The Beginnings of Repair

So I went to session today and it was…okay. We certainly didn’t completely repair this massive rupture, but we did take the very beginning steps back towards each other.

I spent a LOT of time trying to decide how I would even approach the session. In the end (and after reading ideas from you all, especially Clara and Pink*) I decided to abandon my need to control the situation. My fear instinct was to go in, walls up and guns-blazing, prepared for the worst. I debated even writing her a check for the full week of sessions, fearing she would terminate and I’d have to re-write a check for that single session only.

But I didn’t do that. I just let go.

Thoughts?

Here’s what I’m thinking of saying at the beginning of session today:

“Last week was rough. And although I have about a million thoughts and feelings, which I definitely want to talk about at some point, what ultimately matters the most is that we fell into a dynamic and repeated a pattern that is not helpful to anyone and certainly does not feel good to me. So my main concern, despite how enraged, scared, and hurt I feel, is on addressing that pattern and figuring out how to get my needs met in a more effective way.”

Thoughts?

At A Loss

I’ve done so much writing and talking and thinking about this therapeutic rupture since last week. I’ve written ten pages in my hard copy journal, several blog posts, tweets, and personal conversations. I’ve talked my wife’s ear off about virtually every thought and feeling that’s come to my mind.

But I still feel at a complete loss about what to do come tomorrow afternoon when I see my therapist again.

Wife and I tried doing a little role play to practice for the opening of session, but I couldn’t get into it. I’m so paralyzed by the fear that my therapist is going to terminate me or somehow radically change the rules that it’s hard to envision any conversation until I know what’s happening in that aspect. Could be nothing, could be everything.

No More Email

I had session yesterday. My therapist was not thrilled with my email. She told me she is now moving the boundary so that I am no longer allowed to email her at all, and if I email her again, she’ll block my email address.

I mean, whatever. I honestly felt a sense of relief when she said that; now it’s abundantly clear: my email privileges have been revoked. I can’t even email for a schedule change.

She thinks she was crystal clear on email boundaries. She’d told me she doesn’t engage via email around anything but logistics. To me, that meant she wouldn’t write back unless it was an administrative thing like scheduling or payment.

But I emailed her on Tuesday.

Grieving

I feel like I’m drowning in grief. It took me a while to figure out that’s what I was feeling. I realized sometime last evening that my emotions are frighteningly similar to when Zooey terminated my treatment. It wasn’t until this morning that I realized that’s because I am feeling a tremendous sense of loss.

No, my therapist hasn’t terminated. Yet. But I’m very concerned that she will end my therapy. If she doesn’t outright end it, she may pull any and all out of session contact, which would be very hard for me. And even if nothing else changes, she’s already taken email contact away.

And although I think things will ultimately be better with email off the table, there’s no denying that this is a loss. I do have to grieve the loss of that interaction. I have to grieve the fact that I will never, ever see her name pop up in my inbox again. And I have to deal with the fact that sudden rescheduling changes are now going to be much more complicated and difficult to navigate since we’ll be playing phone tag. Regardless of what happens next, our relationship will never be the same as it was two days ago.

Violated

The thing I remember most about my last session with my therapist is her statement that I had violated her by sending my last email. Although I came into the session wanting to talk about this stuff, and willing to discuss the way I’ve been pushing the edges of the boundaries, I also apparently did not want to talk about it in the way she wanted me to do so, which caused us to lock horns and get into a massive power struggle for half the session.

She imagined I was trying to place all of my emotions onto her. She said I expected her to do all the work and I was seemingly unwilling to reflect on my own behavior. Which is absurd because if there’s anything I am consistent at doing, it’s self-reflection. She didn’t even mention the email until probably 20 minutes into session, at which point she said,

“I feel like you did to me what was done to you. You got angry with me so you violated me, you violated my boundaries.”

[No Subject]

I want to kill myself. I will go to work until 8pm and put these feelings away into a neat container while I imagine the ways I could stop this agony once I am done. Has their ever been a worse human being than me? No. I never again want to be looked at the way you looked at me today. Too much truth in that. I should not be alive. I wasn’t meant to be alive. Someone should know. 

But you won’t read this anyway… 

no one will ever know and maybe I’ll survive this, or maybe it will be the suicide note that pushed the boundaries too far while I was pushed too far. Look at me, pushing pushing pushing. 

Oh! It won’t matter anyway. Hahahahahaha.

Standing on the edge the edge the edge

Please just let me jump 

Either way, nothing will ever be the same again. 
*this is what I just emailed to my therapist after a rough session. I’m not supposed to email her about anything but logistics…

Stream of Consciousness

*Trigger warning (sexual content)*