Dear T: I really need to tell you something XLV

Dear T
Our last few sessions have been very disjointed, then you were away for 10 days. I've not heard to the contrary, so assuming our session is on for tomorrow.

I hope you had a straightforward, relaxing holiday and no dramas that will take up a quarter of my hour to tell me, I've enough dramas of my own I need to talk about.

Am hoping you are chilled out and present with me tomorrow because I really need you to be on the ball again now. The past few sessions haven't been great and I'm starting to question what it is I'm actually paying for. It's getting hard enough to continue to justify the expense of regular therapy, but I don't mind so long as I feel like I'm getting value for money. That sounds really mercenary, but I can't afford to pay for therapy every week if I'm not getting what I need from it.

I've emailed you a heads up tonight of what you can expect the conversation to be about tomorrow. I am imagining you're already dreading it. Maybe you will suggest we take a break rather than carry on just on a kind of maintenance basis. I've already said I don't feel able to go there at the moment, so will you do the moral thing and say come back when you're able to do the work, or will you consider the loss of income and encourage me to keep coming?

We'll see.

Sent from my SM-A526B using Tapatalk

E: I need to keep telling myself that there are MANY reasons why you haven't emailed me back. Yep. I hate the waiting game.

Not. Okay.

All I want now is stability. Consequtive sessions without either of us being off. I know I can't demand that, but I do want to ask that you tell me 2 weeks in advance when you'll be off. I'll ask you for that in our upcoming session... Take care, Yours, Kate.

Dear K,

I love you so much, and whilst I know it will never be a fraction of the feelings I have for you, I do think you have similar feelings for me too, love or otherwise. Thank you for being the person that you were to me, and for not simply vanishing when you had to walk away from our work. Thank you for seeing how important continuing this contact was/is for me.

I showed J out most recent messages this morning and she said "you two really do have a friendship don't you". But I disagree. It isn't a friendship. It's just a connection, that I really don't think should be broken until nature has its way. It shouldn't be broken for rules that someone once wrote. It shouldn't be broken because of a 'should' or a 'shouldn't'.

I personally think it a MASSIVE testament to the work that we did that I can actually believe that you hold me in your heart, somewhere. That, in fact, was the work really, wasn't it. Learning to be vulnerable. Learning to love. Learning to be accepted. Learning that I am good enough.

One of my very early journal pages was a picture of a mother and baby elephant, with the quote, "a mother's role is to teach you that everything that you need from her, lives within yourself." Or something like that anyway!!

It's true, and you did an amazing job of teaching me that. I don't need you in that way anymore. I have got this. I am living and learning and growing and stumbling and falling and getting up and living my best life, without you by my side. I'm so grateful for you.

But you will never leave my heart, or my head it seems. Like I've said before, who knows what the future will hold. Maybe one day we will come back together again just like a parent and the adult child. In a more mutual relationship. I'd like that, I think.

Anyway, that's enough from me. Keep safe and stay happy.

Me xx

Dear T,

There's things I've not yet told you, things that confirm my beliefs. Being vulnerable and open in this area DOES lead to getting hurt. Always. In my experience. These other two events have been on my mind this week - but I have no idea how I am going to tell you. It isn't just the distant past we are dealing with here.

I guess I'm sorry I wasn't really able to work today? You are asking deep questions, but you are asking for insights I do not have. Why do I dream like I do? We can but theorize, how could I give a definitive answer? I wonder if it is significant that I forgot your theory right away... It's like I'm swimming. You are asking me to dive, but at best I snorkle, my bum never leaving the surface of the water. I'm scared of what I'll find down there.

E: Thanks for writing back. For some reason i am convinced I’ve crossed the line. I’ve become Too Much. I will not email you this, because then I would really be too much. Ugh.

I'm kind of thinking if you aren't going to be around much Ionger then I'll just focus on improving other things. Right now I'm not sure if I'm just avoiding my feelings about you or accepting them. I haven't seen you in 2 weeks and we have stayed in contact through email. I'm not up for an in person session anyways tommorow. So I don't really care about the virtual session. I just need to really discuss with you what I am feeling about this situation. 2 weeks without therapy hasn't affected me but I know theres been other stuff to focus on. I don't really feel down in the dumps about things like I had been feeling before.

Dear T,
Feeling really useless right now as a wife and parent. I feel like I already gave H more details than I'm comfortable with in what's going on with me--a different gross thing this time. And I can't bring myself to go into more detail with him, so he probably thinks I'm just being pathetic and malingering. And I feel bad letting D down, but yesterday I was willing to go outside with her, and she didn't want me to, so it's not like I'm totally shirking my duties.

Of course, I'm also worried about how I'll handle things with his upcoming surgery. Putting it all on my calendar just seemed like so much. I know, I'm acting like a victim. It's not like I'm the one having surgery. Though you wouldn't say that, I don't think--you've said recently (and back in May) how it is a lot of responsibility on me. Hm, maybe it's also that you and I had a big rupture around that time?

