Well today I finally got in to see NewT and my head is just spinning. I am still struggling with having no connection with him. I think I've figured out that we do connect in a left brain type way... in that we can discuss things on an intellectual level. He is quite smart and VERY experienced clinically and I know he respects my knowledge as a patient. BUT... I don't NEED a left brain connection with someone I need a RIGHT brain, limbic and emotional connection with my T. That is what I found so healing about my work with oldT. And it was not something I had to "work" on developing with him it was just "there". I go in circles trying to explain this to others and I get so frustrated because it feels like I'm crazy and this was all in my head and I imagined it and I'm just being difficult by saying that I don't feel this with newT. And it makes me so angry at my oldT because he felt that if I had this connection and attachment to him it means that I can have it with anyone. That is so untrue!

What I need is to know that someone FEELS my stuff, my issues and my hurt. Not that they can digest it on an intellectual level and spit out some theory to me about why it's this way or that way blah blah blah. I need to SEE the emotional reaction of the T to what I'm talking about. New T does roll his eyes occassionally or crack a joke but I don't FEEL it. Actually, I don't feel anything but pain and fear. If I'm not crying from the overwhelming pain I'm terrified of everything and anything.

Tonight I felt very unsafe and I wanted to sit closer to the door of his office. In fact, I was already crying in the waiting room. I tried out the couch near the door but it was so darn uncomfortable I could not stay there. So I moved back to my chair and closed the blinds... too bright and too distracting looking outside. By the time he walked in I was looking down and crying and trying to get a grip on myself so I could talk. He said by the look of your head so down I guess you are not doing too well. I said to him I'm alive that's about all I can say.

I told him I had a really bad week and was doing a lot of crying. He seems to want me to get in touch with my anger at what my oldT did to me. I just cannot do that. Anger is so dangerous. And I just feel more hurt and confused than angry. I did tell him that I was angry at him for not being my oldT. I have already told him I don't like his office (which is a perfectly nice office) because it's not like oldT's office. Everytime I walk in there it is like having to face the abandonment all over again. I realize all over again that I'm forced to be there and not where I want/need to be. I can't help it. I just cannot turn off these feelings like a switch.

So he told me I have to work on me and decide to move on and I can't do it. I told him this and he said I CAN do it but I just don't want to. And so I said I cannot do this and maybe I don't want to but that is just how it is. He said he would accept that I'm not ready to. Again I asked him why he would take me as a patient since I'm not going to be easy and he smiled at that and said I would get a regular appt soon and that he was working on it and that he would offer me an additional one if he can find time in the week (cancellation I guess). This is still so hard for me not having access to therapy when I need it. I told him I was there because I didn't have any place else to go. And I also told him I feel like a freak because I can't find anything out there on the net about this type of situation where a patient is abandoned, turned over to the police and then cut off, banished like they did not exist. How can I not feel like I've done something terrible if my T called the police on me?

Of course he keeps telling me it is nothing to do with me but all to do with the way my old T screwed everything up in the worst possible way. I cannot accept that and I don't know why. It was my fault for not just driving way from the office that day. I ruined everything and I cannot stop blaming myself for how bad things turned out. I made so many wrong choices and decisions.

I was mostly talking to the floor and new T kinda yelled at me that he needed me to look at him and that he needed eye contact. I never had a problem with eye contact with oldT... I LOVED looking at him. We had very strong, intense eye contact and this was part of the right brain healing that I could FEEL happening inside of me. I don't look at newT because he is not oldT and I try to fool myself I guess if I don't actually "see" him I can pretent it's not him. You see how insane I have become? I have never felt so close to absolute "madness" as I have in these past weeks. It's like I'm losing who I was, I'm losing any sense of my identity as a person.

I told newT that I was so sad at losing my therapy and what and who I had become... the new part of me that was taking shape from being in the care of oldT. My sister says that new part of me is now in the deep freeze. I don't agree. I know it's there and if ever I feel it I reject it and have been working really hard to abandon that part of me because I HATE that part of me because that part of me caused my T to reject me. Any reminder or hint of who I was with him I need to kill off because the pain of it is intolerable. I cannot bear it. I asked newT how a person can be in so much pain and still be alive? I cannot even begin to explain to him how much I detest myself for what I allowed to happen to me. I told him if I was just some stupid, uneducated, unmotivated client I would still be there with my T. None of this would have happened. I cannot even go near any thoughts of anything good that happened to me with my oldT because I just break down and fall to pieces.

Today was one year of that session where I told my T that I wished I had grown up with a Dad like him and he looked at me seriously and said "you are". Those were the most powerful words he had ever spoken to me. I don't think if he had ever said I love you it would have been more powerful than those words. During that same session I told him he was awesome and he told me no YOU are awesome. I think I floated around for weeks from that and I can still hear him say those words to me but now they just cause me horrible grief and the realization of all that was lost to me. Taken away from me.

I finally just said to newT that I needed him to call old T and ask him for a few meetings so I can process what happened to us. New T said we would probably not get the meetings. My T would say too much time has passed or offer other excuses. So I told newT that he could either meet with me and settle things peacefully or talk to me in court. NewT seemed pleased that I said this... maybe he thinks this is how I am feeling my anger...? Who knows?? And so he said if I signed a release he would write my oldT a letter requesting my file (which I expressed concern about) and also some "transition" meetings. He said he didn't think oldT would want to meet with him as he would not be like D and sit there like a stone.

So he is going to send a letter and then if he does not hear anything he will follow up with a phone call. I really cannot imagine how oldT can ignore another professional and colleague in his request to help a patient. I really don't want to file a complaint or suit and would rather we work this out amicably and end up in a peaceful resolution. I know it would help me in my future therapy.

NewT is nice and helpful and supportive in some ways. He is the best I could hope for in my area. He is great on paper. I just wish I could FEEL something when I'm in session with him. And I wish I would feel a little bit better after a session. I don't. I just sit in the parking lot and cry then go home and make believe that I care that I'm alive.

So that's the update.
TN