I only have a minute to reply right now.

I'm so happy that you got through this break in a good place. I DO think that the closeness and caring that was evident in your last session held you in a good place.

Incognito... things may change... they may get even BETTER!

Hugs
TN

Incognito,

Good for you getting through the break!! I hope your session went well!

The session went okay.

I had sent him an email describing all the things that are going on right now. My life has been pretty quiet but I one of my best friends is in the hospital with debilitating headaches and they can't find a cause or treatments. My sister is having a crisis in her marriage of 25 years and is leaning heavily on me, calling several times a day, but it is difficult to respond helpfully because she was by my parents to blame herself for all her feelings. He asked me questions about my email. I admitted I felt like my life wasn't so bad (in comparison) and maybe I was overreacting and didn't need therapy. Of course he pointed out I was trying to compare problems and just because my life wasn't a four alarm emergency didn't mean I couldn't get help particularly when it had been in the past.

Then he asked me about my vacation schedule for august. Last year I had a very difficult time during my 2 week vacation and we had 2 planned phone sessions and 1 emergency session and a lot of email contact. Then I returned and he announced he was taking the next week off (late plan and he hadn't wanted to tell me while I was away) and we had a phone session while he was on vacation. In June when we talked about his week off at the beginning of July I told him I was worried that it would be like last summer with our vacations being at separate times and he told me he was only taking the first week of the summer off. I said I was going away a lot of august but could do phone sessions for most of my time away. Yesterday he asked for my august schedule and I told him. I have a week a few hours away and then I'm home for 2 days before I fly away for 2 weeks. I left the couple of days so I could see him in his office. He told me he is going to take some long weekends in August and now I'm worried that he will be away on the Monday between my two vacations. or worse that he is asking me so he will make sure he isn't away. It bothers me that I care so much.

Finally I admitted that I was afraid to start digging at my problems again because the week off had been okay, not good, but not stressful. I told him I'm afraid I'll start looking for things he is doing wrong, what he doesn't ask about etc and that I hate that crazy cycle. He said he understood but that wasn't a reason to take a break and we could start digging in on Wednesday.

quote:

I admitted I felt like my life wasn't so bad (in comparison) and maybe I was overreacting and didn't need therapy.

I've had thoughts like this as well. And yet I keep going back.