Yesterday morning I had my last session with T.
Two months ago I said goodbye to her. That was supposed to be my last session. But at that time I was really angry with her, and my feelings were so overwhelming that I had to stay in hospital almost all December.
I miss her. I started missing her In August, I think. Then she became so absent. I think I was doing some really important things inside at that time, I really felt my inner child for the first time. Some of my inner childs feelings were so wonderful.
I am a preschool teacher, have worked for 20 years with 4-6 year olds. But last fall I started working with 2-4 year olds. They are so great and I don´t know if this change in work woke up my inner child. Children this age are all working on attachment. They really need to attach to their caregivers, more this age than the older ones. They showed me so much love.
In my therapy it was also the right time for my inner child to emerge. Finally I could really trust in someone. I had been „traveling“ with T for 4 years. It wasn´t always easy. It took me a long time to learn to trust her, and with trust came attachment. I found it really confusing and first when I felt those feelings I thought maybe it was love, I thought maybe I loved her like some lesbian love. But with myself I slowly realized that I loved her like I should have loved my mother when I was a baby.
Combining my occupation and my inner work at therapy made me feel my inner child really deeply.
I remember when this infant showed up for the first time. It was during nap-time at work. I was lying there on a mattress, with my blanket, surrounded by my little 2 year olds. Everything was so still and quiet. Most of my little ones where sleeping, others relaxed and where almost falling asleep. Suddenly I felt like I was one of them. I became a 2 year old girl. I felt good and I felt so secure. It was new to me feeling like that… and ahhh… it was wonderful.
After this I could reconnect with this feeling when I wanted to. I often did that when I was going to sleep at night. I encouraged my inner child by listening to lullabies and Celine Dion´s Miracle also helped me connect with my baby feelings. I felt like T was my mum and I was safe and secure for the first time in my life. Sometimes I even suck my thumb. Sometimes I also imagined that I was this babys mother and I stroke her little cheek and told her I loved her.
I told T about this work I was doing inside of myself and I told her I really felt it was harvest time in our therapy. She was glad about that, but I felt something was not right. I felt she was away, she was not really into this with me. She was somehow different than before. She was absent.
I tried to keep up the work with my inner child. I could feel this was something I had to work through. But somehow I felt alone in this work. I felt T was not there anymore.
Some of the babys feelings where wonderful, but soon I realized that this baby was also really hurt, those where the feelings of neglect and abuse from my childhood. And I began acting with T like I did when I was a child in real life. Withdrawal had been my way of coping with a mother who could not attach to me. When I was a child I could feel that my mother did not feel good and now I transfered those feelings on my T. I knew she was not feeling good because recently her friend had died from cancer. But I also told myself her migraine was a sign that she wasn´t well. And I told myself maybe it was because of me, maybe I was too much to handle and she had taken me with her when she quit at the mental ward and began working at the cancer ward at the hospital where she works. I told myself she was overstressed and she was working too much, now there were more patients than before. I could not tell her that my inner child was hurt. I pretended everything was fine with me. Just like I had done with my real mum when I was a child.
Later I said to myself, this is not how therapy works, I have to tell T that I´m not feeling good. It was hard, but one session in September I told her about those hurtful feelings. But she was having migraine and belittled my feelings. Ouch…that hurt…
Next session she said she did not have time for our weekly sessions any longer. We had to meet every other week. I felt my trust in her was fading, but I tried my best to cope despite all this. But it didn´t work very well. I couldn´t sleep, I couldn´t eat and I felt miserable. For almost three months I tried to tell myself I have to thrive on what I have got. But on the 30th of November I collapsed, I could not do it anymore. I was admitted to the psychiatry hospital.
Now I´m trying to build myself up again. It is hard. I haven´t got a new T yet, but next Monday I will meet one. I hope he will be ok.
I was not going to write such a long post… I just wanted to show you the collage-painting I gave to T as a goodbye present. At first I was just going to give her a necklace I made, but the night before our final session I made the painting. It had been developing in my head for some time. It was a really symbolic collage of how I feel about T and how I feel about ending this therapy. I could really feel the passionate feelings release while I was working on it… phew… It felt good… In the morning I had not slept but I felt I was so full of energy after throwing it all on the canvas.
I was not sure I had the courage to give her the painting, it is kind of harsh, but in a funny way. I was scared that she might become angry or hurt. I´m really glad T liked it. With tears in her eyes she said it was wonderful, and she asked me about the symbols in it and we had a good laugh! I´m glad we could have a good final session… I still feel I have a lot of things I want to tell her… I really miss her… but this is the end.
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