Dear T: I really need to tell you something XLIV

Dear T,
I wish I could talk to you right now. Or at least sometime before Monday. (I know I can always email, but I already emailed earlier this week, so trying not to do that again unless I feel I really need to. And I'm pretty sure I know what you'd tell me right now. So I'm just trying to tell myself that instead of asking you to do so.)

Love,
LT

I don’t want to try anymore.

One more day of national poetry writing month, one more poem to write. I've posted 30 poems already I think, at least one day I wrote 2. I'll write one tomorrow anyway. At first, it looked like lots were gonna be about the whole leaving therapy thing, but I just read back over all of them and there's only 5 that are so... that's not so bad, right? I think I'm going to send you a link to my blog. I want to share all of them with you. I don't know if you'll want to read them, but... well, I want to share them with you anyway. You always encouraged my writing.

I need another procedure according to the blood work, and my doctor and you thought I was basically tramatized by the first one. So I just want to talk to you about it. Because its tough for me to deal with emotionally. Yesterday afternoon I just went to bed after getting the results after already having taken a long nap before and now I've been up since 9:30PM and things are a just a bit of a mess right now.

Nope. Not gonna share it with you after all.

Last night I had a terribly violent and frightening nightmare and it didn't take me long to figure that one out. I'd been thinking lately about asking you for a short series of sessions to finish talking over some stuff around my leaving that I felt we didn't get to when you cancelled the last 2 weeks of December - and the dream came because my psyche knows that if I came back, I would start all over again and not leave and would be killing off a part of myself, the part that is finally starting to find independence from my deep attachment to you and I do NOT want to lose that part. I need that part to grow! That's the part of me from which I signed up for the shadow work lecture series, and the Toko-Pa lecture last week, and attends the weekly drum circles on Zoom, and the Dream Summit last week also. Man all of that energized and continues to energize me greatly!! And showed me that I am fully capable of continuing this part of my work now without the dependence that happened in our work together. I want to get back into therapy at some point for other stuff, but I know it can't be with you because I would fall right back into what I finally had to walk away from. I still love you always will, you helped me a ton, I learned so much, and I think you're a great T, but... you're not the right T for me anymore, that's all, and that's okay, isn't it? I'm not starting with a new T for awhile though. I'm taking an extended break from formal therapy and I feel like that's just where I need to be right now. I think it's time I stop posting to you too. I'm just encouraging the stickiness of the attachment, aren't I?

Thank you for everything. So much.

If you said you still smoked I was going to ask you for one. I was disappointed I guess. I liked the dream though, thanks for sharing.

I wonder if this missing you will ever go away...........

I wish it was Tuesday so I could get this over with.

Using my words is even hard in virtual spaces. It's tough to ask for what I need when I don't know.

Why did you read that out loud? I did not like it. Did you not notice? Is it not your job to notice? I am disappointed in you. Are we still diagnosing? When will we move to working through? I don't want you to make more out of this than I do. I want you to ignore it. I don't believe that you believe it. I do not believe it. Let's move on, noone cares. I guess I'm confused. I have no consistent picture of you, let alone of myself. I don't know if I can trust you. I wonder if you trust me to be honest. I feel it is unlikely. I am disappointed in myself. Why do I have these dreams? What, I push things down and they appear in dreams? That is not exactly helpful. I can't control my dreams. I just don't like the place I am at. My body hurts, but my heart is displaced. I wish I could stop time and exist an eternity in my little space. I hate that time seems linear to mammals.

Wish me luck that I get some storage containers and food from that zero waste group...

I'm feeling really down on myself for imposing on you all the time. The reason I feel bad isn't because you said I'm demanding but because I know very well what the effect of my behavior must be yet I do it anyway. I'm just being selfish.

Anyway, I'm sorry for texting you so much and creating a burden for you. And more than that of knowing better but still acting on my impulses. My misery isn't your problem or responsibility.

Four more sleeps. I don't know how that email is going to land. Perhaps we will end up talking about it anyway.

Please decide to trust me.

That patient last week really unsettles me. I don't know why you aren't more conscious of privacy.

I hope this week that you will give me a break about returning back to work. With this recent setback in my physical health and my anxiety still a wreck, I just don't think this is the time. But I am open to getting some vocational training so I could possibly get a non retail job. My mom knows of a organazation she will be trying to get me into that I am willing to work with.

I also don't think you understand how good my insurance is. And how going back to work when I'm not ready could be putting my insurance and therefore my physical health at a huge risk.

