Kmay big hugs.
You are going through a profound mourning and grief. Along with Feeling the devastating loss of your T you might be grieving earlier losses as well. It's so easy for past and present to become entangled.

I wish I had a crystal ball for you. Grief takes as long as it needs to take and cycling round and round is normal.

It will end though. Don't forget that xx

Hi Kmay,
My old T changed jobs at very short notice 18 months ago. I had only two weeks notice tha the was leaving and completly fell apart. I had a tempory T who I knew was also leaving for 3 months and then started with my current T 15 months ago. I talked extensively with both of them about old T and my felings about the sudden ending. Both were great and had no problem with me talking about it as much as I felt I needed.
Now his name comes up occasionally with newT, but in a different way. usually in reference to something we had discussed od some therapy technique rather than he himself.
I love my new T and have settled down and moved on. It was not easy and for a long time therapy was just about recovering from losing old T rather than moving on with other issues.

Now of course new T is pregnant, but I will have only a month breaka nd then continue to see her privatly. i have chosen this even though I could change T and continue with free therapy. I do not want to change again.

I feel I lost a year in my progress with the change, but now I am over it and moving forward with a great new T.
It will be ok!

((((KMAY))))

Sending hugs.

I'm sorry you feel bad. I don't have any wisdom but understand how complicated therapy can become.
I hope you find an answer.

(((((((Kmay)))))))) I went to quote the parts of your post that I really relate to and realized it's pretty much the entire thing! Like you, I'm on the roller coaster of feeling strong one moment and the next feeling like the world is going to end.

Like you, when I saw new T I would be a complete mess for 4 or 5 days, then be okay for a couple days and then the next session would stir it all up again. For me I was just too exhausted to deal with the ups and downs. Or I guess it's more like every time I hit the bad moments it seemed I was less and less able to handle it. So that's why I took a break from therapy.

I thought if I wasn't in therapy and things weren't being stirred up all the time, my feelings of pain and fear would gradually subside as I grieved the loss of old T. But that isn't what happened so far. I'm still having a few good days, then a few really bad days that feel almost too much for any person to stand. I'm still exhausted, still anxious (and getting more so every day), and still missing my T so much it physically hurts. I think this is just like any other grief, where it ebbs and flows like the tide... this is just a particularly intense and scary grief since all the attachment stuff is involved. Or at least that's my theory. Anyways, I am starting to look for a new T because I think if I'm going to have the up and downs either way, I'd rather have more support than less.

Anyways, I'm sorry to go on about myself on your thread. I just wanted you to know I relate completely to what you're going through. Your questions are pretty much the same as all of mine. Obviously only you know what is best for you, but it really did sound like your new T is really solid and that her support did feel reassuring.

If you're not ready to cut off contact with old T, do you think it might help you at all to write the letter that new T is recommending and not send it? Or you could write it and burn it or bury it or whatever. I did that and it helped to just get it out a bit. And I've also been bringing up my T's picture on her website and saying all the things I wish I could say. It is kind of fun to rage at her And it does make me feel a bit better.

Hang in there, friend. Sending you lots of hugs.

Orbit

I'm sorry to hear about the dreams about old T and the ups and downs. I'm sorry to hear that you are struggling and in pain. I hope this gets easier for you soon. My thoughts are with you!

I ache for my former T also. Tears are streaming down my face as I read your posts. I've had two dreams of my former T this week. I also saw her briefly when I was at the clinic for other business. She looked so beautiful and I wanted to hug her, but I knew I could only say a couple of quick things and that was it. She wasn't in the greatest of moods and was somewhat cold and distant, which kind of hurt a bit. I miss her. I made an appt. with my new T for a week and a half from now. Hopefully I can process some of this with new T soon.

