I just found out today that my T is leaving for a two week vacation and I'm not handling it very well. I had called him today to ask about rescheduling my son's appointment next week and he told me he is going away for two weeks. As soon as he told me I started shaking uncontrollably and then I managed to end the conversation before bursting into tears. So there I am sobbing at my desk at work. Luckily, no one was around as it was late in the day and mercifully my boss was gone.

I really feel blindsided by this news and I am having a really hard time processing it. I feel terrified and alone. I'm scared he's not coming back or he will come back and not be the same. I am remembering his 15 day absence during the summer and the really awful disruption it caused in our relationship when he reneged on a promise to call me on day 8. It came close to totally destroying our relationship and it took me awhile to be able to trust him again. He offered to set up a call again while he's gone, telling me he will have cell phone access but that scared me all over again when it brought back all the emotions from last summer. I can't bring myself to chance it happening all over again. It feels like risking death to me.

The sad part is that we have been doing really good, deep work for the past month after a long rocky stretch where I was angry with him after almost every session and where we were having too many disruptions and misunderstandings. I am convinced this will cause us to lose the gains we have worked so hard for and it will take months again to come back to this place of progress and trust.

I usually see my T twice a week, once alone and once with my son. So going 14 days to be is an eternity of agony...especially during the holidays which are emotionally loaded for me since losing my parents and facing so much of my past childhood trauma, some of which centers on Christmas.

So part of me is terrified I can't do this. Another part of me is so horribly angry with him that I want to punch the walls down. Yet another part of me acknowledges I am nobody and I deserve to be abandoned during the holidays. Lastly I am angry with myself that I have allowed someone to get so close to me again and that I am so stupid for letting my guard down and becoming so attached to someone who is nothing but a paid professional. How pathetic can I be?

And, oh yeah.... I also feel guilty about having all of the above feelings. After all, the guy is just going on vacation right? The world is full of much more serious problems and I'm just a whiney child.

TN

HB... thank you for your thoughtful and kind response. I just don't know how to be kind to myself. I never learned how and I feel I don't deserve it. That this is somehow my fault for feeling so weak and needy and I should be on better guard to prevent these feelings from cropping up.

I'm sort of feeling paralyzed about the whole thing. This happens when I'm terrified of something. I have no idea of which direction to move... True North? My T is my true north. He is my fixed point in a spinning world. When he's gone I'm spinning out of control.

I'm so afraid to trust that he will keep his word because if he does not I don't think we will survive it and I'm afraid to test it. History is screaming at me ... don't believe him, he's just trying to placate you.

And if I was truly generous I would not begrudge him a vacation.

Lastly, I don't feel I can share any of these feelings with him because he will just get annoyed and feel that I'm being so annoying and ungrateful and that it's better to be rid of me totally. That he will ask "what more do you want out of me?" At this point I don't think I'll be able to say anything to him in our next session before his vacation. I'm so angry right now I don't want to talk to him.

TN

Hi TN. I hear how awful you feel right now and I feel for you. ((((((((TN)))))))) All the feelings that are coming up as a result of this seem overwhelming and I'm glad that you've come here to vent/get support. We are listnening and, as HB pointed out, while you may judge your feelings and yourself, we do not.

quote:

So part of me is terrified I can't do this. Another part of me is so horribly angry with him that I want to punch the walls down. Yet another part of me acknowledges I am nobody and I deserve to be abandoned during the holidays. Lastly I am angry with myself that I have allowed someone to get so close to me again and that I am so stupid for letting my guard down and becoming so attached to someone

What struck me about your above comment is how nearly this situation most likely mimics something you've felt before.... something that, as a child, may very well have been life or death. The intensity with which you blame yourself is stringent, and it is a feeling I know too well. For those of us who have been betrayed by those we HAD to depend on, it certainly is easier to think that we are at fault, that there is something wrong with us, then it is to trust that we deserve what everyone else deserves and that our cargivers can fail miserably. Like HB said, what would you do if your child was as upset as you are? You might try working through that scenario, as if your child was saying the things you wrote. Even if you can't be nice to yourself, or comfort yourself at all, it might be worth telling yourself that even though you don't feel it, the truth is that you deserve the same love, compassion and nurturance your child does. Maybe ask yourself WHY you don't deserve it. What is it about YOU that makes you unworthy? The truth is that you are very much so worthy and deserving, but I think you'll have to work through the shittiness of why you feel unworthy before you can get past this.

