Kashley...

I know what you are going through. Don't have advice, but do understand.

(((kashley))) I get how it would feel like abandonment, especially from a sort of kid space. Adult part of the brain says, "Of course T deserves a break and it isn't personal against me," but the kid part acts like...well...like my three-year-old does when I have to drop her with the babysitter to attend my sessions. She is feeling I just ditched her for a few hours two days ago, so why am I doing it now again?

I wonder if, despite it feeling absolutely horrible, it is actually a good thing. Well, not good in the sense of how you're experiencing it, but maybe a connecting with what you have been avoiding on instinct for so long, which is experiencing the need, the attachment. I know you know it is there, but at the same time, on some level it is terrifying and/or abhorrent to you (boy, do I get that). I also know it has been something that has been really hard to directly communicate with your T about. I wonder if the (so sorry, I know it hurts) pain and frustration of this experience might help you begin to explore this with T. It is scary as hell, but it was a big relief to confess to my T that these kids feel like the NEED him...and at the same time, it makes ME ill, angry, resistant, anxious, flighty, etc. I'm sure you can imagine how great it feels to T for me to go off on how much self-loathing I have about their positive connection to him, but he takes it all in stride. Anyway, I hope you can talk to your T about it (maybe sort through what that might look like while she's gone?). It might not be spot on, but in the back of my brain, it triggered a sort of feeling like you're connecting with something on a more experiential level than you have before. I could be off-base, but that's what it felt like to me.

Lots of regardless, because I know how yucky it is to feel abandoned. I think the only thing consistently yuckier is when I feel like I somehow "made" T be nice to me, meet my needs, by being too broken or something. Makes me want to be invisible.

(((((KASHLEY)))))

A long break after another break would be really hard for me to endure and I totally understand why you feel the way you do.

quote:

I feel like I'm being hit hard with the reality that I really am alone. And I almost feel like I don't even want to go to my session next week so that I can just stay used to having to deal by myself...because that's how it really is, isn't it? I feel like it is bad that I feel abandoned, because I shouldn't care this much in the first place.

It makes so much sense why you would feel so abandoned. And you are not wrong for feeling like that. You do care and it's okay to care. It sounds like your T has made it very safe to care. And, yes, ultimately our boundaries end and everyone else's begins. But we connect on an emotional level. So you really aren't alone.

Will you have any access to her while she is gone?

(((((((KASHLEY)))))

Thank you guys for the replies.

(((B2W))) I appreciate the support, although I'm sorry you can understand what I'm going through.

((Yaku)) Thank you for sharing your thoughts about this. I think you're probably on to something. And yes, it's definitely the kid parts that feel abandoned - and it's the adult me that feels guilty about it! It feels extra scary at the moment, because I got triggered a lot in my session yesterday and I still kind of feel like I'm in that place, and so even though I have one more session with T, it feels like she's leaving me in this terrifying place in the past. She tried to help me ground and gently get out of that place yesterday, but it really didn't work all that well. And, honestly, some parts of me are always stuck in those places. So I guess it's a little inevitable to feel like T is leaving in the midst of all of this stuff.

I know that this feeling is probably very conducive to my progress in therapy, but for goodness sakes I wish it didn't hurt so badly! And I wish it wasn't so scary to bring up with T. I want to share this with her, but my last session before she leaves is during my lunch hour, so I don't want to stir things up because I have to go straight back to work and also I'll have to sit with whatever happens for at least 3 weeks, maybe more depending on scheduling issues.

But yes, I have felt like something has changed (at least on my end) in our relationship lately. I've actually begun to feel like I'm becoming attached to T after all this time, and so it's stirring up lots of stuff. I think it will make things feel a lot more connected down the road (I've struggled a lot for a long time with feeling very connected to her for any length of time). And yes, I totally get the, feeling like we've made T feel a certain way about us or something like that. That's a hard thing to grapple with.

Thanks, Yaku.

((Liese))

Thank you for your understanding. Yeah, T has made it very safe to care (damn her! ). Unfortunately, no, I won't be able to have any contact with her while she's gone - same as the last couple weeks. If I need to call anyone, I'm supposed to call the back-up T that she set up. I wouldn't call T anyway, because I would never want to disrupt her break, but I think not having the option make me feel even more separated from her, if that makes sense.

I think I always thought of myself as being "exempt" from this kind of relationship pain. I've never gotten so close to someone that anything like this would hurt - and I never thought I would. I guess I wouldn't have recognized that I feel this way without her taking a break, but I just wish there were an easier way to have recognized how I feel about the relationship than having to deal with the pain for a month without being able to really talk about it with T.

