It's been quite a while since I've been to the forum. I really needed to take a break. I was getting too obsessed with the posts, with who responded to me and who didn't, with my feelings about the topics... and more. I just really needed to remove myself.

That said, I have often thought of you all, wondered how you're doing, how you're progressing, what struggles you're facing. As I looked through the boards today, I saw the names of so many friends and colleagues on this journey - Liese, TAS, True North, GreenEyes, ClosedDoors, Kmay, Attachment Girl, Draggers, Jones, scars, avoidant, RabbitEars, heldincompassion, turtle(s), pingles, The Kid, yakusoku, Jillann - and more. I have MISSED you all. Your kind words, your wisdom, your support and caring - during my deepest deep and my lowest low.

This is the time of year when I look back over the past months and ponder the year. I would have to say this has been a bad year. A very hard year. I have cried enough tears to create a new Great Lake. I have been in IOP five times. I have been to seven different therapists (excluding the IOP Ts). I finally terminated with the T I saw earlier this year - with whom I struggled so very much. Only to call her back six weeks later to ask if I could return to her. After waiting a week for a reply (and me remembering one of the reasons it was so difficult to work with her), she said no. That stung, badly. It's been several months now, but I still cry over what happened with her. I guess it will take time to heal.

I searched and searched for someone else, and I thought I found her. Her website listed experience in all the areas I needed as well as policies that I felt I could live with. At the fifth session, she told me she had some bad news. She told me she couldn't (wouldn't) see me any longer. Things going on in her life, hassle with insurance company, and... she felt I needed a "higher level of care." She had already agreed to see me twice a week, and I hadn't used the "S-word" at all. I believe it wasn't really that I needed that higher level - but that she wasn't capable of helping me. Of course, I took it very personally, felt tainted and un-helpable. But after my experience with the other T, I was at least grateful we hadn't gotten months into the therapy before she terminated me.

I have found someone now - a T I had interviewed last Spring when I was initially considering leaving oldT. I really feel that she is my match. Lots of experience, comfortable and non-judgemental. (You know how some of them can be so understanding, but there's still that condescension and they are the Therapist and you are the lowly Patient.) At the first session, we agreed that I would be honest with her and, importantly to me, she would be honest with me. I believe her.

And the really good thing about this T is that I believe she can actually Help me. Help me grow past and through some of the damage. Other Ts, my expectation was that they would help to keep me alive. I guess that so far, they've all been successful. But to actually be helped with my issues... it makes me cry to believe this is possible... even at my age (>50). Perhaps it is not too late.

Now it is the holidaze which to me is a time of reflection, family, food and frenzy. I am cleaning like a wild woman, baking like a fat woman and pondering like a wise woman. I am determined not to let codependency ruin the family events as we gather this holiday. I am missing my mom a lot (Christmas #2 without her) as well as a sense of my Own family.

I am grateful for some very important progress this year for Marriage Equality in the United States (and across the world). The Supreme Court's rulings in June and the many states that now have gay marriage will impact my life profoundly. I am happy I will be able to marry my partner of 33 years next year and gain all the rights and responsibilities that provides.

So, significant changes this past year. I am determined to have a better year in 2014. I want to lose the 20 pounds that comforted me in my despair this past year. I want to return to my 3x/wk Zumba regime that I abandoned last year due to interruptions by IOP and inability to function at times. I want to develop a good working relationship with newT and deal with some of the demons that have plagued me for decades. And you, my friends... I hope to become stable enough to return here to participate in the true understanding, compassion and support that Psych Cafe provides.

"Let our New Year's resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word." Goran Persson

with love,
Red Tomato