First - congrats! I know you probably didn't intend to expose the scary hard topic, but now that you did, I can understand the mixed feelings - elated and vulnerable and uncertain - all at once.

Yes, it is probably something that our Ts experience a lot - a client's biggest fears come out, and T is ok with it. Doesn't stop me from needing to check in to make sure T is still T, and she still likes me, and everything is still good in our relationship.

Doesn't stop me from swirling out of my mind - did I say too much? How could I let that slip out? Why do I feel so much lighter? What if I said too much? Then I ruminate over that until I next see T, and we spend the session discussing the previous session's disclosure, where T repeatedly reassures me that there is nothing we can't talk about and yada yada yada.

The thing is Cat, to us it IS for sure a big deal. And our Ts know that. They are able to hold it differently and see it differently in a way that allows them to validate how huge "it" is for us, without letting "it" overpower us anymore. The odd sense of freedom from that secret is somewhat uncomfortable at first.

(Speaking from experience - just had a HUGE revelation two weeks ago, shared something with T that I've never shared with another soul, and I so did not plan on sharing it with her that day, it just slipped out. It is still unsettling for me to hold on to, but it is somewhat comforting knowing that T now knows one of, if not my biggest secret. It's given us really good stuff to work on, and the last few weeks since the revelation have been hugely powerful - all the more reason I'm melting without her this week.)

You've done great to reach out here, and even better to share it with T. I know she doesn't think anything bad of you, and if you were to reach out and send a quick email telling her you're a little freaked and just want to make sure she's ok with things, I bet she'd understand

((((Cat))))

((R2G))

Thank you I can't tell you how much your reply meant.

I'm pretty much a shaking mess right now. I did have to e-mail my poor T just to ask something important. I have a feeling my other T won't have a session free tomorrow - and - I couldn't go through that again I'd just want someone to sit silently in a room with.

It's weird how our Ts are so okay with even the most sensitive things. I couldn't imagine being a T - I would not have the empathetic stamina I'd just cry constantly.

How brave of you 2 weeks ago to be able to reveal something so scary to your T! That's how my issue happened I did not plan on sharing but it was something really giving me a PTSD issue - anytime I was in the therapy room my head would be bombarded 10x worse than outside of session and crashed out in a messy pile. Thanks for letting me know it's still unsettling - I'm sorry it is - but it helps me feel a bit normal in my utter panic right now. How did you do the first day or week? I'm sure it is VERY hard this week without her Aw, I'm sorry!

I hope she doesn't think anything bad... I think she would (will... sigh) understand my emailing her. I just want to be a victim of selective gravity malfunction and just float away in to outer space right now. I don't think I can write her for a while it's like I got all my vulnerability for 50 years out right now.

Thank you so much R2G ((hug))

(((Cat)))

I hate how much I can relate to where you are right now, only because it is such a not-fun place to be. I have spent more time curled up with my soft blanket and my thumb in the last two weeks than I have in months. Childish self-soothing, but it works, for now.

I'm glad you emailed T, I know she's used to it, and with such a big thing going on right now, it is good that you can email and release a little more. I could never be a T either - I'm too sensitive to others emotions and moods, even if they don't speak. I'd be a wreck 24/7 if I was a T!

My reveal was also PTSD related, and the hard part was that I had no idea it was going to come out, I mean, I hadn't even had it on the radar cause it was buried so deep. It really freaked me out when it slipped out because I wasn't prepared at all to discuss something I hadn't even been able to journal about because seeing the words on paper would have been to traumatic. Hearing them come out of my mouth? Hell. I think because, for the most part, the therapy room is so safe feeling for us, we are that much more open to what happens in there, and we feel it 10X more than we would feel things otherwise. When we leave that safe nest, our coping mechanisms don't always hold us until we next get into the safe nest again. The first few days were brutal, but I got to see T an extra time that week which helped me. It got a little easier the second week, but now that she's away, this third week is hell.

Your T won't think anything bad, she may even be pleased that you wrote. I don't know what kind of arrangement you have with email/outside contact, but this is something pretty important, and you're feeling pretty raw (I would imagine.) I know after my reveal I started up on the calling again - I don't email/text T, but I can leave her messages if I need to. She only calls back if I ask. Well, over the last two weeks I left more messages than I have in the last six months. It's all very unsettling, but you'll make it, we both will...

((R2G)) *sigh* you're great!

My blanket has put in a lot of hard hours today. I actually walk around with it kinda over my head most of the time (ET style).

