Dear T: I really need to tell you something XLIV

I feel like our sessions are pretty repeptive. Me unloading my health issues onto you each week. You saying the same stuff. I know theres always something new happening with me each week. I just feel like our sessions are the same. Maybe we should try going to every other week to see what that is like? I don't know. I know I need therapy. But at this point I'm just not sure how much you are helping and how much is my doctors.

My mom says I should stick to once a week. And if she is saying that then I probably should.

L,
Why did you go and change your office? Now I feel like I have no "home".

Awww T! I can’t believe you had me take your pillow home. I definitely will use it this week. Thank you for sitting with me during all the tears. And realizing I am not ready to say goodbye.

If you see someone drown, do you just sit and watch? Dispassionately offering a critical analysis?

Thanks for coaching me through all the bad feelings. I hate that you made me sit with them but I understand that I need to learn to do it on my own in order to get better. If you were not encouraging me to stick with it I would have given up after 1 minute by myself. When I get like that, I don't really hear what you are saying but I do hear the tone of your voice change. It gets softer and slower and I know that is supposed to help me calm down. I would play this recording back but hearing me freaking out would not be very helpful for me. Thanks I guess. I am calmer and am going to take a nap before going back to work.

I don't think you are concerned about me and I'm not sure I really want you to be. You were super dressed up yesterday in dress pants and an ironed blazer and I looked like a slob in a hoodie jeans and a baseball hat. I felt like we both knew it. I don't know maybe you had something to do afterwards and you know I've been going through a lot health wise so I didn't care what I looked like.

Okay. I am freaking out about Luna. She didn’t eat dinner, and she ALWAYS eats in about 4 seconds. And now she is just laying on me, acting all lethargic. Should I take her to the e-vet tonight? Wait until
morning? I can’t lose another kitty.

For being an old guy, you were pretty good lookin' yesterday, Doctor.

Thank you for letting me ask you that question. I was nervous as it was personal indeed. Your circumstances mirror my own, but it was still hard for me to get it out. Thanks for making it safe for me to ask. For being honest with me in your answers, and for making the whole thing helpful to ME in the end. That facilitated some written responses from me later on. I went down into the depths and fleshed some stuff out. Remarkable.

Onward!

By the way, I love you.

This grief is consuming.
It's the only word I can come up with today, and I think it was yours to begin with.
I have no idea how to feel, or what I 'should' be doing.
Shortly I will make penne arrabiata, because I find peace in the process of cooking.

Dear T, kind of wish I could talk to you today. Not sure why. Maybe it's some kind of loneliness or something weird. I'm sure the feeling will pass and I will just talk to you on Tuesday like normal!

Okay T. Took Luna to the vet, and they think it’s just a stomach bug. Gave her some fluids and an anti-emetic. Hopefully she will start feeling better in a few days.

If you have fruits, infusing them into chilled water overnight helps me drink more water. Bottled coconut water is also more hydrating than water but not everyone likes the taste, since its not comparable to fresh coconut.

All I needed was 5 mins. You could respond to two email, but not give me 5 mins?

Three more sleeps until I can process the knowing anniversary with you.
Please help me to be real about it.

Wondering whoever came up with the idea to have one party know everything about the other, but nothing vice versa. This is a really weird "relationship". I'm finding it very weird to miss someone I literally know nothing about as a person. Weird, but not bad. Weird, but interesting. I don't miss people, but in just a few months, this is the second time I am missing you. So weird.

I haven't been thinking much of you these last couple days. Or transference T either. I've just been focusing on myself. What I have been working on is taking things one thing at a time and not worrying so much about whats going to happen next. Just focusing on the right now. Today I think I did a pretty good job. I didn't stress about the results much or even ask my mom for reassuance about them.

Dear T,
I really hope you're not irritated by that. If you are, then...I don't even know.
Love,
LT.

I don't even consider you my therapist anymore. Get the hell out of my head.

L,
I know you said maybe Wednesday, but I can't. You would do the same. But in Friday, with masks, I'd really like a hug and/or handholding. I'm trying so hard here to make the right decisions and yet I desperately need you right now.

I feel like the reasons why I like the singer Andrew McMahon gets clearer each day. I wish I could have you listen to a couple of his songs. I started his memoir today and I found something out I didn't know about him that was like this connection that made things even deeper.

Also my transference T seems to have been slipping my mind a lot more then she normally does ever since I had that in person pdoc session a couple weeks ago.

Dear T,
Are you going to ask me tomorrow if that was a test? I'm not totally sure how to answer that question. I legitimately wanted suggestions on how to handle that (though a whiteboard, really?).

But there was this part of me that though, after I hit "send": "OK, this is an email about a specific problem, with an urgency due to the deadline, it's not about you, it's not about the therapeutic relationship. If you don't respond to this one (beyond "confirming receipt"), well, then that says something, doesn't it?" (But I'd have sent this email had it been pre-rupture, too, so....)

But I suppose the healthier thing would be to talk to you about emailing instead....Yet if you just say "Of course it's still fine to email; my policy hasn't changed," that doesn't so much give me comfort.

Your reply was fairly clinical, but I can't talk about that, because you answered the question I posed. It would maybe be different if I'd said something like, "I'm just looking for support right now." But I didn't.

Of course, I need to talk about the school letter tomorrow...I really think that was part of what was behind my stress, but I couldn't send you an email and the letter and expect you to read all that and respond (and not charge me, but even if charging me, it was a potentially big ask for a Sunday morning). At least now I know who wrote it!

Love,
LT

Intentional breathing is very helpful, but I'm nervous that it's becoming a way of life.
Looking forward to seeing you in the morning to debrief about what has been a very intense week.

Well L, if I handle the rest of this week without calling you, I will know for sure that I won't need to call you again. One after another "life stuff" keeps happening, something different every day, it seems. nothing catastrophic individually but the cumulative effect of each of the stressors is getting close to making me want to curl up in a little ball in the middle of my closet and just sob. I keep telling myself a bunch of non-terrible things is still just one non-terrible thing after another just deal with each and move on. We just got a call that h's appt to have the stent put in is this Friday so he is off to get the pre-procedure bloodwork done now. hopefully once that procedure is done it will have good results so that one major stressor WILL be off the books so to speak and all of these other one-after-another bs things won't seem so bad anymore. I'm sure it's just the underlying major stress of the heart stent he needs is making everything else feel worse than it is. Like I would be handling all of these other things without a problem IF the heart stent thing wasn't going on at the same time. I really could use hearing your calming voice right now. I wish I still had a voicemail from you but I guess I lost the one I had saved when I got my new phone.

Hugs, Artie. Hope it's OK to reply to this. But just wanted to say that I completely get it, how it can be an accumulation of things that just become overwhelming. That one or maybe two would be manageable on their own, but together, it uses up all your energy and can strain your ability to cope. If you reached out to L right now, it would be completely understandable (and I think she'd feel the same way).

I hope everything goes well with your H.