LJB,

I have felt the way you are feeling so many times. I have felt like closing the door on all of it, of just walking away from all the docs and all the help and saying screw it. For me it always seemed to boil down to frustration toward myself for taking small steps forward only to land flat on my butt emotionally. I have told my T several times that I was "done". Her reply to me was "I strongly recommend you stay in therapy with someone". I used to interpret this that she didn't care because she didn't tell me that I should stay with her and that she really couldn't care less about me, but my head knows differently.

The idea that has been most difficult for me to accept on an emotional level is that my T is there for me no matter what I do, no matter what I feel. As a survivor of abuse, I am used to withdrawing and retreating and keeping my mouth shut. I am used to suffering in silence. I am used to having my words and feelings used against me to make me feel less or invalidated. I am used to taking away from myself the things I value and love out of fear that they will be taken away from me because one day the person who I love and value (my T) will one day find me insignificant and unimportant and will abandon me.

What do when these feelings come up is look back over my Ts behavior over the course of time in therapy with her. I have shared some things that I have never shared before, I have behaved absolutely inappropriately at times, I have said things out of transference and out of anger and hurled nasty words her way, but she has stood firm and consistantly and constantly offered me support, encouragement and love and prescence over time.

I remember on one occasion just a few weeks ago, telling my T that I do not know how to respond to her and to this relationship, that she is offering me a new reality. Something I have never had before, and that requires me to experience the new reality while old tapes are playing at an amplified level in my head. I have been trained not to trust, not to feel, not to feel supported, heard, loved and valued and sometimes those very things make me want to run like hell even though those are the things I want. I have slowly started to integrate that those are the things I not only want but that I deserve them too. To have someone stand by me regardless of my "unacceptableness" that I feel toward myself and the way I behave sometimes is foriegn to me and it requires a lot of work and alot of trust in my T and in myself to listen to my gut and my heart that this particular T is different.

I have departed from T on several occassions and seen other therapists and psychologists, but deep inside I know it is she, who can help me heal, because I want to heal with her. I want to take this journey with her and I want her to be the catalyst to my healing. She means something to me. As survivors we have a tendency to remove ourselves or people from our lives that mean something to us out of fear of losing them or ourselves in the process of keeping them.

I hope you go back to your T. It is ok, to want to give up, to quit, to become angry and frustrated and to voice those things. That is a sign of growth.

There were so many times I just literally felt like I could not face my T because of shame, anger, guilt for being a difficult and messed up patient, for feeling needy and dependent on her and also because I behaved inappropriately toward her between sessions and yelled at her on the phone during a melt down. I remember just wanting to put a bag over my head and show up to therapy because I didn't want her to see my face because of things I had said or done, but I have come to accept that no matter what I do (aside from self-harm) my T will always be there with welcoming words and a soothing hug. My T is not out to harm me like the many Ts prior to her have, she is not out to harm me like my parents did. THIS REALITY IS DIFFERENT and requires me to REACT IN DIFFERENT WAYS EMOTIONALLY. It requires me to TRUST her and in the relationship. Fortunately that inner voice that tells me to stay, that voice that tells me that nothing is unworkable or unmanageable in therapy with this T is becoming stronger and stronger.
Please allow the relationship with this T to help you re-write your reality. It is worth a shot... the story can have a happy ending.

In regards to if it doesn't help change my reality, I tell myself that I have overcome many T's abandoning me, I have survived and overcome many abusive relationships and likewise I will survive the pain of losing her if it ever comes to that. It requires not only trusting our Ts but trusting ourselves to handle what we think we cannot. Guess what? We CAN! We have in the past!

Go back, it will be an awesome sign of strength. I am sure your T wants you to come back. They invest their time and caring into us and we are important to them as well.