I get the feelings of abandonment, but I don't think he was lying to you about Christian counselors not typically being carried by insurance providers. I think its entirely possible that has been his experience with insurance providers. So while it may not be a general truth applicable to all christian counselors, I think it could be HIS truth. Hopefully that makes sense.

Sorry you are feeling abandoned right now. Honestly, I don't know that there is any worse feeling than that so my heart goes out to you. We are here for you.

Yaku

I can totally understand your feelings and it sounds like intellectually you do see the whole picture. I can say from my own experience that it is very very painful when a T that I am very vulnerable and attached to is unclear on what they have to give and what they don't have to give it cuts to the core.

I am guessing that because you came off as sort of relaxed about him taking family time and that you didn't really want him to cut into that that he took that as a cue that it wouldn't be as big a deal to you as ultimately it is. Does that make sense? I know I have done that with Ts. I say "only call back if you have the time" and then if they did't I was in agony. (I say WAS because currently I am not seeing a T who I have such strong feelings toward) But I remember when I did how desparate I'd feel over what SEEMED like the most minor thing. Now, I am not saying that this is minor. I am saying that to him it may have seemed that way in the sense that he may have felt that you were more assured about your relationship with him. Also, he may have gotten more busy than expected. Who knows maybe he had a fight with his wife. I mean it's hard to say. At any rate I think he needs to think about what he says he can and can't do because it only hurts his clients to say one thing and then do another. The T I see now is very clear about what she can and can't do so I am not left hanging out to dry when I think she may be available when she is not.

Also aside from all of that I am sure this is kicking up your past some how. Maybe your experience as a kid of being ignored, discounted, told you were unimportant etc. (those are guesses) I see you doing what I have done in the past too. You are reading into what he thinks. That you are annoying or whatever. There's a great possibility that he does not see you that way. Just the fact that he offered to text you or call on vacation says something about his feelings for you. Most Ts take total breaks if you know what I mean. Trust me he cares about you.

Jo

Thanks, LG and Jo.

I actually outright told him both in session and via text that I would be more demanding this week about contact (texting), even though I declined the call.

So, because I LOVE pain, I sent him another long text about how I was feeling, about some memories surfacing for Little Yaku around these abandonment feelings.

I told him I feel (metaphorically) like she's been reaching her hand out to him all week and her arm is aching and trembling from the fact that no one has taken her hand and supported her, because he has only replied to me twice and left a lot of stuff unresolved. Poor T.

I also compared how I was feeling to being left at school. Basically, probably around the time of my mom's relationship with that horrible guy, and when my sisters got taken away to live with their dad, and my mom had her breakdown...well, pretty much on a semi-regular basis until I was allowed to walk home in 4th grade, my mom would just not wake up or forget me at school on her days to pick me up. She has always worked nights playing piano. So, I would be the last kid there, with all the other ones picked up...even the kids in older grades who got out like 1.5 hours later than I did, sometimes. And I felt, I guess, scared and alone and confused about what I should do. If I went in the office and she showed up when I was in there, she might drive away thinking I got home some other way or went somewhere without asking and get really mad. And, it was so embarrassing to have to repeatedly ask the office staff to help me call home and wake her up. It was humiliating for the principal and vice principal and secretary and whatever teachers were there in the office or teachers and parents who saw me waiting outside so late to know I was just "leftovers." And sometimes she wouldn't even pick up.

When she did come, she would never say sorry, just take me to 7-11 for a treat and then home and I don't remember even interacting with her other than her giving me a dollar to go get a treat...like Lik-M-Aid or something. And I would go home and do my homework and whatever else I did (I really can't remember). I mean, it wasn't like every week (plus, she only picked me up 1-2 days per week) or something, but often enough that I can't remember the individual instances, just this repeated, unpredictable occurrence from Kindergarten through 3rd grade. And that is how I'm feeling now with T not responding to me at all when he said he would have time to and I wasn't being abandoned. So, I texted him that I just need to know what to expect, because I will get the kid another ride home and I will tell her to put her arm down for now and rest a bit, otherwise she will keep waiting and straining for him. I couldn't help telling him (a much more condensed) version of these things. She wouldn't let herself not be heard. And I don't remember ever being angry, just sad and confused. And it is the same with T...just sad and confused about him right now.