In situations like these, I often tell myself that I am unworthy because, if I were deserving of comfort and love- if I didn't deserve to be abandoned- then I woulf have been cared for properly the first time around. As if there is some direct connection that exists between what I received as a child and the way I should have been parented. But in reality, it's like saying "well, because my parents didn't give me water as a child, I don't deserve to drink water." Everyone needs security and love and comfort just as everyone needs water! You deserve to be abandoned during the holidays just as much I deserved to be left crying in my crib for hours! As my t says- and trust me, I'm paraphrasing, just because what has happened to us was f***ed up, it doesn't me that we deserved it.

quote:

I also feel guilty about having all of the above feelings. After all, the guy is just going on vacation right? The world is full of much more serious problems and I'm just a whiney child.

Yes, he is just going on vacation. But vacations mean that people leave for a while. And when that's our t's, it feels like they are rejecting us and abandoning us and it stirs up all those awful feelings in us that remind us of what it felt like to be abandoned and hurt before. I'm sure your t fully expects you to react to his leaving. I mean, how could you not? Would you really want to be in relationship with a t who it didn't matter to you if he was leaving for a while? When my t tells me she'll be out, (and we go through this everytime) I tell her "no thank you" and that I'd prefer she'd stay. She then says that she'll be back and that it will be okay, we'll make it. I then tell her that I'd like to go with her... that I'll be good and quiet and won't ask "are we there yet?" She says she's not worried about how I'd behave and that she wishes that she could give me what I wanted. And always, on the session before she leaves, as I walk out the door, I say "you're coming back, right? cuz I really want you to" and she says "yep, I sure am." And then I call and leave her messages while she's gone and when she gets back, the first thing I say is "thanks for coming home, I appreciate it!" and she simply says "sure!" Now there are a lot more feelings involved, and it is hard and scary, but IMO, it's a part of the therapy. If we don't learn that it is okay to be left and that our t's will come back, I don't know how else we can work through the attachment issues. Now your t dropped the ball when he didn't call, but he DID come back. You've been able to work through things with him, and it has been hard and trecherous, but even you said that you've been doing good work lately. What if you tell him how scared/upset you are, he leaves, he comes back, and you can feel even safer and move even closer to him? How much more will you be able to trust him after he keeps his word and comes back?

Well, I'm sure I've blabbered long enough. I hope I'm making sense and that you at least can think about WHY you think you deserve to be left instead of focusing on deserving to be left in general. I think you'll be hard pressed to come up with legitimate answers because you don't really deserved to be left at all... but I think you have to come to that conclusion no matter how many times we say it (i'm tempted to copy and paste it a thousand times, but i shall refrain... for now)

I'm thinking of you TN and I truly hope that you and your t can use this experience to deepen your relationship.

-CT

TN:

I’ve read many posts on this site, but this is the first time I’ve felt compelled to respond because I can hear your suffering. I know your pain all too well and how devastating it can feel to be dependent on your T. I know how you feel . . . I’ve been there. If I can feel your pain by reading your post, just think how your T feels when you’re talking face to face. It took me a long time to completely trust my T, but it was the best thing I ever did. You have to tell them everything. Its fine if you have to test them first, but you have to keep talking about your thoughts and feelings. It’s so true that we cannot truly love someone else until we learn to love ourselves, and it can be very challenging to learn if we’ve been beating ourselves up for years. Six months ago I would have told you that loving my T felt very painful. Ask me today and I would tell you that it’s the greatest feeling in the world.

D

TN, I feel a lot for you in this. Other people have responded so beautifully - I just want to say yeah, your reaction is not an over-reaction, it's a function of the intensity and importance of the work you are doing in therapy. I'd say you feel this because you are getting down to the nitty-gritty of healing the deep wounds in your life. And I'm guessing one of the reasons you're doing that is that you don't want to pass that pain on to your child or anyone else. This is not trivial, it's some of the most important work in the world. What you learn in your healing will be available not only to you and your son, but to others you come into contact with. The world needs this work.

Take care of yourself.

Hi TN and sending you big hugs. I feel the same panic as you at the moment. Over the Christmas break I am unsure if my P is going to be working or not and then we are going away for two weeks so I won't see him for nearly a month - possibly.

Is it possible that you could check in with a text to him every day? Could you ask him if that would be ok and that would be a link between you, no need for him to reply but just a quick text from you maybe you would still feel his presence and keep the connection strong?

Thank you all for the amazing support and encouragement and kind words.

Halo... I'm so sorry you are facing and even longer absence from your P and I can truly sympathize. I'm sure my T would have no problem with me either texting him or emailing him (especially now since he has a new iphone LOL) and he has offered to call me to check in or even have a phone session while he's gone. I'm skittish about the phone call appointment because of what happened last summer when he promised to call and then didn't. It was pretty devastating to me.

Jones.. you are exactly right... we are getting down to some nitty gritty work of looking at past trauma and dealing with my grief. And much of what I am doing is learning not to pass this all down to my son and to be sure he has the best mother I can be. I don't want him to have an insecure attachment or a mother who cannot meet his needs and is not present. The most progress I have made over the past 2 years has been my parenting skills. My T has been a wonderful help with that.

