[coolibrarian]

Greetings!
I've been away from PC for a long time, for a variety of reasons, but I wanted to check in.
I retired in August and am MUCH more relaxed. Also, my depression has decreased incredibly; I knew work was causing me stress, but I didn't know how much! Anxiety is still around, but much less than before.

I still see T, via telemedicine, every two weeks. During the last month she has first said I could text her and she would reply, but then changed it and said I could text her, but she wouldn't reply. This was at the end of my last session, so I didn't get to discuss it with her. I plan to, next week.

What about your T? Have they changed the "rules" in the middle of the game?

Last night I had a nightmare about T retiring and moving away, and not telling me ahead of time. When I awoke this morning, I almost called her, just to make sure she's still in town.

I hope you are all doing as well as can be expected. Take care.

Cool

[Nammu]

Congratulations on your retirement! Glad to hear this has helped

[chihirochild]

That rule-changing would make me crazy.

My T hasn’t done anything exactly like that, but there was a time when he had initially asked me to send him pre-session emails, and then changed his mind and asked me to stop (and admitted he hadn’t read the most recent one and refused to do so). That hurt, and was also annoying.

[SlumberKitty]

Hi Cool

Nice to see you, friend. I'm glad to hear that retirement has helped you. That's great.

I don't have experience with a T changing the rules mid game but that would drive me nuts. I'm sorry you had a nightmare too.

HUGS Kit

[velcro003]

Hey Cool. I'm glad you are feeling better! I would HATE it if my T changed the "rules" on me. If she suddenly didn't allow texting or emails, I'd be very hurt. I'm sorry you have to deal with that.

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

Hey again! Good to hear you're hanging in there!

As for changing rules, my T has done that sometimes. Most recently during our phone calls, which he'd always said would last 10 minutes, he started to go down to 8 or 7 minutes (consistently, not just once). Discussing it is good, I support that. My go to argument is that he always claims we're working as a team, so if we do that, we have to discuss changes like that as a team, he can't just decide without me.

[Lostislost]

Hi, glad the retirement has helped, that’s great news.

My T changed the rules once and wasn’t even going to tell me until I asked…! We used to share things with each other on private social media accounts. Then one day I went to a therapy session and he had this form he asked me to sign. I asked what it meant, was anything changing? And he said yes…I can’t post or follow you anymore on those accounts. I was pretty upset.

[Omers]

I am glad things are going better!
My T has changed the boundaries once or twice over the almost three years we have worked together. He has only ever changed his end of the boundaries… like when I was emailing him long message a lot he said he would still read all of them when he got the chance and it may not be before the next session. He has always explained why and gave me plenty of room for us to discuss it.

[coolibrarian]

The "lack of depression" only lasted a month. For more details, see my new post of today.