I find myself sorting through a lot of feelings so I wanted to post about what's going on in an effort to understand it.
We dropped my older daughter off at college for the first time last weekend. It went really well. There were lots of emotions, both excitement and sadness at the change but I realized in talking it over with my T on Tuesday that it all flowed. I didn't get scared of how I was feeling, get overwhelmed for how I was feeling and even better, didn't castigate myself for how I was feeling. All things that would have happened even a short time ago. So it was really a good chance to see some of my growth.
But we also talked about how my daughter going off to college is paralleling what I'm experiencing with thinking about leaving therapy (home) and it's bringing some stuff up. That her leaving home is a good thing even if its hard and that knowing she needs to go isn't the same thing as wanting her to go. Just the same way that my T wanting me to be able to leave isn't about wanting to get rid of me; it's about wanting me to go live a full life.
But I realized that in the case of my daughter and I leaving will lead to a change in our relationship where the power will balance out and change into an adult relationship between equals where she'll be able to know me better. I think unconsciously I've been expecting that to happen with my T; that as I get better, the theraputic boundaries would magically disappear and I'd finally be allowed to know him better. Making that connection make me feel better about expecting it because it is a natural progression but as we all know there's nothing natural about the theraputic relationship.
I've had to face that my relationship with my T can't undergo the same kind of evolution. That my leaving home will mean letting go also. When I realized that I told him it really sucked! Which he was nice enough to agree with.
As I've continued to think about it, I've realized that another thing I need to learn about intimacy and being close is how to say goodbye while not shutting down or devaluing the relationship. But that means that I'll have to feel the sadness of saying goodbye. The connection will be intact and I know that my T is a part of me in a way I couldn't remove even if I wanted to.
I've also been reading a book on working with and healing long-term trauma victims and as they've described the factors of severity, it's been bringing it home in a new way just how bad my childhood was. In some ways, now that I've worked past all the fear of my feelings, I can finally come to grips with just how bad it was and how sad it is, so I am once again grieving.
And last but not least, I realized that I have been using a lot of my avoidance behaviors this week so I called a very wise friend of mine to talk about how I was feeling. As usual, a lot of the grief feels like it's about my T, but I have a pretty good gut feel now for when its really about my past. In talking to my friend, I realized that being able to be present and with my daughter in dropping her off for school and letting her see both my excitement and sadness, I was with her in a way my parents weren't when I went through this. I didn't see my father from the time I was 11 until he died when I was 39 years old and my mom was pretty hands off by that point in my life. I was essentially on my own by then and put myself through college and made all my own arrangements. So I'm grieving for not only that but the realization that not only did I lose having my father care for me as a child, I missed being able to know him as an adult too. And it's just sad.
The good news is that I have someplace to go that's safe where I can talk about how I'm feeling and understand it and have it affirmed. And the feelings are flowing and I'm not scared of them or feeling overwhelmed, which as I mentioned earlier, would not have been true even a very short time ago.
So I really do know I'm ok and I can face this, but I'm also very sad and wanted to be able to express how I feel. Thanks for listening.
AG
