Today marks four years since I was harshly and abruptly abandonded by my oldT. If you don't know the story you can look it up in Personal Stories Thread on August 11, 2010. I was less than a week out of gall bladder surgery and pushed myself out of the house to see him because he was leaving on a 23 day vacation and that was hard for me to contemplate. He had also told me there would be no contact during that time he was away.

So I went in prepared to talk about my surgery experience and his vacation. Instead, ten minutes before session was up he handed me a list o T's that he pulled from the Psych Today website and told me to find one during his vacation with the idea I would be seeing them going forward. I froze. I became paralyzed and asked for more time to discuss it. He refused and shut the door in my face. Left me standing there crying in the foyer. Alone. Abandoned. Terrified. I died that day. The person I was then died.

Sat in my car for a long time crying and unable to drive away. Hysterical and in grief. He finally came out took away my car keys, called the police and had them take me away to the ER Crisis Center. He followed but didn't say an thing to the people there but he declined to "commit" me. He left me there saying we would meet in September when he got back.

The next day, Friday the 13th, I got an email when I got home from work saying he was taking me off his schedule and I needed to focus on finding a new T. I was terminated.

It has been a very long and hard road to recovery. I saw 4 other T's before settling in with my current T who saved my life. I was a shell of a person after that traumatic ending. I was almost catatonic for a long time. My brain still does not function like it did. My T has never given up on me and has walked this horrible road with me every step of the way. I don't even remember how bad I actually was but he does. He had to sit with me week after week and see what oldT did to me. It made him very angry at oldT. I never really understood what happened and it took me a full year to get some closure when we convinced oldT (we threatened him with the licensinig board) to meet with us so I could have my say. I Did have my say. I read him a 14 page letter spelling out everything that happened and what I thought about him and how he handled this. I got to say good-bye to Tdog who I loved and who I was very attached to.

Anyway, when this time of year rolls around I start to feel triggered. The feel in the air, the smells in the air. End of summer. The night sounds. All of this takes me back to those weeks of terror. Today it's even raining like it was that day bringing with it the images of me standing outside T's office with the rain soaking my summer dress as I pleaded with him for some time to talk.

Things are better now. I have a good T. I am attached to him, whether I like it or not. He protects me and takes care of me. We have both worked hard for our relationship, proving that when two people are committed to each other it can happen. You can come back from the ashes and experience care again. I am not seeing him today but I think I need to call him and talk to him, to hear his voice and to thank him for always being there for me.

While I have come through this and am doing much better, I am still not and never will be that person I was before the trauma. I'm not sure who I will end up being as that is still a work in progress. Maybe I will be a better, stronger, more compassionate person for what I have been through.

I just wanted to mark this day in some way and to say that it IS possible to recover from devasting terminations and loss of T's. You just need to find the right new T to help you recover and you have to be as committed as possible to the process.

Thanks for reading
TN