Talking in therapy

My therapist allows me to write in between sessions as often as I would like to or need to. (I also have an art journal that I bring to my sessions to share with her.) I tend to process quite a bit of what went on in the previous session outside of her office. So writing helps me to sort things out. I can call her also if I need to. She says she will read each and every letter I send to her. I worry that I am a bother and that I am taking up too much of her time. She always says it is not a bother and it's ok to write. She never makes me read them aloud to her. She will discuss what I wrote in a session if I want to. Often I am afraid to speak during a session. She always waits patiently for me to talk. I have been with this therapist for many years and she is very compassionate and caring. I am lucky to know her. She has helped me grow into the woman I am today. I trust her as much as I can trust someone. She also gives the best hugs.

Sanah
I understand what you are saying. The problem is that I have the hardest time trusting people and I don't totally trust her yet, and she's not a bad person. Every time something happens I draw back even more.

I sent her an email last week, 5 days ago and still have not heard back, she never does that. Mistake, maybe but I asked her a few specific things in the email, I needed to know those things, I needed reassurance. I hate it, I hate that I allowed myself to be vulernable with her, I never do that... is this is exactly why......I don't ask her for much. It was one email, just one little email.....thats all I send her, one a week after the session. I don't call her though she says I can, and this makes me not want to all the more. If she has a hard time responding via email....how can I trust a phone call?

She has children, maybe she just doesn't have time. I understand that but it really makes it harder for me to trust her, what If I really, really need her and she's not there?

I don't even want to go in and see her this week, I don't even know what I would say. People say talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. How can I talk about it with someone I don't even trust enough yet? Someone who I am feeling less and less trusting off. I really liked her in the first few meetings, I really thought she was someone I could learn to trust. I can't do this......call me stupid, a wimp, weak, whatever, thats what I have become since I started seeing a T. It's made me worse......I could handle things on my own before all this, sure I had my issues, but then I go and see a T, open up a can of worms and now I don't know what to do....

Cmac,
Thats wonderful that you found such a great T. You are blessed, I hear really good ones can be hard to come by...I am sure you are very thankful..

Dear hangingon....... you and I are close ....
if you cannot trust yr T, can you try to trust your gut instinct? you liked her in the beginning, when it was easy, and now you're getting into deeper waters and while trust was nice before, it's needed now.... I talk a big game, i have such trust issues myself; but darned if I'm not going to go in there next time and tell her about it, I just have to. If you could read her this post of yours, she will know the facts; if you just print out your post and hand it to her, and wait while she reads it, she will know; you have stated your feelings very well.
what was it someone said about being able to look fear in the eyes -

Wow, again I have been down this road too many times to count. If they are trying to get you trust them and talk with them....why do they leave you hanging when you finally take the bait...

I HAVE NO IDEA! it just seems so... counter to the overall process. You would think they would JUMP at the chance to reinforce our efforts to break our resistance to vulnerability... to show us that they ARE there and DO care. I have no idea why T's do what they do sometimes.

All I know is... there have been many other times when my T has demonstrated that she IS interested in helping me learn to connect and trust other people and that she DOES in fact care. It think they are just human and sometimes miss things that are important to us or there was some other "confounding" factors that left us ... unattended. I will say that in the past few months I've started to be able to manage this better. I'm not saying that my T's silence doesn't still piss me off... because it does. I'm just saying it doesn't seem to create the same ripple effect it used to.

((((((((((((((((((((((hangingon)))))))))))))))))))))))))))) There are times I really, really need T and he is not there. He goes away for the weekend A LOT, he's busy with his family, etc. But I still trust him. I trust that he will be there for me at my appointments, and I trust that if I tell him I need him to get back to me, he will as soon as he can (even if it's not very "soon"). I trust that he loves me and that he wants to help me feel better. IT TOOK A LOT OF TIME for me to build up this trust. A lot of time, and a lot of hard work. So, I know it doesn't feel good right now...but don't give up. When it's hard for us to trust (trust is THE hardest thing for me), it isn't going to happen overnight, and we are going to dissect every little nuance of everything T says and does LOOKING for reasons to NOT trust. I have SO been there....

Can you ask her at your appointment what a good e-mail policy is? T and I worked something out that we are both comfortable with, and it makes life so much easier, because I KNOW what to expect. If I ask him to respond, I WILL, 100% for sure, get a response. It might be REALLY slow in coming, but it will come. I trust that. I wonder if you set something up with T - like after each appointment you can send one e-mail that she will respond to, or that she will respond when you explicitly ask for a response, or something else that makes sense - maybe you could save yourself from this yucky feeling in the future? Because I've been there too, and I know how bad it feels.

Lots of to you

This is all part of the process. You need to learn to trust again and you have to work through all this to get there...................

Just glad i am not alone in this

getting the email thing sorted would be a good help - the pdoc i saw before I got my new one used to say send emails but she would not reply as they could be misinterpreted - so its good to find out what your T's guidelines are i know its horrible when you reach out and get no response - there are many reasons why you have had no response - grrrr and none of them are good enough! - sorry mini rant!

I didnt know if i trusted my T when we got to the hard stuff - I trusted her before - why not then? maybe because if she had walked out on me on the easy stuff it would have been bad but I would have been ok - if she ran screaming from the room or been dismissive after I had shared somthing bad I would have been devestated - she didnt do either of them - she was stil the same T i liked when I first met her

sending you lots of

UPDATE....sorry I put this on the other thread I had..

I did go in to see my T; however, I feel like I let myself and you guys down.
When I went in the first thing she mentioned was the email I had sent about how I really felt waiting for her responses. She said do you want to talk about that with me face to face......and what do I do, I say nooooo.

How stupid, I just couldn't do it. It would have been way to awkward for me, and it would have been hard for me to hold back the emotions that I really felt. Yet, it would have been so good for me to be able to address....

The crazy thing is she did mention a few things from if, about it being normal to feel like a kid in situations like this. That its ok to need to trust her first.....things like that. I am kind of bumming that I couldn't really hear alot of what she was saying, I was just way to nervous and zoning out at that point.

Anyways.....
I did send her another email the day after that session regarding a relationship issue and she answered the email within 20 mintues, yeah, 20 mintues. I was so happy to see that she had done that. But I also had those thoughts like, why did she answer this so quickly. She hasn't been doing that lately and I didn't talk to her about the issue. Though she had read the one I sent about how I felt waiting for a response.

Maybe she just happened to be checking email at that time on a friday night, or maybe it was because I told her how I felt even though I didn't talk with her about it...emmmm.... who knows...

I do test her, not that I mean to, it's a safety thing I think. I just need to know that she is going to be there and not bail on me when I talk to her more about the abuse. I need to know I can really trust her, something I have a really hard time doing.

Thanks again for all your responses. What would I do without all of you

You don't know how many times I have come here and got some relief.

Sittingatwatersedge, I will surely go with you in spirit!!!!!

Hangingon, when you told your T that you didn't want to talk about it face to face she totally understood what that meant. You are moving forward.............