Okay PL and AG, it's Tuesday... how have your days/appointments been?

-CT

CT,
I didn't see this post until right before I HAVE to go out! I'll post more later but my appointment was awesome but work is insane. Which is much better than the reverse would be!

Thank you for asking!

AG

Wow CT, you're really on the ball aren't you?

It was a very good session, but as you can imagine, very exhausting! Yes, we talked about the "I love you" phone call. And just like any typical T, she wanted me to tell her all my feelings about it, what I thought she thought about it, yada, yada, yada. I could tell though that she had also been effected by my phone call, and I could really feel a deep love and strong relationship between the two of us. We talked about how this is a one sided relationship, but that she is real and genuine in her responses to me. And this is the real her, that she would be the same outside of therapy too.

We also talked, in depth, about my fears of vulnerability and how that effects my life. How I am afraid to ask for comfort, but how that is also denying the significant people in my life the chance to be able to give me comfort. Hmm.... that's one I need to think about.

We agreed that there has been a shift in our relationship, but I need to get to the part where I can tell myself it is ok to have these feelings and emotions. I'm not there yet, and I'm having a hard time seeing that that will happen.

She keeps working hard at letting me know that she will not reject or abandon me. I guess I just have a very thick skull! The "what if's" are still too overpowering.

I left with tears in my eyes, but knowing that she really does care for me. Of course now the 24 hour doom and gloom is trying to set in. Do ya think she would just let me come back and crawl up into her lap so she can prove her love for me? Guess not. So for the moment, it is all worth it. Until I start getting crazy thoughts................

Thanks for asking CT.

PL

PL,
That is SO awesome to hear. That you were able to be so vulnerable and talk about your feelings for your T and about your relationship is really major stuff. That you are learning to seek comfort with other people is a really really good thing to be doing. I'm so glad that your T was understanding and accepting but even better that she was able to reassure you about being there for you and not abandoning you. I know that the doubts start creeping in, but just keep reminding yourself of what she said. It's real, and you can trust it. Thanks for sharing about it, its really encouraging to hear about that kind of progress.

AG

I had a really amazing session with my T yesterday. Its the first time I've seen him in two weeks because he was on vacation.

I started by telling him I missed him while I was gone. He asked me how I felt about saying that and I totally suprised myself by saying "Good! I know its ok to say it and it's how I felt." He reacted in a positive manner. I also realized that, unlike his last vacation, while I did miss him, I wasn't worried about being abandoned or him not coming back.

We spent most of the session talking about our last session. I told him how I had never gone that deep or actually let down all my defenses and let myself fully experience the grief. But that when I did, I felt him with me every step of the way. That I went to a place defined by its loneliness and wasn't alone any more. And that it had always felt like if I let myself start to experience that grief it would never stop. How shocked I had been that it lasted around 10 minutes. How emotional he had sounded in the middle of witnessing it.

When I came out of the grief, there was an amazing shift, a "lightening" I actually felt really good. Loved, cared for, and open. I told my T that I have been struggling to take in what happened because it was so different. Good different, but good emotions are still emotions and I needed to learn to handle those too. That I had never felt so vulnerable, yet secure, that I had actually thought "so this is what its like to be me." I felt so connected and was filled with love and gratitude for him, as well as feeling loved and valued. That it had been so easy to talk on a deep level and be open with my feelings. But that I needed to check with him because I didn't quite trust it. That somehow I had imagined it or made it up.

He was very reassuring about it happening, and about why I would need the reassurance.

The hardest thing I had to tell him was that I had even felt something I had so rarely felt, and that it felt scary to even say. I had felt beautiful. I think I was honestly scared he was going to laugh, even though I know better. Saying that feels incredibly vulnerable (typing this feels incredibly vulnerable ). My T responded in this incredibly gentle voice (if it was a blanket, I'd wrap it around me and NEVER take it off) that he was glad I had felt that way, that I deserved to feel that way, I had always deserved to feel that way. I couldn't talk for a few minutes that was so amazing to hear.

I asked him if he had noticed a difference in me because internally it felt like such a major shift, had he seen it? He told me he hadn't noticed a difference. Sinking heart. I replied "oh, ok." Being the sensitive T he is, he asked if I was disappointed with that answer? Again, suprisingly, I was able to tell him yes. That him saying he hadn't noticed a difference made me feel like the closeness and being in sync that I had experienced must not have happened if something so major happened inside me and he hadn't even noticed.

To which he replied that he thought he hadn't seen a change because I had been letting down my defenses and being open and talking about my feelings the whole time that he had been working with me. He went back to the beginning of our work together and gave me a lot of examples. Then he said that he had been experiencing our relationship as close and connected for a long time. That he believed that I had finally become conscious of something that I had actually been doing for a long time. Again, unbelieveably amazing to hear.

There's such a strong sense of having come so far, through so much. I am so grateful that all the pain and terror that I endured were worth it in the end.

Near the end, I told him that it had scared me to feel that way, what if I never felt that way again? But in the spirit of Tennyson, I would rather have experienced that once than never to have experienced it. He agreed, but reassured me that it was a part of me now and I could experience it again.

It was really really good. I feel happy which is a weirdness in and of itself. I'm trying not to look too closely at it and scare it away.

I want to say thank you to everyone here. You have been such a support on this journey and provided me with so much insight and wisdom.

Oh and for all of you who want to say "I told you so" fire away. My T told me it was really great that I called when I did.

AG

I'm really happy for you, AG: it sounds like you were really able to connect with your T and have him acknowledge the connection - it must have been even better to hear how long he felt like it'd been there.

Wow, that sounds like the kind of T session we all dream about. Well, of course you totally deserve it, AG. Anyone who suffers is entitled to have their suffering end, in my opinion, and it sounds like you're on your way there. How awesome is that?

Russ

Wow AG incredible! My T has been encouraging me to find what I need within myself and not to keep looking externally for it, even to him, if you know what I mean. The feeling beautiful 'admission'!!! is something that runs very deep with me and I guess with a lot of us that have been made to feel dirty or ugly in our past. It's really significant that you have come to that and I congratulate you on getting there and on believing it to be true because it is within you and no-one can take it away.

LOS

Thanks Russ, Wynne and LOS, your joy for me really means a lot!

HB,
I did NOT for a moment think you were talking about the phone call. I remembered your promise to me. Thank you for keeping it, never has an "I told you so" sounded so sweet!.

AG