...and you know what I did tonight, when I still didn't hear back?

****FOOD TRIGGERS****
I went down to the 7-11 next door and bought some sourdough chips and some Cherry Garcia ice cream and treated myself. And it wasn't until just now getting ready for bed that I remembered the 7-11 bribes as related to this story.
****END TRIGGERS****

And, yeah, boohoo, this is a sad story. But honestly, who f---ing cares? So, I was left at school? So I had more of a relationship with each of my teachers (90% of my elementary age memories are interactions with teachers) than with my parents? So what? What is so f---ing traumatic about all of that which has this little girl STILL sitting on the front steps of that school (like I can F---ing feel the steps and the railings that I played on and see the bushes next to them and see the look on the secretary's face when I finally gave in to going into the office to call, because it was "that girl again.")? Is that really so bad that my T not texting me back to say he's there for me should strand me in such a place? Is it bad enough to make me hear her little voice crying out to T, "Where'd you go? I thought you were coming to get me!" I just want to go back to NOT caring about any people other than the bare minimum required to get by in this world...counting on anyone for anything is too painful for me right now.

So, I've resolved I won't text him again until I hear back that it's what he ACTUALLY wants or until Sunday night if I haven't heard when my appointment is going to be. I'd like to punish him by just no-showing if he doesn't text me with the schedule by Sunday night. For all I know, I don't even have an appointment. I'm drifting here. Can't he tell that someone like me needs more stability than he's offering? And, it's my fault, because I am just trying to be big and grown up and mature and accept being flaked on (because it is what I am used to), but I have heard her tell me a few times now, "But I'm NOT big!" I guess I should listen... I feel like my inner teenager, who had to learn how to raise my little sisters and brother so young, has been taking care of this little one. And she finally gave into T and say, "OK, I trust YOU to take care of her, so I can take a break finally," and he is BLOWING it.


I feel like I'm losing it a bit here. More blanking today and then I had to take a two hour nap when H got home, because I could barely keep myself conscious. F--- therapy. That's how I feel right now.

I so feel for the little you sitting on the school steps. How sad, and lonely and left you must feel/have felt.
(((Yaku))))) I hope your T starts responding faster and be back soon, you need him. I am glad though that this break with him is bringing up all this well buried stuff, painful though it is, because you can now work on it and heal it. Awful though that process can be.

You can always ask him to try again to be on the insurance providers list?

((((((((((Yaku)))))))))) Those memories of not being picked up ARE terribly sad and traumatic. FWIW I don't think you are overreacting, you're seeing really clearly where this is coming from, and I wish very much that your T would hear you better. I could have written a lot of what you wrote. I was "forgotten" a lot, too, also by my mother...you describe it so well...I also can only remember a few specific instances with details because it happened so often that it seemed "normal". And I remember those looks from the teachers at school, church, wherever I was forgotten. Anyway I just wanted to say, I think you know yourself really well and are very brave to keep putting this out there to your T, who obviously, for whatever reason, isn't "getting" it, isn't hearing you. I'm so sorry about that and sorry that it's triggering those awful feelings of abandonment yet again. I wish I could tell you what the solution is...all I know is, I've had a couple of T's whose behavior triggered feelings of how I used to be treated also, and it wasn't able to be worked out so that I could keep seeing them...and I ended up learning a lot from that, too...but I hope you can work it out with your T...and whether you can or not, we will be here for you...keep talking about how your little girl is feeling, she is VERY important and DOES need to be heard.