I'm sure my T is used to it too. I know they hear stuff all the time... I'd be a 24/7 wreck of a T too. I've heard though lots of Ts are super sensitive and have been through their own stuff - I know my Ts are like that so I have no idea how it works. Desensitization somehow? No clue.

Thanks for sharing so much of your experience with me. I hadn't been able to journal about my thing EITHER! Not write it all out it was too much so I was shocked at my mouth today. There is something about the therapy room. I know right now I'd like to take up permanent residence in my Ts room (just alone). Which to me signals I need comfort right now. What a good way to put it about a nest... I feel much less weird about feeling like I'm groping for any sense of sanity out here in the real world.

My T didn't say, before I left, that I could write and she almost always does so when she doesn't say that I'm like omg I shouldn't write, or I said something wrong she doesn't want me to bug her about later. I write this woman way too much. I can leave T1 (not the T I talked to today) messages on her phone too and I do that a lot she just doesn't know the issue (not the full issue anyway) and I don't think I can go through this thing twice. T2 thinks it would be good though so they can be on the same page.

We will both make it, thank you again so much... you've made a huge difference to me today.

quote:

Originally posted by catalyst:
((R2G))

Thank you I can't tell you how much your reply meant.

I'm pretty much a shaking mess right now. I did have to e-mail my poor T just to ask something important. I have a feeling my other T won't have a session free tomorrow - and - I couldn't go through that again I'd just want someone to sit silently in a room with.

It's weird how our Ts are so okay with even the most sensitive things. I couldn't imagine being a T - I would not have the empathetic stamina I'd just cry constantly.

How brave of you 2 weeks ago to be able to reveal something so scary to your T! That's how my issue happened I did not plan on sharing but it was something really giving me a PTSD issue - anytime I was in the therapy room my head would be bombarded 10x worse than outside of session and crashed out in a messy pile. Thanks for letting me know it's still unsettling - I'm sorry it is - but it helps me feel a bit normal in my utter panic right now. How did you do the first day or week? I'm sure it is VERY hard this week without her Aw, I'm sorry!

I hope she doesn't think anything bad... I think she would (will... sigh) understand my emailing her. I just want to be a victim of selective gravity malfunction and just float away in to outer space right now. I don't think I can write her for a while it's like I got all my vulnerability for 50 years out right now.

Thank you so much R2G ((hug))

wow reading your posts makes me see how painful this must be. i once said to my T that me talking must sound to stupid she just laughed and said i'm a T it's what i doso no nothing you say can possibly sound stupid.

i have to believe that it is harder for you to say these things then it is for your T to hear them.
are you able to ask your T if she/he could maybe write you a note to keep with you to read saying that you are ok and that your T is still there.

i don't know your story and i am quite new here but i can only imagine the horrors that have brought you to therapy and here and i cant see your T wanting nothing but to ease your pain and has nothing but empathy for your struggles.

i'm sorry that things are so hard for you right now but what an awsome thing to have this horrable thing out there now you are not sitting alone with it.

quote:

are you able to ask your T if she/he could maybe write you a note to keep with you to read saying that you are ok and that your T is still there.

((granite)) you are so sweet; yes actually my T did write me an index card (and signed and dated it, which was a little weird). It will have significance later but right now it's difficult to read - 8 very difficult to read words.

I do think she has a lot of empathy for what I'm going through. Thank you so much for your support

hey just checking on how you are doing today

((granite))

surviving, thank you for checking in. I think... I'm going to be mute in my therapy for a weeks I feel like an impenetrable force of wordlessness.

hi i sure can understand that.maybe you could write something for your T to read to prepar for this happening.when do you have T next?

I have T tomorrow - I did write her something. If I don't walk in and immediately have a panic attack... I might give it to her.

It's really, really hard having two Ts because I have to go through the hard stuff sometimes twice (I don't have to, but for the sake of consistency for my care team I have to). So it's T1 I see tomorrow, T2 is the one I told stuff to. Right now I'm supposed to contain what's bugging me in the 'for later box' (trauma hates going in the for later box, but as long as I tell it... I hear you, someone else heard you, now I need you to wait - this doesn't want to wait). So I wrote T2 some this weekend but she's sort of keeping me focused on.... not talking about it right now so I don't get overwhelmed even though... it feels like not continuing to talk will overwhelm me. Who knows. I have so much in the 'for later' box I'm not sure when I'm going to start clearing this out. T1 assures me the 'for later' box isn't 'for never' but it feels like that sometimes so I don't want to bring it up and have it shunned to the box Who knows...

I'm freaking out a little.

Hope you are doing well, granite.