Tas
Therapy is about you and your needs not your T's.
He is there for you and willing to work with you. He needs to maintain some objectivity and stance to be able to help you.
You keep cancelling and then saying he doesn't want you.

I don't want the following to sound harsh Tas but if you're fixated on your T you're probably avoiding your own stuff. So perhaps it's more useful to focus on yourself and your own reactions.

I also wonder who you felt "didn't want you" growing up.

I can understand how impossible it sees to get by on 45 min per week and I would certainly struggle to do so. At the end of the day your are an adult Tas and you do have choices on how to manage yourself and care for yourself. There is heaps of support for you here.

But please for your own sake, stop obsessing about your T and start to examine yourself more closely. Strange as it sounds, it's the path to healing.

quote:

Feeling like he doesn't want me is so raw and I can't deal with that emotion. It hits too close to home. Too painful.

When this happens it is not advisable to cancel the next appointment but to go in and tell your T exactly what you wrote above. If it hits too close to home then that is exactly what needs to be examined.

TAS... you can't keep running away from this because... whereever you go... there you are. You can't keep avoiding these things so you may as well begin to address them w/ your T.

TN

Pain is inevitable in the process of growing and healing. Don't try to avoid it. Believe me, the pain is your friend, your guide and your allied in this process though you may not know it feel it yet.

Thank you Green Eyes, True North, Harbour.

I hope each of you have a happy Sunday!

T.

Irish Girl:

I have not talked to him because I have not seen him. He would not allow me to schedule an appointment since I cancelled. He was making me wait intil my next appt. - a week later. He knows that I want him to hold my spot...to come after me, but he won't. So, I am not upset with him...he did state he would fill my appt.-he did warn me.

I understand it is an attachment issue...if I move towards him...I am scared. Then I move away because I am scared. Neither place feels safe. Very confusing. I feel if I can go a couple weeks without any contact...I can gain some control over this...I hope it works.

NO Tas, your method won't work..... the only way is to turn up consistently week in and week out to your appointments and not to cancel, no matter what. Thinking that you have control by cancelling them is just going to hurt more.

Have a fixed and set appointment for 8 weeks in advance, same day, same time and tell your T NOT to let you cancel it no matter what. Tell the secretary that you can never cancel it. Commit to attending every week and take the option of cancelling off the agenda.

Have you thought of seeing him twice per week. When there is limited outside contact - seeing T's more than once a week really helps.

The only way to get through this is consistent and regular TALK therapy. You should read out most of the stuff you write on here as you write fantastic stuff and process really well online.

The more you dance around and evade your T and you be inconsistent - the MORE consistent and boundary oriented your T will become. He has to do this. He is a good T and he is doing what he is supposed to be doing.

You just have to keep going every week no matter how painful it feels. You aren't going to improve by cancelling appointments.

Somedays

SomeDays,

I just want this weird attachment thing to STOP. I am getting desperate and feel if I don't see him...it will help the attachment side of things. I know it is not him.

All these things are being highlighted within and I just want it to stop.

Thank you for your reply.

Happy Sunday!

I do find canceling a week or two helps me. I then know I have the power and control. I am not saying it is this way for everyone, but for me, canceling for a week or two can help me feel more in control and I can then refocus on why I go.

((TAS))

I do think that strict boundaries are good but, on the other hand, I am not getting the feeling that he is making it safe for you to move closer to him - which you need in order to get over the push-pull thing.

quote:

I do find canceling a week or two helps me. I then know I have the power and control. I am not saying it is this way for everyone, but for me, canceling for a week or two can help me feel more in control and I can then refocus on why I go.

Perhaps a difference for me is that the therapist I see never punished me or gave away the slot or anything. I would call and request another appointment and she would say what about the regular time and I would go. She never has made a big deal about it and although I did it about every other week for awhile, it has since lessened and now it is only every couple of months or so and I don't quit like I used to, I just cancel for a week or so.

quote:

ometimes I think of your situation like this-

you used to talk about quitting all the time...
now you talk about cancelling all the time...

IrishGirl has a point. Ugggggghhhh, TAS, your situation is soooo complicated.

quote:

NO Tas, your method won't work..... the only way is to turn up consistently week in and week out to your appointments and not to cancel, no matter what. Thinking that you have control by cancelling them is just going to hurt more.

SD is one smart cookie and she is learning as I am that running away and avoiding T and/or therapy does NOT help anything. In fact, it makes it even worse.

TAS there is something here that you do not understand. In order to heal attachment injuries you MUST attach to someone healthy who will maintain boundaries while allowing you to experience that moving closer to someone is not dangerous. It may feel scary (because it's new and different) but it's not dangerous. I wish I had a dollar for every time my T told me this.

