Had a session today with T. I had an awful weekend of switching between anxiety, pain and being so shut down and numb to anything. I had a socially busy weekend but struggled through it because of how I left off with my T on Thursday last week.

I was feeling angry at him because he kept me waiting for 20 minutes and then he squeezed my session into 35 minutes and I had to leave while still so emotionally upset, and uncontained. I had to walk out of there like I was bleeding and in a few minutes face the real world with no buffer.

It had been a truly emotionally wrenching session where I tried to discuss empathy with him and how I was feeling that he was refusing to provide that for me. Of course, this gets all tangled up in oldT's behavior towards me and how that last session has left me feeling very cynical about therapy in general. I wrote about our discussion on another thread here about empathy. And so... I was still crying and grieving when he signaled time was up and I could barely get out of my chair to walk. I was shaky and sick to my stomach and very scared. It's just so hard to turn off my emotions like they are a faucet. OldT (before last summer when he lost it) would never let me leave that way. I got plenty of time and then there was the availability of his waiting room which was large and had a few nooks where I could sit and compose myself before going out into the world again. Aside from this his office was in a secluded farmhouse where it was unlikely to meet anyone else until I got back to work. So I had time.

My T has his office in a large commercial building and I bank on the floor below and everyone knows me there. So many times I walk out and come face to face with tellers, etc and they engage me in small talk. It is totally excruciating for me. Last Thursday I came out to find my car blocked in by a truck unloading furniture and so I had to approach the delivery guys and ask them to move the truck. I was a mess and needed to be alone and I had to do this and it just really shook me up and I wanted to run and hide for the rest of the day.

So today I told my T that I felt that he did not want to see me last week and cut me short because I'm so horrible to talk to. He explained that he was late and was concerned that I get back to work on time and tried to squeeze in a whole session of work in 35 minutes. He apologized for running so late that day. He said he is human and screws up at times. I did accept his apology and he made me say it while looking at him. He also told me that he never wants me to leave like that and I should have told him I needed time.

But the rest of the session was me accusing him of being just like oldT. That I was nothing to him and that how did I know he would not abandon me too. That Ts are all the same and the relationship is BS and I didn't believe in it any longer and that I felt that it was useless for me to try to get well. I told him it was a huge mistake to meet with oldT in his office because now we have him in there with us. We even look at the chair all the time. I told him that the meeting only made me realize what a farce therapy is and how I meant nothing to oldT and he threw me away like garbage with very little thought of how it affected me. He had NO idea how he damaged me and caused me so much pain. he only cared about himself.

My T told me that oldT was totally incompetent (yes I know this) and that he was so very proud of me for saying what I did, for standing up for myself. He said "you stood up to an abuser and confronted him". He said I was strong and he had a lot of respect for me. That he had faith in me.

He again told me to look back on my experiences with HIM and compare that to oldT and how he behaved. He tried to get me to see that I was safer there now without really telling me that in words. He knows words are worthless to me at this point. I told him I found it very difficult to talk to him because he always looks the same if I'm telling him something horrible or discussing the weather. he agreed that he is boringly consistent (said he drives himself crazy sometimes he's so boring) but this is what makes me safe. I told him I need to read his face and this is how I have always protected myself in the past and he said that kind of hypervigilience is not reliable because look what happened to me. I hate when he has a good point. He also told me if I need to know how he is feeling about something I need to ask him and he will tell me. I told him I can't do that... it feels wrong. I know he wants me to ask for stuff and it's still so hard.

So we went back and forth for awhile. I told him that I have rejected him and our relationship and all that I had felt for him. It felt unsafe and dangerous and too scary to hold onto it. I severed the connection. I did this. I didn't want it and was giving it back to him. He said he understood but even though it feels scary it's not dangerous and he said a few things that made me smile because it's like he is just sitting there like a satisfied cat knowing that I'm attached to him and that I am railing against it but it's a done deal. he is just hanging out waiting for the process to work. He knows I'm being petulant. He asked me at one point if I was feeling around 5 years old and would I be stomping me feet soon?

He is just so patient and understanding and it makes me crazy. He is so solid and unmoving and the same. I want to SEE some emotion but I don't get it and it makes me miss oldT in that way. he was much more empathic and open emotionally... although I do know that he was also dangerously inconsistent.

I feel like I have regressed and that our relationship is going backwards right now. That is scary because I worked so damn hard to try to form this new relationship with him but it seems that it was too fragile to stand up to oldT's memories. And now I don't know where to go or what to do. I am stuck and can't move forward. I want to talk to him but the words just don't come out. And I'm still grieving and that makes it all worse. I just don't know when this loss and grief will ever go away and allow me to move forward.

For a few minutes today I had the urge to reach out to my T via email and talk to him but it passed quickly and I'm back to that frozen place. I'm just not sure what to do now. At the end of the session he told me that sometimes he loses track of time with me and forgets to give me a 5 minute warning because we are always doing some good and interesting work and he is absorbed in it. He also told me that he loves seeing my candle go on each day around the time I should be there. He smiled and said I make my presence known even when I'm not there and he likes thinking of me.

Thanks for listening if you made it this far.
TN