Dharma... thank you for coming out to respond to my post. I really appreciate your support. And you are right we have to keep telling them our feelings and I had promised myself I would not shut him out any more but sometimes it's so hard to let him get so close to me. And I have tested him 7 ways till Sunday and he has almost always passed the test. We have had some disruptions and I understand that's because we are both human. I don't expect him to be perfect. I'm glad you are in such a good place with your loving feelings for your T. I hope to get there one day soon.

HB... thank you again. I took your advice and told him I was scared. I told him a lot of things.

CT... thanks for coming out of lurkdom again to talk to me and make me see some sense in all of this. You T sounds wonderful and as if she really gets this... how her leaving makes you feel and she's so okay with it. And yes, I need to look at why I feel I deserve to be abandoned... maybe because I was and if your parents abandon you then why not everyone else. And my parents did not physically abandon me... just emotionally. I need to look at this more with my T.

So for an update... I saw my T tonight with my son. It was his appointment but because I was so upset I took most of the time. My son was fine with it and did his homework while waiting. My T knew how upset I was and he was ready for me LOL. It took a bit of dragging it out of me but I finally told him everything of how I was feeling and what happened yesterday when he told me over the phone about his plans to leave. I told him how I was angry at myself for allowing his vacation to matter to me, for allowing him to get so close to me... that I don't want anyone so close. That I was feeling rejected and abandoned and afraid he was not coming back. And mostly that I hated HATED telling him all of this.

He was nothing but kind and understanding and willing to make things better for me in any way he could. He wanted my suggestions and he really listened to how I felt. Things are so much better now. I see that he cares and that he wants to help me to survive his vacations until that time when it will be easier for me to let him go ... knowing that he will come back and all will be fine.

So thank you everyone for being there for me.

TN

Hi, it's me, Luna again. After losing my T a year ago after seeing her for 10 years, my present T told me she is giving up her practice for health reasons. I had one more session- a double and she is gone. I can relate to those who say they are angry with themselves for allowing themselves to become attached to another person. Yep, I let it happen again! I still miss my formerT, too. Pain, Pain. What can I do?

NewP is going to be away for two weeks starting on Christmas Eve. He is going to leave details for my GP re medication for while he is away. I am still panicking, mostly about how to cope with anxiety while he is gone.

Halo I understand your concerns because I suffer with anxiety too and I didn't handle my Ts last vacation too well. I can tell you that having this board as an outlet was enormous help along with a very good friend who allowed me to cry on her shoulder. I also journaled every day he was gone about my feelings and what I did that day to try to survive his absence. It's not easy but you can do it. Just keep talking to us.

TN

Hi Summer and Hummingbird...You are very wise. I am thinking long and hard about forming another theraputic relationship. My first one of 10 years was one with pretty strict boundries. In spite of that, I had attachment issues..I would have continued with (MA)forever if she had not retired. She did give me 6 months notice.It is not as painful after 15 months. None-the -less I have the occasional yearning for the past. I know she keeps boundries for my own good.
My recent T, (C) was nothing like MA.She used all kinds of new methods for relief of and insight into problems. She, however, kind of blurred the boundries and sucker me,I lapped it up. We will occasionally run into each other, as we actually belong to a couple of organizations where our paths will cross. She will allow short infrequent e-mails with my progress with an organizer she recommended for my hoarding tendencies. I do not know if this is a help, or whether cold turkey is better in the long run.
I am looking for a new T, but, as you warned, I will really think it through before choosing..Thanks for your concern. Luna

TN,

About 4 months into my therapy, when I was basically in a state of feeling like I was just about to lose my mind and die every second of every day, my T forgot to tell me he was going away for three weeks. I found this out on the Friday before. He thought he had told me. He hadn't.

I was horrified and beyond enraged, and felt like what little protection I had against whatever was happening to me had just been torn away from me. I felt TOTALLY exposed to this un-nameable, invisible thing that was tormenting me, and now this bastard tells me he's leaving for nearly a month and forgot to tell me. I wanted him to f-off then eat sh$t and die...I mean after I was done screaming at him.
It was truly awful and I still hate it when we have breaks.

Well, I handled it as best I could. I spent time with my best friend and found comfort in very simple but important things, like this board, like listening to the Wise Counsel and Shrink Rap Radio podcasts, like sleeping on my sofa instead of my bedroom (for some reason, I found this comforting). I read poetry. Do whatever you need to do to get through it. That's all that matters.

