I have been sitting on this experience for about a month now. I haven't talked with anyone about it because... I don't know... I still feel rather reserved, protective, sad. But I'm going to tell the story, because there has been lots of chatter recently about boundaries, dual relationships, and what others have with their T.

I started seeing "BP" on January 2nd, 2006. I needed a pdoc for meds, because my previous t/pdoc had gone AWOL. (Just disappeared!) I didn't really start doing therapy with her right away, but it eventually developed into that.

There were things about how she ran her practice that really bugged me. Like answering the phone during a session. I had never known anyone to do that. She didn't seem to have a particular treatment modality, but she had a way of listening, remembering and seeing that helped me feel known and accepted.

I trusted her. We connected. She didn't balk at telling me about herself, especially if I asked. I might ask her, "Do you believe in god?" And she would tell me what she thought. Dr. P was herself. She was real. She didn't masquerade as someone or something she wasn't. That was very helpful to me, because my first twenty years were spent submerged in a community that flatly denied what I believed to be real. (Is death real? No. Is my headache real? No. Are these bad feelings real? No.) Through the years, I have needed to do a lot of reality testing, a lot of normalizing.

We had our ups and downs. I have been known to be "difficult." I attached, I raged, I cried, I laughed. It was "good enough."

Then at the end of last summer, she told me that she was going to close her private practice and hoped to move. Her progressive illness was getting worse. One time, I was in the waiting room and Dr. P was running very late. Then my phone rang and it was Dr. P. She was in the parking lot and asked if I could come out to help her. She was walking stiffly and so, so slowly. I carried her stuff and we made it up to her office, but it was obvious that things weren't right. It was really something to see her in such a debilitated and vulnerable state. It blew my mind. This was not the model of stability that was the psychological strength I experienced in her office. I was not surprised, then, when she told me she was going to retire.

And she did retire, on November 15th, 2012 - the anniversary of two different suicide attempts! I grieved that I was losing a t/pdoc. I grieved that I was losing a female parental figure after having lost my mother in March. And I was worried. Worried about her health and wondering what would happen to her. I wanted to stay in touch - at least via Christmas cards and a yearly letter, as I do with another oldT. But would her health allow her to respond? Would I even know if she passed on? I had many thoughts and questions.

I had my final session with her, having finally realized that she wasn't joining my mother. She was still very much on Earth, just an hour away, and still accessible. She wasn't dead. I'd been able to email Dr. P and I thought long and hard about whether I would still do that. I decided that I needed to allow myself (and her) some time to get through the separation. At three months, I sent her a "thinking about you" card. Then at six months, I sent a brief email, asking, "Are you out there?" I didn't want to compose a lengthy email and risk having it fall into a black hole. When she replied, "yes," I said I would send her a long email, and she replied that she would look forward to reading it. She signed the email "B" - her first name.

I did send her a long email, filling her in on things that we'd talked about, things that she knew about me. No response. I worried. Was there something wrong with her? Did she just not care? Was she having computer problems? What? Then one day, a brief response and a suggestion that we meet for lunch. Lunch. Lunch with t/pdoc. Isn't that what half the people on this board would give their eye teeth for? A real world connection with T.

I said okay and we set a date and restaurant. I would drive and pick up "B." Easier that way with her disability. I showed up with an offering of freshly picked sugar snap peas, and we hugged briefly. Then we were off. Lunch was fine. We chatted. She did much of the talking; I'm a good listener. Back in the car, she asked if I had more time and if so, could we run some errands. OK. So I took her by the post office and the bank and fed ex. Then she invited me into her home to introduce me to her new puppy. Of course I had to see the puppy. Frankly, I was grateful for the diversion. While I was playing with the puppy, "B's" phone rang. She talked for a few minutes and then I heard her say, "Well, I've got a girlfriend here." After she hung up, she said, "Did you hear that? Girlfriend."

As I was leaving she asked, "So how was this? Was this too weird for you?" I said no, got in my car and waved good-bye.

I hadn't had lunch with Dr. P; I'd had lunch with "B," someone I only knew about. They were similar people, but not the same. We chatted. She asked me what I'd been doing but didn't ask how I'd been doing. It was not the same level of dedicated interest that exists in a session. It was simply lunch between two acquaintances.

I felt really sad. I felt that I had lost my Dr. P. I wished we'd never gone to lunch.