I agree with what Poppet says. I love my new T and I am attached to her and she is the best thing that came along in my life. She is a better T for me and I am glad that I have her in my life - better than my oldT. It can get better, way better for all of you.

just sending some hugs and hope the good days come soon

puppet

Friends,
Thank you very much for your support. I will come back and write more when I am feeling better. Just wanted to say thanks

quote:

Because we had no termination session and b/c it ended abruptly right after I had revealed some deep traumas, that I need closure. She thinks I should send her an email with everything that I feel and think and then ask her to not contact me anymore at all. I don't think I can do that
I am just so tired of this. Howcome sometimes I feel normal and then sometimes I feel like I am on the edge of completely losing it?

kmay... two years ago I could have written almost the exact same things... and I probably did. I was terminated abruptly and harshly and for a year did not have any closure or an ethical termination session with my oldT. He refused to communicate with me. When I began to see my current T he suggested that I write a letter to oldT telling him exactly what I thought happened and anything else I wanted to say. I wrote a 4 page letter and showed it to current T. He encouraged me to send it to oldT in the mail. At first his idea was just to have me put down on paper my thoughts and feelings thinking it would be helpful, but not to send it. My current T only knew me a few weeks when he suggested I do this and when he read the letter he said it was phenomenal and told me to mail it. I did. I was anxious for weeks after that but oldT never acknowledged nor responded to it.

I worked with my T for a year to process the trauma of that abandonment. Many times I felt absolutely crazy and like I was hanging on to my sanity by a slim thread. I believe the only reason I made it through was having my T to hold onto. He was the one spot of sanity in my world that turned upside down and became painfully intolerable. I grew stronger over that year and understood (with the held of my T and a dear friend) what had happened with oldT. Only when I was strong enough did my T push for a meeting of closure with oldT. We had to threaten him with bringing him in front of the licensing board so he finally agreed to meet in my T's office. That was when I read him a 14 page letter that I wrote telling him exactly what I thought about what he did to me and what had happened to me in that year of trauma, depression and grief. It was a very hard session and even though I cried hard during the weeks following that session, I do believe that it was the beginning of the end of the grieving process and I began to feel sane again. I saw my T twice a week for a year and worked my butt off in therapy trying to get past this and develop a new T relationship... a healthy one with good boundaries with a T who totally understood the damage that was done to me. So I would say that the worst of the trauma passed in a bit over a year.

I think your new T is giving you very good advice. Write the letter and put all your feelings in it. I also felt that because I had told oldT of some trauma that it made him run from me. I was too repulsive to treat. And I had JUST admitted to him that I finally stop fearing that he would abandon me and then two months later he did just that! I was convinced it was because I finally allowed him to know all of me that he had to get rid of me.

The truth is that he was a coward and he was running from his feelings for me and because he was incompetent to treat trauma and to engage in deep psychodynamic therapy with a patient. This was not about me at all. It was about him. But of course it was easier and more convenient for him to blame me... the crazy patient.

You will heal kmay and you will eventually stop grieving. Your new T will help you with this. The only way past this is through it. I wish I had an easier solution for you. Just know that you are having perfectly normal reactions to the situation you suffered through. Keep posting here too. YOu need the support and it will help.

Hugs
TN

TN,

Thank you for sharing that with me.
I was wondering...did your T ever mention about having the closure session with old T before he felt you were strong enough? I ask b/c my new T had mentioned something about that when we first met and I think she saw the look on my face and wished she hadn't said it. I think it would be hard for me to tell her more and more about what happened if I always knew there was this lingering dreadful day coming when I might have to face old T again. So I was just curious.

I ended up printing the "unvelievalbe" thread that I wrote here and brining it to her to read. I just felt like it really expressed my feelings in a way that I did not have the energy to explain to her on Tuesday.

I go back and forth between my feelings about what happened with old T. The rational part of me knows that what happened was just a big messy ending to a long relationship that had no boundaries. New T told me after some things that I shared with her, that old T has a problem taking responsiblity or any blame for anything. The rational part of me really sees that when I think about it. The other part of me has me convinced that she was just waiting for the opportunity to get rid of me. "Good riddens to bad rubbish" plays in my head over and over, especially since it happened so quickly after I opened up the toxic part of me to her

I have not written an email yet. I can't do it yet. Even if I am not going to send it to her. I just can't do it right now.

