troubles with T?

Wow- thanks all! These are some neat ideas. I did talk with h tonight, and we have a plan to try. It’s late though and tomorrow is the first day of work for me- so I will update tomorrow!

Red

Okay all, so I met with H last night for our scheduled session. It went ok. I did it by phone, because it's easier for me to talk about emotional things if I can't be physically seen. And sometimes not seeing her helps too. But anyway.

I sort of Drunk texted H the night before telling her that I had an option 4. and that I wanted to meet by phone, at 8:30 if ok, and that if I didn't send it to her then while drunk, that I would probably cancel and do my "running away" thing. She said she understood and that all of that was fine.

I evaded for the first 20 minutes or so...which is just me, and what I do. But also, as I was waiting for kids bed time so that there was less chance of interruption. Once we got down to business I couldn't just say "hey, this is an idea I thought of". I told her how I joined another support forum, and kind of what it was about. I told her that I posted this- not word for word, but just that I was sharing about hating virtual, and not knowing what to do with the options she had mentioned. I told her how a lot of people here had offered genuine support for the situation, and how some people had mentioned ideas. I mentioned the object sharing thing- which I hadn't read the follow ups for before, and so couldn't share much about, just wondering if she had heard of it. But we moved on from that pretty quickly as she was guessing what it was (and correctly), and it made me feel really embarrassed.

Then I told her how someone had asked if I write. I told her that thinking about that gave me an idea. She is aware of this, but I reiterated- that it's always been easier for me to write. Especially when it's about hard stuff. I also told her how it's easier for me to answer a direct/specific question. (i.e. if she knows I've not been doing well emotionally, instead of asking "how are you" ask "are things still difficult for you, and if so, how are they difficult. Or my favorite....(not) instead of "so what's on your mind", ask "have you been thinking about a,b,c"). There are probably better examples, but they involve more detail, so I won't go there here.

But after reminding her that writing is easier, and that direct questions are easier, I told her that I had thought about those things and come up with an option 4. I told her that I thought I could write some of the stuff that was coming up for me that I didn't feel I could talk about virtually, then mail it to her, have her read it, and then ask specific questions about that. Usually once I get started on something, I'm okay continuing. I told her that if she didn't want to do that it was fine, as I know it would require more work on her part. And then I think I rambled on about it being fine if she didn't want to for like 10 minutes.... But when I finally stopped babbling- she said she thought it was a great idea. She didn't want to do it by e-mail as she said that is not hippa compliant. But she gave me her fax number and said I could fax, or I could write letters and send them to her. She added in that each week she would text ahead of time to find out if I wanted to meet by video or phone, as she knew that sometimes phone was easier for both privacy, and my own comfort. So, we are going to try that.

Overall, I think I'm happy with this solution. I don't know that it will for sure work, but I'm willing to try. And I really can't imagine going to someone else, or getting through those first stages of talking...So I am good with this for now.

Thank you all for your advice, and suggestions, and support.

Red

@redcog - just a thought, but you could do online but have the cameras turned off, so just use voice, and depending on what platform you use (there's usually a chat / message feature) , so you could write and she could read, in real time, anything you were struggling to verbalise.

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