Dear T: I really need to tell you something XLVIII

Also I do often wonder if you are aware that a lot of the time I come into sessions baked on valium, running on 5 hours of sleep, and not having eaten since 5PM the night before.

I don't know how I am going to be in life as I live on. Sometimes contact with others is so dreadful and painful and tense and dysregulating that this way of being seems untenable. I need to completely control my space and I need to be alone in it. Completely alone. I can't bear the weight of contamination.

Once again, I am searching for land to buy and looking at retreats. Increasingly, I think this is linked to my cycle. This yearning for solitude certainly peaks at the same point in my cycle. I want to be true to my cyclical nature, true to being female and this is the only beautiful thing on which I can rely. It doesn't seem to mean much for me to be trying to fit amongst others, I don't fit into relations.

Why is it so hard for me to share this feeling of dislocation with you? I assume I feel shame about it, I must hide myself.

Moo - your first paragraph describes me so perfectly. Im like geez did my mother pinch me every time i needed something? How do other people tolerate contact? Every interaction is jarring and painful until i can grit my teeth and exit.

Dear T,
I admit that it bothers me that you said you have in the past contacted clients who have terminated over what seemed like a misunderstanding and offered for them to come in for a free session to talk it through. When I terminated a few years ago, you never reached out to me (though maybe more time would have been needed beyond a couple weeks?), and you charged me extra for your painful emails. I am trying very hard not to think about that, as we're in a good place in our relationship now and generally have been since I returned. So there's no point, right?

I suppose maybe it was also very clear to you that I was done (well, for then), and we *did* try to talk it through in that last session. So maybe it seemed like it would have been pointless to invite me back in? Maybe this is more for clients who are just like, "Screw you, I'm done" and storm out mid-session, without really trying to talk it through?

I would like to believe if I left again under similar circumstances, you'd reach out to me, even just one time, even just to say "You're welcome to come back in and talk things through," even if you still charged me. I mean, ideally, I wouldn't leave under such circumstances, that it would be due to my feeling done with therapy in general (or needing an extended break) or my feeling like I need a temporary or permanent change in therapist/therapy style or something like your retiring or moving...or no longer practicing for some other reason, like illness or...worse--though I hope that we could come to some sort of natural end before that would happen, or at least to have some level of closure before I head elsewhere.

Maybe this is something we need to talk about more, though probably not Wednesday, since you'll be heading out of town the next day, and I wouldn't want to email you while you're away. Maybe I just need some time to see if this all settles down in my head. Plus, maybe it's only been more recently that you would have emailed a client who left? Or maybe you just trusted that if I wanted to come back, I'd let you know, and you were trying to give me autonomy that some others in my life (see: my mother) perhaps have not given me?

Love,
LT

E: I am going to try very hard not to email you this week. It has gotten out of control. I’m sorry.

I am having a hard time tonight. I can’t stop crying. I need him back. I hate myself so much for letting him out. He’s gone forever because of me. I failed my baby.

I'm sorry that I ghosted you and disappeared, I'm sure it worried you. I'm sorry. I am glad we have reconnected. Maybe soon I can see u in person? I bet your beard has lots of Grey hairs now

Yes I'm an idiot and pretty dumb, also I don't think I deserve any kind of therapy or for you to listen to anything I say. I know I'm useless.

How can I trust myself to approach the anger that I feel, when I feel as though it will do infinitely more harm than good? I know I cannot ignore it, but it is hard to get close to it.

Dear T: I'm numb today. I hope we have a good session anyway. Should be lots to talk about. Particularly your weird bribe, but only if you bring it up. Kit

I have like 5 or 6 blood levels that are high and severe pain in my right side right yet I am super worried about my perfectly healthy 70 year old mom. This is one of those situations where the phrase "age is just a number" applies. But I want to talk to you about how worried I am about her and I hope you don't freak me out about myself.

A stone? A freaking random stone that has absolutely no meaning to me? How the ***** is a stone supposed to help me feel connected to you between sessions? How is holding it during a session and then taking it home supposed to make me feel cared for? What utter tosh. I want 24 hour access to you. You need to be my transitional object. A stupid stone isn’t going to do anything. I know I’m supposed to be grateful but I’m not. You’re useless and I hate you.

You told me last week to come in 15 minutes later. My reminder email still says to come in at our normal time. You won't let me email you and I'm not going to **** around playing telephone tag with the office so I'm just going to come in at our normal time and if you come get me 15 minutes later and are confused about why I arrived early then thats on you for poor communication.

Dear T,

It turns out starting over is just about as hard as I thought it would be.

Is it worth it?

I won’t write you. I won’t write you. I won’t write you.

I found a video of Jack just meowing at me, and I lost it. The house is so silent without him. I’m drowning.

