L’s Maternity Leave

I'm so glad you can honour what is happening at the moment, Scarlet.

I was touched by the sentiment that 'We will not let [your] pain go to waste.'

Hugs,

Lost

Today was a good session. We talked about how my pain was valid. I told her that “I held her responsible for my pain” (not now, but before). I asked her if she felt hurt by me and if she needed any apologies. She said she’s thinking about it, but right now doesn’t have an answer. I told her I don’t want to hurt her again. She said she can guarantee that we will hurt each other again. She also can guarantee that we have the foundation to get through it and we will be okay. We did my self-care plan and did a connecting question: what’s an experience you’ve had at an amusement park.

One more week of video and then in-person and twice a week on the 21st. I’m still excited and nervous. I told her the break helped lessen the intensity which I think helped me get more clarity on our situation. And that I’m afraid of the intensity and hurting her again. That’s when she told me we will hurt again, just in different contexts.

I’ve also been struggling with my depression really badly. When H is with me and I’m being distracted, I can focus on whatever we’re doing. But when I’m alone and get bored, I’m stuck in the depression and stay in bed sleeping until I can be with H again. L says we’ll get me back to flourishing even if it’s not tomorrow.

(I have been meaning to say a large number of times how much a lot of what you write resonates with me. Alas, I have too much brain fog and I never got to the point of putting any of it into coherent sentences. Now, this is relatively easy to say: I'm torn between admiring L and doubting she really knows what she's doing. Can you please be concerned about your potential hurts more than hers? Kudos to her for admitting hurt and letting you apologise, but ... is she fully aware how (probably) asymmetrical this "hurting each other" is, how destructive these hurts are on your side? at least they seem pretty destructive from what I see you posting...)

I actually 100% agree with you. And so would L. My apologies didn’t come up because she said I hurt her. In fact, she has never said I did. She said she was going to think on my apologies, process them in her own therapy, and let me know if something did hurt her. She said she didn’t want me to punish myself or to make me all bad and her all good. She said I had valid reasons to hurt and she listed many of them. She said that I even had valid reasons to question if I could stay in the relationship. She said that was healthy for me to know that it was an option to leave. That I wasn’t stuck.

It’s been me holding the shame over how I treated her. How I was punishing her. I took my pain out on her. And I held her responsible for my own pains. She simply accidentally got pregnant at a really bad time for me. She was my trigger, but she really did nothing wrong. In fact, she took everything I threw at her. She didn’t punish me at any point. She remained supportive while taking all the blame, all the anger, all the pain.

I’m not saying her actions and decisions didn’t hurt me. But I am responsible for what I did with that pain. I really feel like I completely overreacted. And for some reason I felt justified. My feelings were priority. And while that’s the expectation in therapy, she is still a human being, who I love, who deserved so much more grace and respect than I gave to her.

I think I’m finally putting things into perspective. She didn’t intentionally hurt me. She has done everything in her power to be there and help me. She is a good person. And I value her and our relationship over whatever hurt she may have caused. Her emergency the other week made me realize all of this. Not that this is all a new concept, but more a confirmation of what I’ve been feeling on and off over time. None of us are perfect. We are all messy. And I really value my relationship with her. I’m not trying to punish myself and I’m not saying she didn’t hurt me. But for me to actually feel better about myself, I want and need to make amends. Even if that just means apologies. Being responsible for my part of the “dance”.

The pain she triggered was very destructive to me. Her getting pregnant on accident when she did and then it being a little girl… With my maternal transference with her, my intense attachment, my deepest griefs of not having a mother and my infertility, caused me so much pain and grief. But did she actually do anything wrong? And even if so, did she deserve to be punished and held responsible for my pain for 10 months?

I just feel so much guilt. I want to be a better person than I was. I want to grow from this, not ignore it. I don’t want this to go to waste.

That all makes sense! Making amends is good, and again, it's great that she's letting you. But also, I don't think all of your anger at her was misdirected.

