Dear T: I really need to tell you something XLVII

I just threw up half an hour before we were supposed to meet so it is good I cancelled completly today.

It was 4 more tmes during our entire session length. So yeah today was a good day not to do a session.

My connection with Steve was a powerful thing to have, and a hell of a thing to lose.

'Falling into grief is like falling in love, only you keep falling.
You are unaware of what they were carrying for you.'

- David Whyte

Dear T,

I'm glad it's OK to go to the dark places with you. That you explicitly said that. Though I sort of wish I'd gone there earlier in the session, as I felt I had to resurface sooner than I was ready. But maybe we can continue parts of that discussion next week.

Love,
LT

$1,120.00

Dear T,

OK, I have figured out a productive way to deal with my existential angst (well, besides writing), so we'll see how that goes tomorrow. Figured I'll ease in with a Zoom service at the closer Unitarian Universalist place (I think the other is only in person, plus it's further away--but I could try that one later if this doesn't seem like the right fit). The sermon is due to be about awe and splendor in the world, which is maybe what I need to hear right now.

And maybe I'll go for a short, windy walk later. Suppose I could have thought about all this before emailing you last night, but hey, I'm coming up with it now. And I find it interesting that I found your email to be helpful, when something similar you said a few years ago didn't feel useful. Maybe it shows some sort of progress or shift in my mindset? Or maybe in this case, I felt alone in this struggle, so it helped to hear how it's so common. (I imagine maybe you've struggled with it, too.) Something else to address Monday, I suppose.

Love you,
LT

Grief is ridiculous and impossible...

I have started to make notes for Thursday, but it's hard to know where to begin.

I think I might need to switch to virtual for a bit until I get things figured out with my health.

Ok so I'm kinda annoyed right now. But I know it most likely has nothing to do with you.

I just keep getting pushed aside by people and I get if you don't have room this week but just know I might be throwing up our entire session.

Tbh I don't even know what I'm mad about. I'm so dehydrated and I've only pissed once today and just barely.

I'm probably just delrious.

First day of training to start running again and it was good. Other than gym I wasn’t very productive today.

Over the weekend, I found a post by Steve's wife.
She said she couldn't explain why for anybody else, but attributed Steve's decision to battling with his mental health since childhood.

Yes, it's a factor, but it will never be that simple.

I'm listening to the song Liability. It reminds me of when my transference T told me I was a liability.

So that didn't go well. Nice little money earner for you, of course. Fail to contain it within session, offer second session, ching ching credit in your bank balance.

For about half a second yesterday I had the urge to ask you for a closure session. Thankfully it passed quickly. I am fighting this need to "do the right thing" and tell you I'm not coming back. Maybe I don't need to. You did say that you took me out of your scheduling book when I called 2 months ago to cancel. So maybe you read between the lines when I said I needed a "break".

I kinda want to tell you though what I realized: that in a way, at some point, our entire "relationship" basically became little Artie trying desperately to make her mommy love her.

I did shower today. I just still look like a mess. But I threw up about 6 times today and I'm exhausted so give me a break.

**** did I look like a buffoon putting you on mute so I could lean over my bed to puke into my bucket. At least you looked really concerned.

So many four letter words.
I was grappling with a griefquake towards the end of our session today, but didn't mention it because of the timing.

I let myself have an emotional experience of Chris' death, but I'm trying not to have an emotional experience regarding Steve, because it feels like it will be Too Much.

$1,260. I never noticed before just how quickly it adds up. Yeesh was I in some major sort of denial about how much I was spending. Granted a lot of the time it was fine as I needed therapy and it was helping but especially I should not have gone back in October of last year. What I spent from October til mid-February of this year was just stupid.

stupidconvolutedrelationshipgrumblegrumblegrumbleimissyouandihateitthatidogrumblegrumblegrumble

Dear T,

Wish I could talk to you right now. Maybe I'll just channel it into writing instead. Or do some other distraction technique.

Love,
LT

I see you on Monday and I want to get my haircut before that. I don't want an episode like Thursday and I don't want one at the hair salon either. So its like what my surgeon told me "don't touch anything."
Meaning food in this situation.

Dear T,

Even though you aren't available sooner, your response meant a lot. Because you remembered what was going on with me this weekend and referenced it, rather than just saying "No, not available" llike you do sometimes. So, I'm glad I asked.

Love,
LT

... and today, I feel good about everything again. We're both human, we both made mistakes, so it's not any one person's fault. I did a hell of a lot of good work with you, and I won't lose sight of that just because we crashed & burned. I simply stayed longer than I should have; that's all there is to it. Maybe h is right; that I had to stay, until I was ready to leave. No one else could do it for me. I had to do it for myself.

(It took a lot of writing through all of my feelings, some angry poems, some pathetically needy poems, etc to get here. I'm gonna say the important thing is I'm here.)

Love,
me

So grateful that I see you tomorrow.
Big feelings are swirling, no matter how much empathy I had for him.

Note the use of past tense, because that's a key element of the struggle here.

I don't really want to see you. I just saw you on Thursday and not much has changed.

I'm listening to the song Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus because I'm having intense thoughts of my transference therapist right now. I like the part that goes "don't you ever say I just walked away."

Dear T,

I know you were trying to be empathetic today, and it helped a bit. You also seemed in "fix it" mode. But I think a lot of it, thinking of today's actual session plus the past few days, there are a few things that seem really minor on the surface, but they still leave an impact.

But I feel weird bringing any individual thing up because it seems so minor on the surface, or maybe something that couldn't be helped. Like, were you really expecting me to get up and find the other box of tissues today myself? You pretty much always get them for me when I use the last one (even though it would be nice if you handed them to me instead of tossing the box down in the couch beside me). Like, yeah, it wouldn't have been a huge thing to go get them, I guess. But it feels like part of care, on a professional level, not even more than that.

Maybe I'll bring it up next session, I don't know. It's also that I thought we'd agreed to that change to the schedule over text, but apparently you hadn't actually done it? It was fine and worked out, but usually, if you text me and say "Does this day/time work?" and I reply, "That works, thanks!" you put it in your schedule. Maybe you missed my reply, and you usually do confirm (but didn't this time), but I just sort of took it as a given.

It's missing each other, I guess, like misconnecting. And it's probably just an expansion of feeling that in my outside life, with H, D, other family, remediators, work, etc. Where it hits me with you because it's also happening elsewhere. Anyway...

Love,
LT