[Bleah]

I am one of those people who goes through life trying not to be noticed, trying not to take up too much space, too much of anyone's time, including T's time. I don't really see how its serving me at all, but I'm more comfortable trying hard not to be needy and a "burden".

T has invited me to call her in between sessions. I've been seeing her for 1.5 years and have called her once. She has invited me to email her while she's away on vacation. I finally did (once), and it didn't feel good. During periods when I've been seeing her 2-3x/week, she has offered me a reduction in her fee. I don't feel comfortable burdening her with my presence unless I pay full price.

I've read the board with great curiosity the stories of people who lean on their T outside of session, call their T multiple times per week or per day, they scream at them and hang up on them or are otherwise not "polite" and "contained"! My T has also invited me to Bring It On when I'm mad at her, and I just can't do it.

How has it helped you to be in contact with your T outside of your scheduled, paid for sessions?

I think it would be incredibly hard, but good in a way, for me to be a little needy with T and for her to see some ugly parts of me, and have her not run away or leave me over it. But I can't trust that it wouldn't be a big mistake, that if she saw the real me she wouldn't continue to see me.

[sunrise]

Bleah, I too would have a hard time leaning on my T too much outside of my sessions. We don't have much outside contact, but everyone's therapy relationship is different. However, I have learned to lean on my T during my sessions. It has been hard, as I began therapy being one of those ultra-contained people. But I've grown since then and learned to know what I'm feeling (sometimes!), show my emotions, and accept that I am paying a guy money to let me lean on him for an hour a week. Or cry with him or share my joy with him or get mad at him or whatever. That's his job and role. It was harder for me to do my part--open up, feel, and allow myself to make use of his skills, empathy, and caring--than for him to do his part.

Keep going with therapy. It's a long haul but can be life transforming. As you develop more and more trust with your T, you will let her see more and more of you, and get to experience her acceptance of all of your parts.

[MINIME]

I so get this. I used to be like that. WIth my old T the one who turned on me because I never talked about feelings or anything really just said this is so stupid. I never could talk to her about anything and she wanted me to talk about the worst thing that happened to me and I just stared at her. I kept telling her I had no feelings and she would get mad and say if you had no feelings then you would have talked about this night with someone and you have not. I was in therapy a couple times for a few sessions as a kid to deal with this night and never talked either. I never wanted to call her out of session missed sessions by faking illness and hated every second of it. Then she went off on me in group about this and I just kinda shrunk inside my self and made seroius self harm plans. A couple of days before my plan I called the T that was a student in this truama group and had gotten hired on at the agency to ask for help, and she called me back and kept calling me to talk until I could have an intake and get to see her. Then I just opened up about little things and she taught me alot and I began to grow and I started emdr and I am talking about that night alot. I call her between sessions sometimes and sometimes keep daily writing to talk about thoughts and she reads them and wants more.
I think that in therapy there has to be a moment when your ready and you just jump in. Neither of my T's have ever made me feel like a burden they find things no matter how small and say way to go look at this your doing a great job. I was ready and I was willing and they always say you are so willing and open to therapy its a joy/pleasure being your T. So You have to be ready and you have to have the right T. No one can make you do therapy. Also for some people that type of therapy works well. Its about you and what you need and if your ready.

[deliquesce]

bleah, i think what you wrote is incredibly articulate. perhaps you could print it out and show your T?

my pdoc... i've been seeing him for 4yrs. initially i saw him every few months, but now it is down to about once a week or every 2 weeks. sometimes i even call him in between. if i had told this to my new-to-therapy-self, she would have been shocked that i could impose myself that much on someone.

in our relationship - pdoc is the one who calls the shots. he decides when i will see him next, and that has been good for me, because i dont need to feel guilty about impinging on his time if he isnt prepared to see me. he encourages me during our sessions to call him if i need him, and when he realised i wasn't doing it - he explained to me why. he says it's easier for him to take 5mins out of his day to catch and contain me, than it is for both of us to struggle when i'm already in the depths of doom and depressed. so calling him is kind of like maintenance therapy - something i do to prevent getting worse.

[chaotic13]

My T has never made me feel like a burden, however I have made myself feel like a burden to her.

How has it helped you to be in contact with your T outside of your scheduled, paid for sessions?

E-mailing my T outside of the session has helped me unload things that I just couldn't seem to get out during the face to face sessions. The outside exchanges helped when my in session communication was really poor. I've learned to lean on my T a little bit via email and she has come through for me. I am now more comfortable with trying to express myself during face-to-face interactions.

[lifelesstraveled]

Originally Posted by Bleah

I am one of those people who goes through life trying not to be noticed, trying not to take up too much space, too much of anyone's time, including T's time. I don't really see how its serving me at all, but I'm more comfortable trying hard not to be needy and a "burden".

T has invited me to call her in between sessions. I've been seeing her for 1.5 years and have called her once. She has invited me to email her while she's away on vacation. I finally did (once), and it didn't feel good. During periods when I've been seeing her 2-3x/week, she has offered me a reduction in her fee. I don't feel comfortable burdening her with my presence unless I pay full price.

I've read the board with great curiosity the stories of people who lean on their T outside of session, call their T multiple times per week or per day, they scream at them and hang up on them or are otherwise not "polite" and "contained"! My T has also invited me to Bring It On when I'm mad at her, and I just can't do it.

How has it helped you to be in contact with your T outside of your scheduled, paid for sessions?

I think it would be incredibly hard, but good in a way, for me to be a little needy with T and for her to see some ugly parts of me, and have her not run away or leave me over it. But I can't trust that it wouldn't be a big mistake, that if she saw the real me she wouldn't continue to see me.