Many hugs,
SG

Thanks for the support. (((Sadly))) (((SG)))

I'm sure he will have some reason for not contacting me. Maybe he thought me saying, "No, don't worry about a phone call, spend time with your family," meant texts too, even though I tried to be clear otherwise. And I will forgive him without even blinking an eye...

I get, objectively, it's pretty horrible to forget your young, vulnerable kid for long periods so often. If H or I did that even one single time to Boo when she was 5-9 years old, we'd probably feel like the world's worst parents. Yet, it happened to me probably dozens of times and I can't really feel much about it. Like, I remember being confused and scared and embarrassed, but the only reason I know it was really so bad for me is that I feel this way now with T and it is very intense, but I don't remember how intense it was back then. More dissociation bull, I guess. Sorry for all the pseudo-cursing. Teen stuff, I think. I keep remembering the look on the secretary's face. She looked kind of like Linda (?), the deaf woman on Sesame Street. She always seemed to be irritated with me for coming in there and asking to use the phone. I HATED having to do that. I always felt as if *I* had done something wrong.

You know what I fantasized about last night? I fantasized about taking T for a session at my old elementary school (we meet at night, so no one would be there). I thought of sitting, waiting on those front steps for a bit, then having him come up the stairs and sit next to me. Then, putting his arm around me and saying he is so sorry for being late and validating my feelings: "I'm so sorry I'm late. You must have thought I forgot about you. I'm sure that was really scary." And me telling him how sad and embarrassed I was to be left behind and rather than getting angry, upset and defensive, just being comforting, just staying there with me on the steps until I felt like I could trust that he cares, that he didn't forget and he really wished he had made it on time. Then, get in the car together and go back to his office (only like 10 minutes away without traffic) and have a whole session after that...OK that last part especially would be a lot to ask. T spent his late childhood and teens in the same city I grew up in from 3-18, so when I describe places that things happened to me, he can always imagine it so well. Maybe we can do all this through visualization without having to go there...but I still wish I could have him go do this with me.

Instead, I am panicking, because of his usual pattern of things, that he will say that I should be reaching out to God in these situations and I will hear, "Don't reach out to ME," although he says that's not what he means.

I don't know how to reconcile my kids wanting him so badly with my adults feeling like he isn't treating them how I need him to in order for all of me to be able to respond safely right now...

((((((((Yaku))))))))

yaku how painful

The truth is your little yaku needs you. Your T can't be the one for her. I know that is so painful. I learned that the most hard and painful way possible. My T left. I realized that it (my pain and abuse and inner children) was left to me alone and I am still in grief over it. I have a new T but we don't go there. She talks about the smaller parts inside of me but I don't see her nor do I want her to rescue my inner children in pain. It is the most painful realization a person can face. The truth is when we do this. When we want someone else to take care of the small child pain inside of us it is all about the fact that we are avoiding the pain ourselves. It is the only way to heal is for the person in recovery to go through the pain rather than have someone else go through it for us. I wish I could articulate this better. I had a T I was so attached to. I wanted so badly for her to scoop me up and save me from all the pain and I believed she could. The cold hard truth is that is is impossible. And I bet you even get that intellectually. But the trick is believing it to the core of your being. And it makes sense that people find it impossible to do until some catastrophic event like their T retiring (as happened to me) because the grief is crushing. It leaves you wondering why you should take one more breath. But the truth is if you can get past it you will be free from all this suffering of insecurity. I hesitate to even write this and maybe will start a new thread on my experience but I see so many here trapped in that horrible pain. Being abused as a child is one of the most painful things to overcome. It takes you on a trail like no other. A trail that only the forced will walk.

Jo

((((Butterfly)))) Thanks for the hugs.