Thank you all for your support and understanding. ((hugs))

Hi Kashley,
I just wanted to share with you that this really resonated with me. There was a long period where every time my T went away (and he takes a lot of vacations. He's older and they have grandkids that live a great distance away), I would have to spend one session dealing with my anger and another dealing with my feelings of abandonment. I once actually emailed him when he was ON vacation, that I hated his vacations and hated his family because they got this time with him that I couldn't have.

I know you feel guilty about your feelings because you also understand that your T deserves time away. But here's the thing, feelings just are, we do not choose them, we just have them. You are NOT acting on those feelings in a way which violates your Ts boundaries, such as demanding she no longer goes away, you are only talking about how it feels for you. Your T understands not to take it personally. It's your therapy and it's about your feelings.

One of things we're supposed to learn as kids is that our parents can leave and we can endure their absence and still have the connection when they get back. But if we were not securely connected in the first place, as is the case with childhood trauma, there's no way to experience this.

Think about how distressed a really young child can get about their parents leaving. Humans are tribal and especially in our long ago past, could only survive by staying part of the group, and especially staying in close proximity to caretaker. So there are very few things that feel as threatening to us as abandonment; it's a life and death issue. But a good parent attends to both their upset when they leave, providing reassurance and soothing and attends to their feelings when they get back. Over time, with enough experience, we learn that separation is temporary and does not affect a relationship in the long term.

This is a difficult lesson to learn as a child and it's a real b**** to learn as an adult. Especially since when we address these feelings, it calls up so many memories of real abandonment. And I know it sucks and its hard, but you just have to keep talking about the feelings, so that you can process that it's different now and that your still safe when your T leaves.

And I know it hurts, but try to remember that by opening yourself to this pain, you are also opening yourself to all the good things that come with this connection. Pain and all, I think it's a better way to be.



AG

Hey Kashley -

I just wanted to add, along with everything everyone is saying, "Yes, that's it, me too!"

What you are describing here sounds very much like the disorganized attachment stuff that I am dealing with from an abusive parent.

So, in the order of your post. Yes, that feeling of taking steps backwards is really rough. It feels kinda pointless, kinda hopeless, so frustrating that you are working so hard, only to feel so awful. I struggle with that when I'm in it, but when it lifts, I can see, "Hey, this is how it heals. I'm scooping big bucketfuls of yucky stuff out of my boat. It sure isn't pleasant. It makes me feel really yucky. But this is how I clear this stuff out." I'm so sorry it's so hard. It's so counter-intuitive to turn towards this stuff. To tolerate sitting with it. But this is how it heals.

What you are describing about not wanting to go to therapy is a very familiar thing for me. When my wife travels, I spend the week up to her leaving in a total abandoned 6 year old place. All, don't go, don't go. Crying, sad, devastated. But then, when she's gone, I flip over to the other side (ala my disorganized attachment) and I can't bear to talk to her on the phone when she is away and I have total freak outs when she comes back, partially because I've ignored all those needs/feelings for so long.

**What I've learned is that if I feel safe enough, I will feel my needs in a strong way. If I DO NOT feel safe, then my inner child's instinct is to cut off needs, cut off connection, cut off people. She literally has me chanting, over and over, "This/that/she has nothing to do with me."

This is the abused child - if my mother felt safe enough to me, I could go towards her, and all of my repetitively unanswered needs came to the forefront. If she felt unsafe, I needed to back up, to stay away, to hide.

And the guilt. Yes, yes, and yes. I'm so sorry, Kashley, but it's the same for me. This, I'm understanding, comes from my child place, too. When I was a kid, my needs were too much for others, or run over by others, or not met. My needs made people mad. If people went away, that surely was my fault - I was too much, I asked for too much, I was just plain wrong.

I didn't (and still don't) know how to express my needs to others. They feel terrifying, dangerous, gross, yucky. I loathe them, sometimes.

(Yesterday, in my session after 3.5 weeks of me being away, my T asked me to speak some needs. It was scary, but I was able to do it. Then T pretended to be my wife, and the minute she said, "I" in pretending to be my wife, I was immediately hijacked and near panic attack. This part is so, so hard.)

But when I look at my children, or you look at your pet, you know that they have the right to have needs. You have the right to need your T. That's WONDERFUL that you are feeling attachment to her (even if it feels awful!).

Your T (and my wife) can't stay by us every minute. That sucks, that is hard, that is completely undoing to us sometimes. We are allowed to feel that way. But it helps to know that the truth is (even if our little people don't know it) that we are safe *now*. Even if our T leaves, we are still, actually, safe and connected and loved. It's not like when we were kids. It's safe here, even if it feels terrifying.

I'm thinking of you, cheering for you.

