I had a big issue with my daughter and I went in to my session on Monday afternoon and just talked about it. I talked about how afraid I am for my daughter and how some of her friends have very little parental involvement and goals for the future and how sorry I feel for them. It was one of the few sessions I have had lately where I talked freely. T didn't have much to say but to talk about the difficulty of parenting a teen and I was hoping for some solutions. A few minutes after I left I called T because I realized that one of the things he said made me wonder if he thought I was overreacting to my daughter's behaviour. He answered and he clarified what he meant and said he thought it would be difficult for any parent to deal with and also triggering for me because of my SA. Later that night I had a good talk with my daughter and felt much better.

The next morning I woke up in tears after having a night of awful, confusing dreams. My primary worry was that T would think I was a bad person for judging some of the parents of my daughter's friends so harshly. I feel ashamed about my judgements because I don't really know what they struggle with and I'm not a perfect parent anyway. By the time I saw my T on wednesday I had emailed him my fear that he thought I was judgemental and also decided that this was another example of poor therapeutic fit because I feel like my T doesn't give me feedback when I'm talking so I don't know if he understood what I meant or was thinking who is she to judge etc. It took me a long time to tell him this. I started by telling him that therapy was painful and upsetting no matter what I did. When I didn't talk about my thoughts and feelings I was upset because I 'wasted' the session, or didn't trust my T, or was hiding from my issues. When I did talk like this monday I feel some relief followed by being upset because what I said was "wrong" in some way and would anger/frustrate him or result in my T not liking me. I feel like I'm damned if I talk or if I don't.

I'm also having a difficult time with my sister who is the closest member of my FOO because I told her something about how I felt and what I was planning to do and how she had hurt my feelings and her response was just to say "I don't remember that". Later she called me up and talked to me like I had never said anything about my feelings or our relationship even to the point of discussing travel plans (flights, hotels, cost) to a weekend getaway that I told her I didnt' want to attend because I wouldn't enjoy spending time with that much of our family. It was like I hadn't even spoke and she assumes I will go on the trip and act like I'm fine. I feel invisible in my family or like I'm not even real and I'm sure I felt that way as a child.

So near the end of my session I actually got to the point of telling my T I didn't think we were compatible because I didnt' get feedback from him and I didn't know how he felt about things. He responded by telling me what he thought I was saying about the other parents and how I wasn't judging them except from the point of their children. He told he thought I had little tolerance for people neglecting their children and that was understandable. He said some other stuff and then he started to make his end of session moves and I blurted out "so you are just going to ignore my worries about therapeutic fit so I'm invisible here too". He said he thought he responded by giving me feedback on what I had said on monday and how he felt about it. It still feels like he was avoiding the topic and he's done that before.

I wrote him an email after the session (as usual) telling him my feelings about the session and the therapeutic fit conversation we keep touching on and not having and I thought I had done a good job expressing myself and giving us a place to start the next session. I started to feel better until I got his reply today which basically said "a lot of this email is important and should be discussed but I don't have time to respond now" which is a reasonable and expected response but when I got it I just started crying. I realized that I'm always going to want more from my T than I'm getting. I want him to like me, talk to me, care about me. I want to matter to him and that isn't possible so I wrote him and told him I'm taking a break from therapy because I depend on him too much and I need get to a point where I don't want so much from him.

Since I sent the email I've felt relieved, numb, sad, afraid, and disbelief. My husband thinks a break is a good idea because I've been so upset after my sessions lately. I'm afraid I'm stuck and depending on him more and more. I can't tell him I"m running because I've afraid some of my defences are breaking down and I've been telling him more of what is going one inside me or if I'm making a wise choice because the roller coaster of emotions is wearing me out. Ideas?