Jo - Yeah, intellectually, I kind of get that...but, the kids won't accept it (like, uncontrollable tantrums inside every time I make myself face that idea or the idea of them growing up or anything like that). I still feel like, with this attachment stuff, there is SOME stuff T can do, just through receiving my hurt and offering appropriate responses to it, to at least get the kids to the point where they can feel it's safe and OK to even have needs for other people in the first place. When the kids are in tantrum mode and feel like it will never matter, protector parts go, "Then what's the f---ing point?!" and try to lock them back up, quarantine them for the good of the whole system. And, that is literally what I did from around 20 to 30, because I decided I couldn't be an adult with their feelings and voices surfacing so often, so I pushed them back so hard that it took A LOT of pretty triggering trauma, and forcing myself to talk to someone (T) honestly about it, for them to pop out again. Sometimes I think I was better the way I was managing before...

Yeah after I wrote that I realized that perhaps that was unique to my recovery. I can see what you are saying Yaku. I now have a T who I see as a witness to my pain. But she is not replacing anything I didn't get if that makes sense. I wanted my old T to save me completely. i really thought that if I acted right she'd adopt me. When she left I had to face it all. My new T gets what happened with my old T and she knows not to be too mothering. I miss it but it's better for me. Though she is very supportive and caring.

Jo

Jo - I'm glad you've found a therapeutic relationship that is working for you. I hope I can make my existing one work or deal with the devastation of finding another, and not just give up on the whole thing like I am wanting to.

...

So, now I've gone from feeling abandoned to the even more horrible possibility that something is really wrong. I'm worrying someone in his family got hurt or ill or T himself is hurt or sick or had a car accident on his long drive and I'll never see him again. Talking to my other-mes: "Seriously, Kiddos, calm down and knock it off already!"

You want to know something funny that just popped into my head right now...? In 1989, when we had the Loma Prieta earthquake out here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Loma_Prieta_earthquake), I was eight, almost nine years old. This is a memory that I didn't even realize was there, because I always think of a different, unrelated memory of DURING the quake, but I don't think I've thought of the aftermath of it since it actually happened. Weird, because they mark anniversaries of these sort of things and the World Series reminds me of it every year, but I don't recall ever remembering this before...

Anyway, I was with my paternal grandma, because I often stayed with her for the weekend (I think it was a Friday). My mom was working across the bay and supposed to be driving across the bridge that collapsed at some point that evening. I remember everyone being frantic about getting a hold of her and relieved that she was OK. I kind of "participated" in that "I hope Mom is OK" scenario, because that was how I was supposed to feel, but I remember not really feeling anything. I wasn't worried about losing her or especially relieved when I heard she hadn't been on the bridge. What kind of messed up kid was I? I remember being more worried (though not much) about my dad, because worked as a cook at a sports bar at the time, so he was around a lot of knives and glass.

My mom has had a couple of very bad car accidents and while I feel horrible and worried for my family, I don't feel...scared to lose her? I know I would be sad, but maybe more along the lines of upset and scared to lose the opportunity to try to have some sort of relationship with her, to be a better person by connecting with her despite her unsafety. Does that make me an awful person?

Throughout my life, even during childhood, there have been times I've gone months or almost a year without hearing anything about what my dad is doing, but I've never worried that he might die or be hurt. My mom is less out of contact, because I have so many siblings who still live with her, but when I don't hear from her for a month, I don't think, "I hope Mom is OK!" However, not hearing from T for a few days while he's traveling...I am worried. This is so ridiculous! Did I really not attach almost at all to EITHER of my parents? How is it that I am more attached to a man who I have known for less than a year and only been in therapy with for nine months can mean more to me than relationships that have lasted more than 30 years? Is something wrong with me?

I don't know but I know I was more upset when my old T left me than when my Dad died last summer. Strange huh?

Well, at least I'm not alone. Thanks, Jo. I'm sorry about your Dad.

Thanks but the truth is as the years go on I will forget about my old T (already am) and I still think of my Dad. After all I knew him all of my life.

