Dear T: I really need to tell you something XLVI

Dear T,
I feel a little sad that I won't be seeing you tomorrow, but at the moment I'm good with just seeing you Thursday. And maybe that's a good day to be seeing you because it's D's birthday, and I'm struggling with some of that stuff right now, as we talked about yesterday. And I still think Friday would have been too much with D's p-doc in person in the morning, then you potentially an hour or two later.

No idea if I'll want to try twice a week (after next week) going forward or maybe just try to do that every 2-3 weeks to help keep costs down and try to handle more on my own. I'm glad you're willing to be accommodating with that (and that the way you do your schedule allows for it).

Love,
LT

Dear E: Of all the times you were too busy or couldn’t respond for some reason, this was the worst. Unless
you cancel tomorrow, I will see you then.

T: I thought maybe I could get a little reassurance before I start this new job tomorrow. But you didn’t call, and haven’t responded to my text tonight. I really do hope you are ok. Also, I really needed you today.

I'm not sure if I'm prepared for tomorrow.
I don't know about you.

What I've said in the email really doesn't scratch the surface of what's actually going on.

Dear T
You told me this week that the anger I had experienced "was progress!" I don't doubt your sincerity, nor your enthusiasm for guiding me in a forwards direction.... you are seeing progress so it makes sense to capitalise on that.

But, whilst I agree progress has been made, I'm thinking that you are way ahead of where I feel I am at. Like there's an unspoken 'expectation' that now I can continue to move forward without any barriers and that we can 'deal with all the remaining elephants in the room' in an expeditious manner. I was hoping to be able to take things at a slower pace.

You’ve often said that I am processing stuff in a different way. Perhaps it doesn’t matter how stuff is processed, so long as it is? But I'm not processing it in the way I need to process it.

Dear E: While absolutely NOTHING feels better, it helps a smidge to know I can contact pretty quickly in a crisis.

Thank you for all the ways in which you helped me to reach towards safety in what was a really challenging session.

Thanks for your patience when I stopped you with my 'Not yet!'

I don't know about you, but I could've done without my hamster analogy. It really wasn't necessary to make the point.

goodbye T

Hope everything is OK, like this is more of a positive good-bye, such as your deciding to end therapy with this T because you don't feel you need it any more or want a change good-bye. If it's something else, like his moving away, terminating you, leaving because of a conflict, or, possibly, something worse, then hugs, if wanted.

‘Maybe I am both the therapist that was so proud of you last week and really wants to keep you safe and the therapist that is also prone to making mistakes and hurting you.’

Wow, talk about a loaded sentence. That’s the first time you’ve ever said you were proud of me and it makes me melt. But the constant messing up and hurting me very quickly turns that warmth in to ice.

Dear T,
Wish I was seeing you tomorrow. Not really so much because of what we talked about today--I mostly still feel OK about that. I think? But more because I'm stressed about D's party Saturday (like, I just started crying because I forgot to buy peppers at the store), and I feel I should have maybe spent more time on that today. (Plus, I'm used to talking to you 3 times a week instead of 2.)

It's not the sort of need--at least as this point--that makes me want to see if you have any time tomorrow. Or to email. Though I'll see how I'm feeling later for the email part.

Love,
LT

Dear E: I do NOT know how you put up with me the past few weeks. You swear it’s okay, but secretly, I do think I am too much.

T:
You’ve tried this week to talk to me when I have asked,
jt nothing has worked out. I will see you tomorrow, and also hope that you aren’t over it all, and me by now.

Dear T,
So the problem with my feeling more secure in the relationship is that then I start thinking of other reasons unrelated to me personally that it would need to end. Even worse if I start thinking of those when I'm awake in the middle of the night.

I considered emailing you about one of them, but I imagine it would seem totally random if I didn't mention seeing the site about your research project where you mentioned wanting to start a book. And if I told you about that in the email, then you might get weird about it, even though it's a professional endeavor (and you sort of mentioned it once in session a few months ago).

Maybe on Sunday, if I don't have enough to discuss from the party or if it's still weighing on me, I'll bring up a sort of general question. Like, "Are you considering leaving your practice here for any reason?" I don't know. I still think of when you told me last year that you'd applied for another job a couple years before, but it didn't pay nearly enough. Which kind of freaked me out, as it was during the time I was seeing you. At the time, you said you didn't intend to apply for other jobs--how that just seemed like a particularly amazing opportunity (till you learned about the pay). So I guess I could just use that as a launching point.

And of course I want to know you're not, say, dying. Like I was a bit concerned you were drinking tea instead of coffee today. But I'm glad you explained that when I asked (though that was more that I was concerned you had a sore throat or something, in which case I might have opted for the further seat).

Love,
LT

Sorry to email the day after we've spoken.
Next Thursday feels a long way away, and you're apparently the only person I feel I can trust to talk about this with.

You are so careful, and I am so grateful.
What my brain does with that kind of input is a kind of evil.

I hate my hostility and I hate being like this. I had such good intentions for today, but then shame and fear takes over and I degenerate into a swearing, protesting thug. The work feels hopeless. I don't want to be confronted by the worst aspects of me every week, each time more starkly highlighted by your calmness and gentleness. I am such an idiot.

Both of you--I know you are trying, I just don't know if it enough anymore.

If I slept last night, it wasn't much.
It is hard to tell when to try for sleep and when to surrender to the griefquake that I have been avoiding.

Can all this change and growth really be only in me?! It surely feels as if you have changed and grown as well.

I was so frustrated because I wanted a Hot Pocket. But I was just thinking of calories and its too early, and etc etc. But finally I just said to myself "you have been restricting since 1AM. Eat the damn Hot Pocket." And I did and I feel so much better both physically and mentally.

Trigger for GI stuff.

Dear T,
Thanks for reassuring me about those concerns of you changing career paths. And for being OK with my having looked at the site on your research.
Love,
LT

Glad he was able to do that for you, LT...and that he understood about looking at the website.

Thanks, Lost!

Also, hope you feel better soon physically.

I feel like collasping from eating nothing but a small pack of Twizzlers and a Nerds rope and bottle of Coke and an iced tea since yesterday dinner, if that. I didn't sleep good because I was fighting with the scale all night and reading a book called The Year I didn't Eat about a teenager who sounded a lot like me.

I'm trying to get up the physical energy to take a shower because I meet with you today and then I have my doctors appointment and I haven't showered in 3 days.

Three more sleeps.
I'm going to need you to remind me of the safety we've built again.
Carrying this feels decidedly unsafe.

I have an unexpected Pdoc appointment on Thursday. I accidently set it up a month early then when I tried to reschedule today the soonest he had was the end of June. So I decided to keep the one on Thursday and just have my meds on file. I doubt he can help me with anything since mental health meds arent what I need and my current ones are working fine. Some extra valium would be nice but I wouldn't ask him that.