I think her responsibility is in letting your relationship become and stay as enmeshed as it is. One reason is why it's considered ... somewhere between bad practice and unethical, from what I read online, because it makes such "accidental" hurts more likely (unavoidable, even). It's highly unorthodox that she maintains this level of closeness and feels like a minor miracle that it hasn't led to complete disaster so far (and hopefully won't in the future). I'm not saying she's wrong for doing things this way, but the risk is huge and I can only hope she knows what she's doing. It's reassuring that she's dealing with it in her own therapy.

Even though my therapy with ex-T ended in disaster, I don't mind her making most of the "mistakes" she did. I mean, **** her, but also it resulted in much needed realisations and understanding. It wasn't necessarily "worth it" in the sense that the "learning process" caused at least as much harm as good, BUT. If I think of realistic alternatives, the more likely outcome would have been that I simply don't learn those things and remain stuck, with a far smaller chance that I miraculously find a therapist (or any other person) with whom I could reach the same result in a less destructive way. Even next-T, who was immensely helpful in mending some of the damage, might not have been able to get through that mess (and she might also be ex , she went on maternity leave over a year ago and wasn't sure when/if she's coming back ).

Mind you, she did not (or hardly ever did) 1. admit the possibility that I might have hurt her - even though she acted like I did; 2. accept apologies; 3. give any indication that she's getting outside help with my case (own therapy / supervision); 4. validate me or not get defensive when I tried to express she hurt me. So, L is very much not her.

Corbie,
I apologize for my delayed response. I typed up most of it last week and then my depression hit me real hard.

I’m sorry for the pains you have endured in therapy. And then having a therapist not come back from maternity leave would be abandonment. I understand that sometimes people just accidentally hurt each other because of our humanness, but sometimes it goes beyond that and are the choices we make.

I try to think that everything has a reason. At the very least, some lesson can be learned. Like the events lining up where I was able to meet L. In this situation, I think I need to learn to not be so judgmental and to own my own pain, among many other things.

I do see how my relationship with L is very risky. For both L and I. For me, I’m emotionally at risk and dealing with treatment resistant depression and often SI makes it even more risky. I’ve allowed myself to be completely vulnerable to her which is part of the reason for the enmeshment (which is a perfect word). But she has also allowed it. She has admitted that she could lose her job over things in our relationship. It’s not all just my attachment/transference. She has it too. Her looser boundaries helped create this dynamic. I’m not putting all the blame on her. I’m also allowing this relationship to continue. But she has a part. As she says, it’s a two-way relationship.

Yes, she does her own therapy. At her business, they have group meetings to consult with each other and she has brought up my case. I also know she talks to her business partner and to another therapist friend in a different state. All of this confidentially of course. Like her friend was the one who suggested holding hands when we couldn’t hug during Covid. And when I thought I had cirrhosis of the liver, she asked for permission to get support from her partner. So my relationship with her isn’t like a total secret. But I also don’t know what has actually been shared.

Tuesday session was really good. A lot of crying. She cried too. We talked about several different things. Some of it personal. I got to see a picture of her daughter. Beautiful baby. She actually is able to do a virtual session on Friday, so I took her up on her offer so that we can prepare for our first in-person session next Tuesday.

We’ve also been doing some texting about our last session. I did some more apologizing in the texts. She said she was concerned about my apologies. That she believes expressing those raw emotions was healing. She doesn’t want me to avoid the “messiness”. I told her it’s not just about protecting her. It’s also that I don’t like how I behaved. I want to change so I become a better person and feel better about myself. I told her I would continue to be open and honest. But I want to be more respectful and loving.

Another good session. Extremely hard. Sobbing on my end twice. Once because she brought up how I had no joy during her pregnancy and the other her bringing up that I can’t have kids. That might sound like mean things to bring up already, but we were going with the flow and those naturally came up. They’re going to have to be processed one day and it’s not like it’s a secret. We talked about a lot of other things too. Again, some too personal to put here. Other things are kind of muddled: feelings, triggers, pain, raw spots, etc. I told her if it’s too early to ask I’d understand, but I would like to ask for her forgiveness. She said she has forgiven me this whole time. Oh! We talked about overreactions. How an event might make it a 3, but things from our past add on and we might react with a 7. Both the 3 and extra 4 are valid. But to learn to see the situation as just the 3 is what a goal is. I 100% agree with that. If I can do that, I think I’d feel much better about my reactions. We ended with tense and release breathing, plan for in-person Tuesday, self-care plan, and connecting question.