Dear T,
I want to talk about your going out of town for a few minutes tomorrow, especially to see if your willingness to "try an experiment" still applies. But I don't want it to take up the entire session. I want to talk about D some. But I feel if I start with her, then the out-of-town thing will end up right at the end and could get messy. I think I just need to state that right at the start of session (well, maybe leave out the "messy" part--though you know how that went the last time--but just say how I want to talk about that briefly, but not the whole session). I hope you're still willing to do the experiment thing. And that you give me some sort of actual information, not "I'm traveling to someplace on planet Earth" or "I'm going to someplace that starts with an A, B, or C."

Going to table the other discussion until you're back, if I even opt to discuss it at all. Will see if it still feels as important next week.

Love,
LT

Hey L. I've had a few things going on kinda one after another and I've been dealing, but this latest one is rather throwing me for a loop, we think she's going to be okay now but she's still in the hospital so not in the clear yet, tomorrow will be day 6. It's brought up so much. I think it would be helpful to sit and talk about it with you because you know the entirety of the backstory. Is it wrong of me to want to call and ask for a handful of sessions to talk through this stuff with you???

Its a good thing I left 20 minutes early to get a piece of breakfast pizza from the gas station. Or else I would have already been at the office when you called my mom and suddenly switched our in person session to virtual. I had to hurry home from the gas station to set up the ipad in time. You sent the link 15 minutes late and then I was in the waiting room for 5 minutes but thanks for still giving me the full 45 minutes and asking if I was ok on time. You did look pretty sick and tired today, and I guess with covid these last minute sudden changes are just going to be a normal part of life now and people are just going to have to adapt and not take any chances. At least I was able to get a session and make it on time.

I’m really angry and p**ssed at you at the moment and I don’t really know why. I’ve been dwelling on the rupture at Christmas again and I know I am not fully passed that, so maybe it’s just that but it feels so much more intense. You have been nothing but nice to me recently but that seems to have made me angry with you. It’s as if I want you to treat me badly, I want you to lose your patience and get annoyed with me. I know I’ve been a deliberate pain in the ***** during the passed couple of sessions and I think it’s made me annoyed because you haven’t taken the bait. You staying calm just irritates me. I don’t really think you can do anything right at the moment. Its like I am finding any reason I can to be annoyed with you, but I don’t understand why.

Well, I failed on not writing you. But, thank you for reassuring me that it is okay. I think I’ll be able to hold off on writing you until I see you Friday. I hope.

Everything you said today made sense, it's just I don't wanna do my homework. I might get high just to spite you and I know that's fked up but I'll be sure to steal someone's canoe or something idk just to say I did the homework.

Thinking of you as Mother's Day approaches.

I sent you a card today. I made one for my OHs Mum and I just couldn't not make you one. I won't be making you anything else though, as a gift, unlike the last five years. I don't want to waste any time making you something. It's complicated.

If I had an easy way of doing it, I would take back the last thing I made you. Maybe one day I'll ask for it back and see what you say. That one really was a labor of love, and it feels wrong that you accepted it, when you can't even find it within yourself to tell me what you have been up to.

Like I said, complicated.

I always knew it would be comolicate, you know. I always knew that the type of work we were doing was risky. I always knew that I could end up getting hurt. But it has been worth it. At least I can take that away from it all. It had been worth it. Doesn't mean I'm not confused though. Doesn't mean I'm not upset with you though. Doesn't mean I'm not hurting though.

I wish you had been brave enough to have the conversation with me. I wish you had been brave enough to choose, and not just to dismiss. I'll always remember that last meeting, where I asked one last time if we could stay in touch. And all you could say was "let's not talk about that now". If not now, then surely it was never.

And yet you seemed so genuinely pleased when I had recounted how my music teachers from college had written back to me when I was 19/20/21. You really seemed to understand what a positive effect that had on me. So much so that you wanted to take my story and share it with the teachers in your life.

You also seemed to really understand why J had said I could always reach out to her. You called it the branch. You made out that you felt this was the right thing for her to do. So why does it feel like when it comes to you doing it, you are struggling with it?

Maybe you aren't? Maybe this is just my perception of the situation. Honestly I can't imagine you give me much thought at all really. Shame I'm not able to shut you out so easily.

This grief thing is terrible. Crying for the entire hour? Awesome! I do appreciate you letting me write you as a way to get out some of my feelings.

Hey L. Wow, this thing with my mom being sick is bringing up SO much. I am finally truly and clearly seeing some things about myself that I don't like at all. Crimeny. I want to talk with you about all of this. I'm going to keep working through it on my own though. I think you were right about something you said - about what I do - so that's why I'm not calling. If I did it would just happen again, wouldn't it? When it's something this difficult to see about myself. No, I'm going to keep working this on my own. For awhile, anyway. I'm still not ready to see a new t. And may end up calling you anyway at some point. Who knows.


Love, me (who doesn't like herself very much right now)

Dear T,
I hope you get to your destination safely today.

And you'll be happy to know I'm working on the homework re: the medication record for D.

Love,
LT