you with helping to make this a positive ending, even though I know you were kinda pissed yesterday, because I do feel that processing this ending together is important.

i need to amend that. i don't know that you were pissed. I felt that you were pissed.

Dear T,

Thank you for reading my emails and listening to my phone message after our session today. Session was really hard today, but you knew that. I would have much preferred to continue speaking about Disney movies instead of what one of my alters wanted to discuss about her traumas. I know they are somehow my traumas, too, but it's hard to process. I am processing, but I'm also wanting to avoid it.

I always gets scared that whatever we reveal about our icky, traumatic past will mean that you will leave us and say that you can't treat us anymore, or that you will think of me or my alters as "bad." But when we asked you for reassurance, you immediately replied and gave us reassurance. We know you can't do that all the time, but it really meant a lot that you did. Your email meant a lot - just those brief words of reassurance really go a long way with helping us not overthink our session today.

And this is just one of many different traumas we struggle with. I'm overwhelmed just with this trauma.

We kept reading about our best friend's death in the newspaper's archives today. No one ever knows what it feels like to not only experience a major loss, but to read about your friend getting murdered and having it in the paper.

I was supposed to go out with them that night, and I might not be alive if I did.

There's a lot of stuff to that, and it happened in the early 1990s, though I swore that it happened earlier than that. But maybe my alter who took over at the time was still stuck in her age, so that is why she recalls it as it being when she was a certain age, not when I, the body dweller/main person whatevers was the closer age.

It hurts to read about my friend's murder in detail in the newspaper. It's like a stain on her record forever.

I felt sick by that.

I don't know what you think of me or my alters, but the people we were hanging out with back then were not good people. And the older men were really sick for being with us underage girls. We are mad that one of them murdered our friend, and we were scared that they would come after us, too. But we forgot to mention that in therapy today. They were like a sick group of men who preyed on us younger girls, and they just knew we came from broken families.

You seem to have said all the right things in session today. I just don't know why it's hard for me to remain as calm as when you helped us to calm down at the end of our session. I shot right back to being triggered. I feel like a failure at therapy, but I know that's not what therapy is about, so I'm putting myself down and shouldn't be doing that. But it's hard not to.

I feel so ashamed, and I think I'm feeling survivor's guilt, too.

It's easier to share in emails than it is in session, but you already know that about us.

Today was a really hard session.

So we will go to sleep and hope to feel better tomorrow.

We can't wait to see you next week, but we are also scared (as usual) of when you go away for the holidays because we hope and pray you don't get sick with any virus. We hope all the boosters work. We know that you go out of your way to see us twice a week, and to change the schedule slightly on holiday weeks, but nonetheless see us that week. That means the world to us. We are very fortunate to have you as our therapist.

(We plan on sending an email explaining all of this anyway, but we put this here - my alters and I, that is - so that we can share our experiences.)

I want you to know that I do understand why you stopped working. I do understand and I am sorry that I didn't make it easier for you. Just that, really. There are, as always, a lot of words, but they don't matter as much as those. I understand and I am sorry.