OMG you sound like ME!!! I could've written this entire thread geeeesh. just wanted to comment on that. You are not alone. I have spent my entire life trying to be invisible and stay stay out of the way. Even if my T offered her email to me and number I wouldnt use it. I would feel like I was bothering her even if she said it was totally okay....it wouldnt be totally okay with me...I guess that's a very ridgid, stiff boundary I have...I try to stay out of everyone's way and not bother anyone even if they say it's OK. You are not the only one who doesn't "take" a lot for their T's I have only been seeing mine since Oct, BUT I dont think I would "take" anything she offered to me anytime soon....

Many of the people on PC are my therapy inspirations One day maybe I will get there....

[bourne]

I think maybe I have been doing therapy wrong, and perhaps this is why I have gotton no results from therapy. I would never consider calling or emailing my therapist when I was in therapy. I saw "what about Bob" Bill Murray was a pain in the *** to Richard Dreyfuss.
I now look upon therapist in much the same way I view Chiropractor's. They suck you in with promise's of miraculous cure's but after years, and years of adjustment's the cure never come's.

Originally Posted by Bleah

...I'm more comfortable trying hard not to be needy and a "burden".

How has it helped you to be in contact with your T outside of your scheduled, paid for sessions?

Bleah, I know what you mean about trying not to be a burden. I email my T between sessions (started doing it maybe 6 months into therapy when she offered). I find it really really helps me to get things out as I'm feeling them. It's too much pressure to hope that I'll still be feeling them and able to talk about them by the next session. I'm otherwise pretty contained in session, this is the one area where I'm more "needy."

One thing to think about is whether your T would actually consider this contact a burden. My T has told me on multiple occassions that she likes the emails because it helps her know how I'm doing in between sessions, and how I'm feeling (since I have a harder time talking about that than emailing about it). It's possible that your T would feel helped in her work with more out of session contact too...

[searchingmysoul]

Welcome to PC!

There is definitely a continuum of experience here!

I would be on the side of the "less needs the better". I don't call between sessions unless I have an emergency or need to change my appt. I don't email. Quite honestly I don't even know if these things are an option (email or extra phone time) because I have never asked about or for them. I would not want to be a 'burden' ever! But I don't think this is healthy or right or unhealthy or wrong. I have just taken a LONG time to trust and my boundaries are a bit more like walls, you know?

I do like reading other's experiences. It gives me an idea of what else is a possibility.

~Searching

[Perna]

I took "my" way for a long time and handwrote letters to my T and mailed them to her office. I could imagine her reading them but we didn't discuss them. It was a nice helpful support for me for 5-6 years; I could imagine her response anyway I wanted and she may/may not have read what I wrote, I didn't feel I burdened her, whereas if I'd been asked to email her, I might have feared doing it "too much"; I've never thought of a hand-written letter as "spam" :-) I eventually grew to understand that therapy is a dialog and that there are two people working together, not just me "taking" or giving or anything else in a vacuum.

[MINIME]

I also want to say that its not "taking" anything. Its actually giving. Its like going to a dr and not telling her all the symptoms and it makes her job harder.

"what about bob" ...great movie...makes me laugh every time i see it.

anyway...i can't e mail my t...she never offered and i never asked...i can call and leave messages which i do. sometimes i ask for a call back and sometimes i don't. some calls are just a heads up call...about what is going on...not even a crisis thing sometimes not even about what we talk about but what is going on in my life outside of therapy...or sometimes just to wish her a happy holiday or the like.

when i do call about something therapy belated she will call me back and we can talk...sometimes it is between session so time is limited others not. if it is an emergency then i can call an emergency number and get a therapist who will reach her and she will then call me...altho i will say the few times i did call it the results with the responding t were a little scary (when i am in crisis it is hard for me to be clear and explain things and the the DID comes out in full force which makes it worse..and things snowball...last time i called i got quite possibly the worlds worst therapist...i wouldn't have told her if i planned to blow up the owrld much less anything else...just call my t damn it!)

initially i went for 1 session a week...she was the one who suggested a double session a week after consulting other t who dealt with DID... and that has worked wonders for me. also when we have had a few really rough times she has been able to schedule additional appt's for us during the week which helped us out.

plus when we were hospitalized each time she came to visit us and she brought along a PB&j sandwich for our child alter. she also helped smooth along the inital intake thru the ER as well as calling the "bin" before our first trip to find out exactly what would occur while we were ther so she could prepare us.

our first t was less than ethical. this one has helped us out a tremendous amount andthere are no words for our gratitude. sure she isn't perfect and has made some errors...but hey so have we...

plus..she has said that we have given her the chance to learn...we are the first patient with our diagnosis that she has treated and she said she welcomes the chance to do so...she calls it a nice change from her usual patients...kind of makes her feel good too.

[chaotic13]

I think that I not only had to overcome my worry about being a burden, but I also about what my contact outside of the session might reveal. I knew I was good at hiding in face to face exchanges. My written communication seems to come from a different part of me. This scared me. My T has handled this well. Now I am a little more tolerance of this other side of myself.

[lifelesstraveled]

Originally Posted by chaotic13

I think that I not only had to overcome my worry about being a burden, but I also about what my contact outside of the session might reveal. I knew I was good at hiding in face to face exchanges. My written communication seems to come from a different part of me. This scared me. My T has handled this well. Now I am a little more tolerance of this other side of myself.

I just wanted to comment on this: I loved how Chaotic put the last few sentences
Hiding in face to face exchanges: Yes this is very much true for me too. My T has gotten a glimpse into the innerworkings of the feelings and thoughts of LLT by the two journal excerpts I have given her. Talking about them is still kind of . I hate it when she looks at what i've written and says "can i ask about....?" Then it's....LOL....and I go back to hiding....