hi all,
I haven't seen my T for 6 days (I know not long but I usually see him twice a week). My last session was incredibly difficult because a few different things collided. One was a very triggering situation with my daughter who told me one of her friends is being abused by her father (more about that in the SI forum). The other was my T's birthday and my attempt to give him a gift for the first time in over five years of working with him. I left overwhelmed, powerless, and feeling so stupid and bad for what I tried to do. I sent T an email about it and then when he hadn't responded the next day I called his office and he picked up the phone. This surprised me so much I hung up and then I was furious that he hadn't contacted me.
My T and I have had some version of this many, many times before. I think I don't matter enough to him because if he did then he would have contacted me because of how upset I was after the session and in my email. He assures me he cares but his schedule was busy and he was willing to talk to me when he picked up the phone (I feel like he had to talk to me because I kept emailing/calling/bugging him). We discussed it in a long phone call on friday and I understood what happened and how him not responding quickly enough made me feel he didn't care.
Since then I've thought a lot about it as well as reading most of the emails we have exchanged over the last 5 years (over a thousand). It is so disheartening how many times we have experienced a similar rupture and how many times I've talked about quitting therapy. I think it may not be possible for me not to feel abandoned or alone when T can't respond to me. At one point my T asked me how long I was going to keep trying to get from my mother something she was unable/unwilling to give me, support, communication, connection. While my T isn't like my mother because he can give them to me during a session, he can't give it to me when I want/need it. So what makes T different. Why don't I give up therapy and work on finding relationships irl that I can count on? What do you think?
Original Post