Thank you for all your support TN. Alot of what you say really resignates with me and helps me to see things in a different light and I appreciate that so much.

And thank you to all my supportive friends. I would not be in a good place without you!

Thanks Cat

quote:

I was wondering...did your T ever mention about having the closure session with old T before he felt you were strong enough? I ask b/c my new T had mentioned something about that when we first met and I think she saw the look on my face and wished she hadn't said it. I think it would be hard for me to tell her more and more about what happened if I always knew there was this lingering dreadful day coming when I might have to face old T again. So I was just curious.

Hi kmay... I just realized how misleading what I wrote was about my T and meeting with oldT. "I" was the one who wanted the meeting with oldT. I wanted it immediately when I started with my current T, perhaps thinking that somehow things could be patched up or fixed in some way that I could still at least bring my son back for HIS therapy (my son was also a patient of oldT). But my T kept delaying it and coming up with excuses or distractions and I see now that he was delaying it so I could face oldT from a position of strength. So that I would be at a point where I didn't want to or need to try to go back to him. I have to say that in the beginning of my treatment with my current T I told him I would walk through fire or crawl through broken glass to get back to oldT if I could and that I hated him for not being oldT. Working with me in those early days was VERY difficult and my T hung in there very calmly with me (bless him).

And also when I say it was a year before my T "pushed" for the meeting with oldT... he was pushing OLD T not me for the meeting. OldT was such a coward he kept running from me and would not even reply to my T with a Treatment Summary for Continuation of Treatment. It took me hiring a lawyer to get my own belongings back and my insurance payments straighten out because oldT would not communicate with me.

I hope that clears this up for you. I do think that my T was VERY wise to have me wait because then I was ready to face him and be strong and to know and understand that there was nothing wrong that I did but it was his incompetence that destroyed everything. I also, by then, had a strong enough attachment to my current T that I used to get me through this VERY traumatic session/meeting with oldT. That meant everything.

In fact, I told my T that by the time we had that meeting with oldT and I read him the 14 page letter that I had written detailing all the abuse and hurt and pain and trauma he put me through, I was more concerned that my T would be proud of me and that I would not do anything during the session that would hurt my current T and our new relationship.

So while I think you should have that session of closure, it should probably wait until you have a good solid working relationship with a new T and until you are able to process some of the trauma attached to the ending of the other T relationship.

Hugs
TN

(Kmay) I'm so sorry about what happened with oldT. It was a huge gift to oldT that you trusted enough and risked opening up to her. T should respect and honor that gift as well as your precious feelings and being. You deserve that in your life now.
It hasn't been that long since you and oldT split, and it was pretty traumatic and messed up. Your reactions sound really normal and healthy to me. You are trying to sort it all out emotionally. It can take awhile and be pretty intense - at least for me it has been. I have also learned some tough lessons - I wont be vullnerable to being disrespected and blamed like that again. That said, there 's always a longing for the fantasy that creeps out sometimes, or the deep sense of loss.
Funny thing is, its oldTs loss - that she couldn't accept your gift.
Keep trusting yourself. You are a beautiful being going through something profound. Your wisdom and beauty show in your posts. HugsKmay xoxo

quote:

Keep trusting yourself. You are a beautiful being going through something profound. Your wisdom and beauty show in your posts.

Ahhh Katiedid,
Thank you so much
That means a lot.

TN,
Aaahh yes, makes more sense. Thank you. In my first meeting with T, when she was explaining how she is familiar with patients who have been through similar situations as mine with previous T's, she was basically giving a summary of the situation. She said that we need to process and umderstand what happened and that eventually I need closure and that may mean a closure session with old T
She probably saw the look of horror on my face and decided it bast to not mention it again for now.

Anyways, we are working through it, slowly.

Thanks for the clarification,