Dear T: I really need to tell you something XLV

Okay I am confused at your comment that maybe I'm "not an introvert" simply because I said I was going out of town to go hiking. I'm an introvert, not a hermit.

More thoughts about the complexes. Are they the parts of me that I don't want to accept, my shadow, 'acting out' to get my attention because I keep on ignore them?! Is that what I'm dealing with here?!?!?!

Roll on next Monday.
I'm looking forward to speaking to you about the event at the Cathedral, because you get what a big deal it was for me to attend.

I think you'll also understand why I'm still feeling the emotional after-effects of it all.

Dear T
Why can't I make a decision?

Do I, don't I.... I have 2 sessions left in this batch of 6. I need to decide whether or not to take a break from therapy, or continue on just feeling progressively worse each week. To the point where I don't even want to talk to you. When you are the one person I should be talking to about it.

Why do I find leaving or taking a break so hard? Is it because I think I probably won't return, and may subsequently end up in a worse state...? I'd hate to undo all the work we've done over this past year. I'm so tired of it all, but there is still such a lot of stuff we need to cover. I'm just not sure I can face it.


Maybe that is what is really behind this ambivalence, and maybe it's exactly that I should be talking to you about.

I found a book on Amazon about complexes & stuff and bought it on my kindle. I hope it's helpful, just started reading it today. I have 2 other therapy-related books I'm in the process of reading too, I really need to focus on the first one and finish it then get back to the 2nd one and the new one. I am so bad about that - I am forever reading several books at a time ha.

It's Monday evening and only today do I feel like I've kind of reached stability, after I was triggered watching a show last Tuesday, and after session that morning. And then tomorrow I'm back and I'm wondering why I am doing this all over again.

It feels like a slide. Standing at the top, life is good, but then I trip and fall down the slide into a big pit of mud. I spend however many days trying to crawl my way out of the mud, clean myself up and climb the ladder again, only to trip and fall again. Surely it would be better if I walked away from the slide?

Please keep hope that I can make it through another 4 days.

Sent from my SM-A526B using Tapatalk

Trying to remember that the only thing I need to do is one day at a time, and one moment at a time within those days where necessary.

See you next week, when we can talk about All This.

REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE CHAT TODAY… Will we move on from this? You asking what I want. Well that’s the whole problem, isn’t it?

Hi T,
I can't believe I saw you so drunk there. I have to think about it a bit more. I know you were hanging out on your free time but still.

Dear T,

I think it might be worth me going back to writing to you ahead of session. I had lots that I wanted to say today, but as soon as I sit in that chair it all goes out the window. I know you keep talking about 'progess' but I must say I am struggling to see it. To me it feels like we are hardly moving at all...

Yeah you're right. Too much cheese is an issue. At least you brought it up first so I didn't have to. But I haven't gone to the bathroom in about a week or 2 and I've probably gained about 5 extra pounds today despite not eating much. Just from so much water and stomach relief meds which arent helping.

Do I even have a real Self? Or is it all Shadow masked by sparkly Persona? I shouldn't even bother with this nonsense anymore. Nothing can ever 'fix' me. I am too long broken, too long set in my ways.

(Yes, I am feeling sorry for myself. Hush.)

i don't know how to feel about that thing you said about that team. it's probably one of those 'this is separate from therapy' situations that i need to set aside. i just don’t really understand how someone who has spent years seeing and listening to the harm and trauma caused by sexual violence can support a team while that dude is in it. since when is a game more important than being an ally?

And yet again you’re another therapist who has hurt me beyond anything I could have imagined. Damaged me so deeply and left me in a worse state than I started. There are no words just pain and agony. I just want to die. Every breath, every second is more than I can bare. It’s too much. I have no strength left.

There's so much to talk about that I wish we were meeting tomorrow.

That is all.

Dear T,

I want us to try something tomorrow. To help me feel like we are working on this together. It still doesn't feel like that, and I am hoping you can just hear me and try to understand and try to help. I have no idea how it will go but by God if we can make it work I think it will help. Of course I worry that it won't, but I think I am running out of options, because I need to connect with you here.

we need to talk.

Dear T,

I'm glad I got some of that out, even though it was difficult. Thanks for being understanding. I hope we really can talk about some of this stuff, to figure out why I want what I do from you (and others). That maybe it will help you understand more. It would help me immensely if you could understand and validate the needs/wants, even if the answer to some of them is no.

I mean, I imagine much of this comes back to what I needed/wanted from my parents. A question a friend asked me led to some good insight about the money thing. Where I probably felt deprived by my parents, when I learned that they could easily afford something, like a second landline or a box of cereal that wasn't on sale, but they still denied giving it.

I hope this will help us move forward and get something productive out of the conflicts. To help me better understand myself. And also how to help me figure out how to meet those needs, whether from myself or from others. I guess I first need to understand the needs in order to get them met.

Love,
LT

[well that was maudlin. I got all sad thinking about finding a new t and I always write sad poems ha]

well, T, that turned into quite the discussion, didn't it?! glad i raised it, and appreciate that you were open to talking about it. also interesting to note the relevance to how i view myself and my own trauma. we don't always agree or draw our lines in the same places, but what you say and do are largely congruent. i can't ask for more than that.

Dear T,

Thank you, for today. It really felt like we were on the right path. But in those moments, I simply cannot understand why you won't hold my hand. You say you want to help, and I do believe you. You say it's ok to connect with you, and I do believe you. It's 'ok' for me to look at you, in the eyes, but that feels far more intimate and far more impossible than holding your hand. In that moment, right at the end, when I was seeking a deeper connection and really felt like I wanted to look at you, but knew I wasn't able to, I also really just wanted to hold out my hand and have you take it. To know that you are there.

Dear T,
If there's a grenade, it hasn't gone off yet. Though I will have a nearly 3-hour drive in which to be alone with my thoughts. Though at that point, I think I'd just wait to talk to you in session. I just didn't want to be freaking out about something last night or this morning with that drive ahead of me. Which is why I'd asked about email.

I do feel a bit better for having gotten some of those thoughts/feelings out about the money that I'd been holding onto for a long time. Hopefully you feel OK about them, too. And that it's better, not worse, for the relationship that I did.

Love,
LT

Sometimes I wish I had more tolerance for sitting with what is, rather than working out what's next.

They're two different disciplines.

Right now, I want to deal with the aftermath of the event at the Cathedral, but I feel like I need to check in with you about scheduling so that I can be sure about the possible work opportunity in June.