((Yaku)) Just identifying even more with the things you are saying...no real feelings for my mother, no memories of ever feeling close or happy with her...but lots of fear and even some rage, but disconnected from specific events...so no, I don't think you are horrible at all...relationships, connection, and attachment take WORK, even with our children, you know that...they don't just "happen"...and it sounds like your mother didn't do the work of cultivating that attachment relationship with you...just like mine didn't...in fact, my mother at times did just the reverse, worse than neglect, she fed me resentment and anger...very confusing to that little girl...my T often asks, "What does a little girl do with that?"...and the truth is, I'm still trying to figure out what I did with it.

I can also very strongly relate to the fantasy you had about your T...kind of re-enacting the trauma, only with a different ending...I have had those EXACT same fantasies about my own T's (and other people) lots and lots of them. I really appreciate your talking about those so I don't feel so alone in them.

And Jo, thank you for your response to this. What you are saying sounds a LOT like what AG says about how she had to face that her T could not make the abuse not have happened. Your explanation is helping me understand a little bit better where I need to go in my own therapy - so thank you very much - and welcome back, by the way.

Hugs to all,
SG

Thanks again, Jo and SG.

So, I finally heard back from T. He said, "I'm still here...still listening. You're not abandoned." It would have been really sweet and well received, if not for two things:

1. It's woefully late, after a couple of days of falling apart.

2. It's an EXACT repeat of one of the texts he sent me a couple of days ago, so it's like he put no thought into it and it felt like, "What's the quickest way to shut this kid up?"




So, I told him that I could not "see" listening through the medium of texting, only response and nonresponse. And that due to where I was at with all the things happening this week, I have a lot of memories and other stuff surfacing and I can't do just being heard right now without freaking out, so I'm going to withdraw for safety. I hope he heard all of that as about me and what I am capable of dealing with and not me judging him. I do think he should have been clearer on what was available to me during this break, but other than that, it's not as if he's wrong to take a vacation and be with his family. If I stay with him, I need to make it clear that, he needs to tell me as much in advance as possible (at the BEGINNING of my session at the very latest) when my schedule is getting changed on me, so we can process my fear on it DURING a session...and he needs to be realistic and up front about what level of contact he can manage with me and be sure what I have understood is what he actually meant. If not for the insurance stuff and worrying about actually leaving him, I don't think all this would have gone so badly.

I hate that I will show up at my next session, most likely, completely disconnected from him...but, I have to take responsibility for keeping myself safe in whatever way I can manage right now, I think...and right now, it is imagining walking into his office Monday or Tuesday (if I get a session) and telling him to start the termination process. I don't think I'll do that, but this amount of pain and fear just related to trusting someone is impossible for me right now.

He has never specifically said I have to ask for a reply, but I assume that when I NEED one, I should ask. When I do ask for a reply, he usually does, but the time frame might be ten minutes or nearly two days (at which point, other stuff has come up). His phone call policy is 24 hours, but I will NEVER call him. Just can't. And sometimes, I don't say, "I need a response," but I figure it is implied, because I am asking a specific question of him...and he just ignores it until I have to ask again (this happened with the driving safety stuff). Having to ask multiple times is really triggering to me, because I start to feel like I'm pathetic, begging for attention I don't deserve.

Anyway, I think the problem is that he sometimes just does reply even when I don't ask and don't expect it (and then I feel guilty like he thinks I am expecting a reply), and wonder why other times he just ignores me for days at a time. I think what you are saying would be better, that he ALWAYS does not reply to me unless I ask, would be better. I'm not sure if he would want to be limited in that way, but if the kids know what to expect, they will know how to get their needs met, I think. I just need him to have a consistent approach that I can count on and he doesn't seem to like to give one. I don't know if it's a learning thing, where I should "know" he cares, whether or not he responds consistently or if he is just WANTS to take on more than he CAN. He genuinely seems to want to communicate with me a lot, but he obviously can't do it, so I'd rather he just say, "Here is exactly what I feel capable of."