Just please stop being so pushy each session about working. Sometimes I worry you will terminate me if I don't go back to work with how much you talk about it.

Dear T,
It helps that you seem to view me in such an empathetic (or maybe sympathetic?) manner. That you get how much of a struggle some things can be for me, to deal with all the emotions and stress I'm feeling, plus, as you mentioned, taking in the emotions of other people around me. I'm glad you seem to understand that it's something that is just innate to me. That I'm not doing it on purpose, malingering, acting a martyr. And I do think that it's been a particular struggle since the pandemic began.

On another note, it's funny you seemed surprised I can be "unrestrained" at concerts. Like I said, in some ways, you know me better than anyone, but there are also sides to me that you never see (and that I don't particularly talk about). But driving home, I had this thought--maybe part of why I've struggled so much with the pandemic is that I haven't really had moments where I'm "unrestrained"? Would it maybe help to think about ways I could experience that (beyond, say, concerts)? I mean, dancing while listening to music at home or singing in the car help. But are there other ways I can let that side of me out? Even something like art or writing?

Love,
LT

ETA: You also don't see/hear how I talk to my guinea pigs, which may be for the best! "Hey, girl. Who's a cutie? You're a cutie!" I'd say maybe you talk to your dog or cat (or turtle) that way, but I have trouble imagining that....

You said you're not easily offended, so I'm taking you at your word and hoping that's the case.
I decided to email you about how upsetting and tactless I found your remark last week. I know you apologised, but it was in a kind of glossing-over-it sort of way. I thought I was ok with it, but I'm not.

I need to be able to regard the counselling sessions as a safe place, and now I'm struggling with that. I really hope you can understand why this is a big deal to me. Life at home is pretty ****** awful at the moment (the calm atmosphere didn't last long); I need this one place in my life to be ok.

Sent from my SM-A526B using Tapatalk

I ate fruit today. I was totally against fruit and you were pushing me to eat it but I was reluctant. But I ate a pint of raspberries for dinner and I have another one in the fridge. But I ate them because all I could think of was a contestant in a show I watch impersonating Carol Channing and saying "raspberries" and I had that stuck in my head all day. You will not get it at all so its not worth the time even trying to explain it to you. But I ate fruit today.

Dear E: I am refusing to email you this week. Why? I don't know. What else is there to say?

Dear T,
The concert was awesome. Apparently masks are required there, which made me feel much better. Plus it was only about 2/3 full, so I could stay socially distanced. And they played one particular song (that I've quoted to you before, though I'm sure you don't remember) that was especially meaningful to me near the end, and I feel like I got some emotion out with that.

Part of me wants to email you this, but I can also just tell you on Wednesday. I really wish we didn't have D's assessment meeting in...well, less than 9 hours. That will really crush any sort of (emotional!) high I have from the concert. But I'll try to hold onto this feeling as best I can. The feeling of letting myself be unrestrained and of experiencing something with a bunch of other people who seemed to find it meaningful, too.

Love,
LT

Oops. I'm an idiot.

In my logical mind I know that talking about these things in that space, with you, does not necessarily mean the destruction of my world. It feels like it, but I know that it isn't, so maybe that is on of the first steps. To be able to talk to you about it, without the use of all the metaphors and analogies that you so rightly note that I use to keep it at arms length, safe. Must admit that also feels a long way off, but maybe it's doable, at least. First step though? To be able to look at you. To know what this person I'm supposed to be trusting with my inner most secrets actually looks like.

Dear K,

I was in the village today and I debated whether or not to 'visit'. I decided I wanted to, but what happened next surprised me. I parked in the spot where I used to park, on the road outside, and something drew me to get out. At this point I had no idea or not whether you were in, but oddly it didn't seem to worry me. I walked right to the spot in your hedge where you used to wave at me from, and I saw that your car wasn't there, but it was the feeling that surprised me. I felt normal. I was in the village delivering catalogues, and visiting my customers, which is sometimes a difficult thing for me to do. I have, in the past, just thrown them through the letterbox and run, to avoid contact, but today I didn't. Today I knocked and chatted. And visiting your house felt just like that. Just normal. And it gave me hope that one day in the future, maybe, it could be like that between us. Just normal. I know that doesn't mean much, because 'what is normal?' but I know... And I know you'll know too. I'm glad you weren't in this time, because it allowed me the time and space to see a little glimpse of how it might feel, so thank you, for being out!! But maybe one day you'll be in, and so will I.