I think being furious with your T is a lot better than being furious with yourself. Think of it as a kind of infantile rage...the kind of rage a child has when she doesn't get what she wants and needs. Remember, the part of you that is responding to this is timeless. It doesn't give a damn that you've been an adult, chronologically, for however long that's been. If your anger is coming from something that happened when you were two, well it might as well have happened 5 minutes ago. Emotional memory doesn't care what the date is.

quote:

Yet another part of me acknowledges I am nobody and I deserve to be abandoned during the holidays.

Think about where you got this message, and aim some of that anger at whoever taught you this lie.

I can't see my T for a week, and I'm spending FOUR DAYS with my family this weekend. So if you're struggling during your break, keep posting here. It helps. A lot.

Hang in there.

Russ

quote:

I think being furious with your T is a lot better than being furious with yourself. Think of it as a kind of infantile rage...the kind of rage a child has when she doesn't get what she wants and needs. Remember, the part of you that is responding to this is timeless. It doesn't give a damn that you've been an adult, chronologically, for however long that's been. If your anger is coming from something that happened when you were two, well it might as well have happened 5 minutes ago. Emotional memory doesn't care what the date is.

Hi Russ... it's late and I'm exhausted but I wanted to thank you for your response and especially the part above which really helped me to understand some of this. It didn't help that I had a really sucky session today and I'm annoyed yet again with myself for being such a trusting fool to give so much info (read: ammo) to my T about me and my thoughts.

I wish you luck with the family visit. I have a really small family... my parents are deceased. For me it's the haunting memories giving me anxiety and I absolutely hate New Year's. The thought of going through the holidays with no T is giving me horrible anxiety. I'll keep posting to get through it along with journaling.

Thanks for your thoughts.

TN

As an update.... I'm seeing my T today for the last session before he goes away and I'm feeling really frozen. I'm scared that if this session ends badly I will have to sit with it until he comes back. So I'm not sure I even want to talk to him today or say anything that would cause me to be upset. Moving ahead with any issues feels threatening right now so what do I do... sit and stare at him? Maybe at least he will tell me when he's coming back to the State. I don't know if he realizes how scary it is to hear him say he has no definite return date for someone who has the crazy fear that he is not coming back? I mean... the rational part of me knows in some part of the brain that he IS coming back but I would still feel better if he could tell me that.

I'll let you all know what happens.

TN

An update on my session before T vacation on Wednesday the 23rd. It went okay. I was so shut down that he noticed it right away and told me that he could see that I was all "clamped down and closed up". And I told him that I was so scared that we would end in a bad place that I didn't want to chance talking to him about anything. He smiled at me and told me that he would not allow us to end in a bad place and that we needed to talk about his leaving. He had run 5 minutes late with the client before me (a male) and he wanted to know at first if I was annoyed that he was late and I said no (which was truth). I honestly don't remember much of what I said during the session because I was dissociating so much but I do remember that I was shaking from anxiety. Towards the end he reviewed the contact we could have while he was gone and I had a hard time focusing on that. I do remember that he still would not tell me when he was leaving town or returning only that I have an appt with him on Jan 4th. And he talked about what inner reserves and strength I have to see me through his absence. He knows that I write (I have written 4 unpublished novels) and he sees that my writing is a way to cope with adversity and my way of working things out (a therapy of sorts). He says I find strength there. He also knows that I have stopped writing fiction for the past year as I'm only journaling these days. Don't have time to write more than that aside from writing papers for school. He told me that he thinks I'm very creative and he sees a lot of strength. But he understands how hard it is for me to take this in and I have to learn it for myself (as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz had to learn that she had the power all along). But he does want me to know how he sees me.

When I was leaving I did hug him and as I did I asked him if he was coming back and he said "I'm coming back" then I asked him if he'd be safe and he said "I will be safe" and then he wished me a very happy holiday and I ran out before I burst into a flood of tears. I realize now that I never looked at him while I was leaving and I have no idea how he looked when I left him. This bothers me for some reason. I have no last memory of his face.

I got an email from him on Christmas Day just wishing me and my family a Merry Christmas. He does not celebrate Christmas.

Right now I'm struggling with not seeing him tomorrow which is our usual day. And I have a full week of not seeing him ahead of me. I miss him already and long to talk to him. Two things happened on Christmas Day which I really struggled with and they feel like a loss that is hard to bear alone. And that's how I feel right now... very alone and because of that I have been pretty much shut down and am going through the motions...smiling and nodding in all the right places but not feeling anything much.

It's my numb place and if I don't stay here the next place I end up is the black hole of self-hate. I will beat myself up for feeling this way. For allowing my T to matter to me, for letting him get close. For not being able to just deal with his absence like an adult. I hate feeling like I'm 3 or that I'm out of control. And his being gone during the holiday season is just so much worse. I hate New Year's and I wish I could just sleep through it.

TN