And I could never tell you this, but part of me is also debating whether I should still go to the beach for a few days, if that works out, in part because that would mean meeting virtually with you during that time. And with the articles now about the more contagious forms of Omicron, what if there is a limit to how many in-person sessions we'll be able to have? But that's a stupid reason to not go to the beach--I'd like to think that the peace I'd get from the time away would count for more than a couple in-person sessions. I really think where this is coming from is how we had the big conflict (about me having the victim mentality with my family having Covid) right before the last time I went to the beach. So that's looming in my mind, even though it was 2 months ago now.

It also seems like there's no ideal time to go, like H says it's fine if I'm not home on his b-day, but is it really? I feel like it's important to go to his family dinner, but that's 2 days before. And my mom is being all cagey about when they'll be going down there again after this current time. Plus I probably should get my booster and flu shot in there somewhere... I don't know, I'm just rambling. Hope I'm in OK shape to see you in person tomorrow.

Love,
LT

I'm feeling better but at the same time I really wish I felt like I could come in and talk to you. In addition to in my head, I mean.

One more sleep. See you in the morning.

E: What is wrong with me? I am feeling so bad. I miss Jack so so much. How has it been 8 months? I am so anxious about our appt on Friday, but I also really wish it was now. I am dragging this huge boulder around, and it is going to drown me.

Well I am absolutely the worst. I can’t believed I emailed you again. I hate me.

Dear T,
Thanks for being accepting about yet more TMI (from my perspective) bodily functions talk. And for focusing on why it is that I feel certain things that normal parts of being human make me "gross." Your question regarding how D pooped and I changed plenty of diapers when she was a baby--and did I find her to be gross because of that? That's really resonating with me.

I feel I must have gotten these messages from my parents to keep quiet about such things and...hm, I guess feel shame about them? We didn't mention the "S"-word today, but I'm realizing now how this feels like shame. Shame from completely natural functions (and malfunctions!) of my body. You're right that I need to be able to talk about them.

Also, it meant a lot when you said "Feel better" as you shook my hand at the end. It hit on multiple levels, including how I felt like I was making a big deal about something that people deal with all the time. But you were validating about it. And also how I said that H tends to not check in with how I'm doing or mention it later (or even remember, in some cases, that I wasn't feeling well). But more the first part.

Love,
LT

I'm glad our session went well and you didn't care that I looked like complete **** without my hat on and my hair a bit of a mess and me sitting in bed under a blanket. You said you were so concerned freaked me out a bit though. When you said it was so strange that I seemed to have gotten it out of nowhere. Everyone has been saying that to me and its been making me nervous. You also said my cough sounded bad and now I'm kinda worried about that. But you were very reassuring in other areas that were stressing me out a lot. So I guess it was ok.

Last night before I went to sleep I was imagining that I was curling up in a sleeping bag in your front yard just to be close to your calming energy. It helped me fall asleep, as that's the last thing I remember til I woke up several hours later. I'm finding my way back to myself slowly, and I can do whatever I want in my imagination, right? Yeesh I would never even enter the gravel road that goes down to your gravel road, let alone your driveway, irl. I even avoid the main road that goes past there when at all possible!! Not that I'm up that way very often anymore anyway since we moved, but still...

E: i hate myself. i hate myself. why am i so needy and pathetic? UGH.

Well, that was quite a session.
Thank you for holding space for me.

'What seems to be said so suddenly has lived in the body for a long, long time' says David Whyte in 'A Seeming Stillness'.

My outburst 'at Steve' surprised me. Maybe we need to go back to that second letter.

I know I didn't email you today. I don't know if you were expecting a response or an update. There wasn't much to report today. I'm still feeling crappy. Only one of my blood levels came back. I'm still waiting on the others. I figured I'd email you when there was more stuff to talk about.

i can’t stop freaking out that i haven’t heard from you. i am going to walk into tomorrow’s session with total dread. how will i manage this???

Hey C, I'm sorry I kept interrupting you today on our call. It's just, I get so excited when I have an insight that I just blurt it right out now. I've gotten pretty darn comfortable talking with you.

Dear E. Thank you isn't enough. You really are one of the good ones.

One of my peripheral friends (we used to work together years ago but were never particularly close) posted something on fb the other day that triggered me badly. It was politically related so I won't put what it was about here, but it reflected extremely black & white thinking and the world I live in is filled with shades of gray which I believe all need to be considered. Her post was very shaming and blaming of a particular, well, "shade of gray" shall we say, and it made me so angry that I was shaking inside, I responded thusly, unfriended her, and then did my own post letting my friends know that I was taking a Facebook hiatus and why. Facebook now feels like a very, very unsafe place. Which is sad, because I have enjoyed a couple of different Facebook groups and keeping up with old friends there. Oh, well. Maybe it's time to cut ties with all of it and simply move forward boldly into my future and continue working on myself and forming new, healthier relationships. I wish I could talk with you about all of this, L. Gosh I miss you still.

p.s. And I think you'd be proud of me, I am not logging back into Facebook to apologize for what I said just because I think I should. I am NOT sorry, so I am not going to put on appearances that I am just because I think I "should". I wrote a poem about it trying to channel my anger in a creative way.

I think we have quite a bit to pick up on from our most recent session. The question, as ever....Will I be courageous enough to allow myself to go there? I hate that my anger is the biggest part of my grief for Steve.