I have hope that I made the right decision to stay. And that we’ll be okay. I hope so!

Hugs, Scarlet. I'm glad you felt it was a good session, despite it sounding like a difficult one. Though, sometimes those are ultimately the most important, meaningful ones. That seems like a good goal of trying to see a situation as it is rather than adding your past on, but also challenging. I think that would be a good goal for me as well.

I hope Tuesday's in-person session goes well.

I agree. Probably challenging for a lot of people. It’s kind of weird, but kind of makes sense: I’m really only reactive to L and H. My guess is because I’m most likely to be triggered by them and because I’m most vulnerable with them. And with L, it’s like a double whammy: my maternal transference and infertility grief. This last year with her, all I did was react. Overreact. I could have still processed my pain while acknowledging that most of it was from my past.

I’m excited and nervous about Tuesday. It feels a little overwhelming. I finally get to see her again. I finally get to touch her. And once all the dust has settled, it’s time to work on what happened so I can feel some relief.

2 hours left. I’m so nervous!

I hope it went well, Scarlet!

Thanks LT! It went extremely well. We did a long hug and then we sat on the floor. We exchanged some items: she recharged my blanket, I gave her her block back, I gave her our healing crystal back, and I gave her a stuffed plant (a plant neither of us can kill!). Then we did our normal check ins while holding hands. We processed some dreams. We did breathing exercises. She helped me reorient to the room. She showed me her dissertation bound in a book and told me a little about that (she published an article about her dissertation and won an award!). We talked a little about her kids. I normally address them as he/she, but I told her I need to use their names. So we talked about that. We talked some about our relationship and some about her leave. I apologized to her again for how I treated her, and again she said I’m already forgiven. She reminded me that my pain is valid. What she did hurt me. She wants to own her part too. While I’m not denying my pain, I do feel that my reactions were way overboard. We did a question (our childhood nickname), we said I love you’s, hugged, and said goodbye.

I see her again on Friday, my birthday. That was one of the reasons she came back to in person this week, so we can have my birthday together.

It felt so good having her back. It also felt surreal. And it was still a hard session. But I’m happy she’s back. Hopefully, we will have the time to work through all these things before something else major happens. Though her method for bc is much more dependable now, so there shouldn’t be another surprise like that.

Today’s session was a good session. We just shared stories and did a pick your poison. I was too scared to ask for handholding at the start, and when she asked me if I wanted to half way through, I cried because I didn’t ask sooner. But otherwise, everything was okay.

Glad it was a good session, Scarlet!

Another good session. We actually didn’t do much. I brought in my wedding album and we went through that. I showed her a childhood photo of something I mentioned last session. We talked about her telling me when health things come up. And she explained why she’s taking off a Friday in August. I did cry when she talked about the vacation and then the holidays. We did my self care plan. And then our connecting question was to describe what you thought your wedding dress would look like when you were growing up.

I’m trying to keep the sessions easy. I think it’s because I just want to reconnect and settle back in, but I wonder if a part of me is avoiding doing actual therapy. I kind of feel like I’m suppressing my emotions too. I told L that like the anger iceberg analogy, my words are the tip of the iceberg but underneath is full of emotion and energy. And I’m scared. Scared of the push and pull and how intense it is inside me. Scared of losing control. And scared of the pain that everyone knows exists.

I'm proud of you, Scarlet.
For the work you are doing, and recognising what may be happening.

'Scared of the pain that everyone knows exists.'

I relate to that, although my circumstances are different.

Hugs,

Lost

Thanks Lost.

The pain: it might be different for everyone, but we all can (should?) have empathy as we all have experienced pain.

I know our situations are different, but our pain is well known by people in our lives and even here. Like it exists and can’t deny it. At least for me, I’m only communicating with words right now, not emotions. And I’m focusing on other things then what happened the past 2 years with L. I don’t know if I’m listening to myself that I’m not ready to go deeper into it or am I just avoiding it. Maybe both?

Pain and grief sucks.

'I'm only communicating with words right now, not emotions.'

Absolutely.

Because I've made a life out of words, I feel like they should be enough, but I still need to figure out how to let the emotions through.