Attachment is part of a child's normal development. You did not have this part, this step of your developmental growth during childhood so you must go back and correct it now and experience attachment now. Yes it will be intense for awhile but that is okay... it will ease over time. In fact, the closer you move towards your T and the more he stands still and accepts and allows it the less intensity you will feel about him. But in the beginning it's new and scary and intense. You just have to understand that this is normal for someone going through these developmental stages.

Think of young children. When they are small they attach to parents and cling to them and don't easily go to strangers. Then they begin to explore the world, checking back with a glance to be sure mom is there. Later they easily go off with friends to school. As they grow they will go off to college and live away for the first time. There is a process of individuation. Think about college students... the freshmen are homesick and come home whenever they can. Sophomores come home less and then juniors and seniors are busy at break time maybe with a job or going on vacation with friends or even spending break with a friend's family. They don't come home as often but are secure that home is there whenever they need it.

This is the closest thing to a therapy relationship with attachment. You won't always feel these intense feelings for your T. But you will always know he is there for you.

Being able to attach (as you have seemed to do with your T) is a sign of health. Some people cannot attach to anyone. Why would you try to fight and avoid and destroy something that is healthy and good for you?

You need to go and keep going consistently. Otherwise you will stay in this hellish limbo place.

Regards
TN

TN,

quote:

In order to heal attachment injuries you MUST attach to someone healthy who will maintain boundaries while allowing you to experience that moving closer to someone is not dangerous. It may feel scary (because it's new and different) but it's not dangerous.

My T isn't married. I don't know if I would have been able to get attached to him if he was. How do you handle your feelings about his wife? I feel important to my T. I'm not sure I'd feel important to him if he was married. Does that make sense?

I guess I'm getting the jitters again. I'm thinking about moving across the country and it's making me want to detach because I feel like I'm the one who is going to lose. I'm 1/200th of his life while he is 1/5th of mine. He probably won't even skip a beat while I will have to do some serious mourning. The feeling very uncomfortable again with the imbalance.

Ugggggghhhhhhhh.

Liese... I guess I see my T as a parental attachment figure not a romantic one. I had no issues with him being married until his wife moved into his office suite in the room next to his. A lot of this anxiety came from bad experiences from my far past and my recent past with oldT and his wife. It has been difficult for me to adjust but my T has been wonderful and consistent. He told me he would protect me and he has. I also can see how I have so much of him for the time I spend with him. He is intensely focused on me and my needs and I think I get some of the best parts of him. I am also coming to terms with the fac that he has a lot of affection for me because he shows it in so many ways. When I need him he is always there and I have needed him more intensely lately due to some health issues I'm dealing with.

I had no idea you were thinking of moving/relocating. Is this something recent? I would imagine it would be very difficult to leave your T as I know you have a good relationship with him.

Hugs
TN

(((TN)))

I'm not sure but I think my T has been alone for a long time. He only took off his wedding ring about 3 years ago though. So for the first part of my therapy, I thought he was married and I obviously coped with it.

BUT, I was not as close with him then as I am now and I think I might be less tempted to reach out to him if on a Friday, for example, if I thought he was home with his wife. Some might say that was a good thing. LOL! I really don't reach out to him more than once or twice a month out of session. Some months not at all.

I just wonder how it would change the dynamic. I don't know how they can have deep feelings for all these patients and have deeper feelings for their family members. I try to imagine how I would feel if I was a therapist and how I would manage all those emotions. It seems like it would be really easy to build a wall and not feel at all.

We moved back home 18 years ago because my Dad's health was declining and I wanted to be with him. He's been gone 6 years now and I feel so less grounded here, except for my T. It was an awful winter. After having lived in the desert and experiencing the sun shining most of the time, it's hard to deal living in a place where our chance of sun is at 56%. I also hate the humidity. So, we are thinking about it. The kids are excited but we're not going to do anything too soon.

It does make me fast forward, though, to the end of my relationship with my T and that has caused some problems with me detaching. He said that we can keep in touch by phone (and pointed to his office phone LOL!) but I know it will never be the same and it really means the end of the relationship.

He is the only reason I wouldn't move and it just doesn't seem like a good enough reason, as much as I am attached to him.

I read a book written by a therapist who wrote about an ending with a long-term client. The client was moving too. The client wanted to see the therapist's garden before she left and the therapist let her.

I keep thinking of things I'd like to ask my T. I'd like to see his house. I want to go whale watching with him. (I know that's a strange one.) I wonder if I'll have the guts to ask.

Sorry to hijack.