Thank you guys for your wonderful support. It's just been a long day and I'm doing what I can to cope healthily (and safely) tonight. Not going too well so far, but it's okay. I will respond when I can.

Love you all.

(((kashley)))

s and thoughts dear kashley x

Thanks again to you all for helping me feel not so crazy.

((AG)) T has told me nearly every time before she leaves on a break and I'm having a hard time that if I find myself angry that she's leaving in the midst of everything going on that it's completely fine. And she'll tell me how she would probably be angry and used to get angry with her therapist whenever she left. So it helps to know that she's probably expecting, at some point, for something like this to come up, although I'm not aware of any anger. Just sadness and loss. And actually, recognizing that there is a feeling of loss makes me realize that this probably is tapping into some sort of memory, because I know, realistically, that she's not leaving forever and that she'll be back. But it feels like it's a permanent loss.

I think another part of me gets nervous when she's gone for so long because I can't keep track of how she's feeling, what's going on, etc. so that I know what to expect. I know that's a habit from the past, but it almost feels dangerous to not know what's going on with her for so long. But most of it is just plain missing her.

MMM, you made an interesting point about feeling your needs strongly when you feel safe enough with someone. Because I think I do the same thing, and it's possible that that's why it's taken literally years for me to get to this point, because I'm just now starting to trust T a bit more even though I've always known she's trustworthy.

I'm sorry you understand the guilt part. I definitely feel like I've managed to push T away enough that she feels like she needs to take a break. It's no fun. And I know it's *probably* a good thing that I'm feeling attached to T, but I just can't get past how dangerous it feels. It feels like I'm playing with (imaginary) fire. Thanks again. ((hugs))

And thanks to the rest of you as well - (((Draggers))) (((Cat))) (((Starfishy)))

In my last session T kind of challenged me to go out and take some pictures and bring one in next week (I used to go out and take pictures, but I just haven't in a while). I feel pathetic and weak that T knew I'd need to have some sort of assignment to get myself out and about, because it seems like I should be able to just make myself do it on my own. But I'm going to try and go do that today, although thinking of anything having to do with T right now just brings up those abandonment feelings even more strongly, so it's hard to feel motivated to do it.

Thanks for the hugs and support.

Well, I had my last session for 3 weeks yesterday. And, unbelievably, we talked about my attachment to her - and she was okay with it!? I knew that she would be, at least logically, but I still had a ton of fear surrounding the idea of telling her I was attached and needed her.

She honestly seemed quietly thrilled that we were talking about it. The way she spoke of the attachment was like she didn't want to scare it away. It was actually kind of amusing. She was completely understanding of where those feelings of need and hurt and abandonment come from and explained that when I said I felt guilty for feeling those things, she heard an adult part who wasn't understanding a child part. And when I told her how bad it seemed that any connections I had in the past were just fake, she reminded me that I had done what I had to do. There was no condemnation or judgment for being unable to forge real connections with people (and only animals).

The only thing that scared me (because I'm just completely oversensitive to these things) is that she said a couple times that she wants me to get into a group so that she's not the only one I attach to. I completely understand why she wants that, but littler parts heard it as her saying that she didn't want us to be attached to her. I'm trying to not let those comments sour my memory of the rest of the session, but it's a bit hard.

Anyway, I wanted to update. I'm just so relieved that we were able to talk about this before she left so that we both knew how I truly felt about her leaving. It was really nice, for the most part at least.

Thanks for listening. ((hugs))

(((Kashly)))
That's really awesome that you were able to talk about your feelings for her, it was very courageous of you. I am so glad that your Ts response was so steady. I think I would have reacted the same way to her saying she wants you to attach to other people, but since this isn't me I can clearly see that it's about recognizing the reality that no matter how much someone cares for us they can not always be available, sometimes there are other things that need attending to. So it's not about her not wanting you to attach, it's about her wanting to know that you have a robust enough support system so that your needs can be met even when she's not available. It's a real sign of health and humility that she's aware she cannot be everything to you. Hang on to the good stuff and let it carry you through this gap.

AG

Thanks, AG. Even though I said I knew that she didn't mean it the way I took it, seeing your explanation of why she wanted me to attach to others makes me realize that even my own rational explanation was just finding another way to blame myself for feeling the way I do (if anything I just wrote makes sense).

The thing that will stick with me the most is something she said that showed me she understood the weight of what I was telling her. She said that even if her plane drops out of the sky and she doesn't come back - even though she fully intends to come back - she wants me to continue this work with another therapist because it's very important and there's still a ways to go even though we've come a long way already. She has never said anything like that before she's left for a break, so it was odd, unsettling, but comforting at the same time.

I never expected her to be so accepting of all of this.