So this post is kind of a follow up to the mother of all triggers. And just for the record, I'm still waiting for my unicorn ride and world peace. Oh, and a pterodactyl for CT! 
And before I get going I just want to say that there have been several people who have spent way too much time talking through this with me, without them, I don't think I would have been able to get to where I did and I just wanted to make it clear that I didn't get there on my own.
I have, for the millionth time, been very much struggling with boundaries of therapy, especially knowing that I am leaving therapy and aside from being able to go back if I need to, it will mean no regular contact with my T. A lot of feelings have been getting kicked up which I can handle ok but then all the shame about having these feelings and having needs gets kicked up and I have a harder time seeing that shame for what it is. I ended up making an emergency call to my T who was able to identify what was going on. And I've definitely been fighting off the constant sense that I'm making WAY too big a deal about this, so I've been trying to hide the grief and depression in the corners of my life. Which didn't work because my family picked up on it and I ended up having a long talk with my daughter who was justifiably frustrated with my time and energy being pulled away from our family. (Just for the record, she felt guilty about feeling that way and I had to make it really clear to her that it was reasonable she felt that way. That of course she was upset with me not being present.)
A few sessions ago I had a really intense session with my T, I think it was probably one of the best sessions I've ever had with him which is saying alot. I am so completely grateful for this man and his ability to so completely accept how I feel and not be freaked by it. I had an appt scheduled for Monday morning at 8:30 and my T called at 8:30 on Sunday night and told me he needed to cancel and we rescheduled for Weds. morning. The next morning I realized I also had a hair cut on Wednesday (which I desparately needed let me tell you!) so I called to see if a Thurs morning appt that he had also offered was still open. He didn't call me until nine that night. I was fine through all this but when I got off the phone that night I went into a complete meltdown. I ended up calling a very patient friend and sobbing on the phone for an hour. I was also struggling with being worried about my T working too hard because his schedule has been really full and we found out he wasn't taking new patients (we had referred a friend of our to him). And the fact that I left a message at 9 in the morning and didn't hear back until 9 that night didn't help my impression. But of course when I said something on the phone about him having a long day, he totally ignored it because it's not about him (we talked about it at my next session).
My husband and I had a couples session scheduled for Tuesday night and I didn't want to hijack it but also knew my T would pick up on how I was feeling, so I ended up making an emergency call on Wednesday morning and telling him I had the meltdown, I wanted him to know how I was feeling, but I wanted to wait until my appt on Wednesday to discuss it. He was very warm and reassuring and he asked me what the meltdown was about and I told him I was slamming into the boundaries again. The couples session went well and I actually felt pretty good about the way I had handled it. (My T had told me on the phone that he thought I was taking good care of myself.)
So I went to my appt on Weds morning really scared because I knew I was going to have to talk about my feelings about him which can still feel scary. He was incredibly understanding about how I was feeling and why I would feel that way while being very clear that the boundaries weren't going away. In the middle of the session I ended up saying to him "I really love you and I love being with you and I love this office because I feel safe here and its just really painful to think I would voluntarily leave all that." (And no I can't believe I actually said that to him.) To which he replied "but how painful is it to be with your beloved and know you can't know them?" It was incredibly powerful and pretty much blew me out of the water. And I realized he was right, it was painful if I stayed because I've grown to a point that I want a more equal relationship that I CANNOT have so it's getting increasingly painful to be near him and be denied that, but it's also painful to comtemplate going. We spent the rest of the session discussing it. I found myself coming to the realization that it really is time to go, that my T has given me everything he can within the theraputic relationship (which is a huge amount of stuff) and that its time to go. His acceptance of my feelings and of what he means to me, is helping me to come to terms with the fact that in order to live a full life I need to go outside of therapy. We even talked at the end about Ts who couldn't handle their patients feelings and how damaging that could be. His question about being in pain because I was with my "beloved" has haunted me, reverberating and resonating in all kinds of ways (more on that below.)
The following week, I went in again really upset about not being able to have anything beyond the boundaries, of not being able to know my T or keep a relationship after therapy. When I saw my T (who by the way looked incredibly handsome which really didn't help things just for the record) I told him how I was feeling and went on to explain that I really understood that the boundaries were important and there to take care of me and allowed me to do the work I needed to in therapy. BUT that I still felt like... and I choked up and started sobbing and all I could get out was a very vehement "S***!" to which my T responded "exactly" proving once again why I love that man. We talked about the boundaries and how important it is to go to the feelings that the deprivation of the boundaries evoke. I talked about how it digs up the whole "why aren't I good enough, why wasn't I loved?" and my T was talking about how it wasn't really about that and how my parents had so mismanaged the boundaries and while he was talking about it, it hit me and I said (still crying) that it was horrible, it was like I was wanting the abuse to happen all over again, that I wanted him to cross the boundaries the way my father did. MY T was really clear that he understood but it wasn't true, that I didn't want the abuse, I wanted to get my very understandable and healthy needs met, I still do. He just gets it, why I would want a relationship with him beyond therapy. But he also told me never in million years would he violate those boundaries. We spent the rest of the session discussing the boundaries and how important they were and honestly, he was seriously complimentary about the work I've been doing and what's he learned from me and I once again felt very close to him. So I pretty much left feeling floaty and really good, but you know how the first 24 hours goes. After I got through how wonderful it is to feel understood and accepted and what an incredible feeling it is to know that my T values and respects me, I land with a thud and realize it doesn't change a damn thing. He's STILL my therapist, I can NEVER have anything beyond therapy and even worse, I am now cognizant that I am in pain whether I stay or not. It feels like someone is carving my guts out. I just want to run away, to walk in and tell him we're done and get this over with. And at the same time, I want him so desperately it's all I can do not to pick up the phone and call. If I can't even make it two days how am I ever going to leave? But how can I stay knowing it feels like I have to keep ripping my heart out?
The worst part was realizing that no one can do anything to change it. How I feel doesn't change a damn thing, no matter how much pain I'm in or how much I want what I want. And I couldn't even get angry at my T because I KNOW on both a cognitive and emotional level that he is doing what is right for me, sometimes I suspect at high personal cost to himself (I don't mean that like he's having similar feelings to mine, just that he has to know I'm in pain and he could relieve it in the short term but damage me in the long run. It takes a lot of strength to hold his ground.)
So I kept fighting through this horrible pain and grief. His use of the word beloved kept haunting me and a good friend, when I told her about what my T said, asked what it had meant to me to hear that from him.
When I thought about it, I realized that it had meant so many things. It was one of those pivotal moments in my therapy. My initial reaction was total shock because I had been struggling with the feeling that it was time to go but couldn't for the life of me figure out why. When my T asked that question, it suddenly laid bare exactly why I needed to leave because that was exactly the source of my pain. Having such a deep intimate, loving relationship but not being able to enter fully into it. For so long, I was so needy and insecure that I really didn't see a person on the other end, just a way to get my needs met. As I've gotten better, I've started to see my T as a whole person whom I want to know. The power differential has shifted in a lot of ways, but it can only shift so far.
But I think the bigger part was hearing my T refer to himself in that way. For the longest time I've assumed that as I got to the end of therapy all the intensity of my feelings for him would fade because we know it's all just "transference" right? They're not real right? So when I said I love you and being with you, I think what I expected to hear back was "you think that now, but it's just because you're in therapy" or "these aren't real feelings you know" or some variation thereof. Which, in retrospect, was a little naive of me because my T has NEVER treated my feelings that way. So a huge part of what I heard when he said that was that my feelings were real. (ok caveat: I am very aware that I do not know my T on some levels at all, what kind of person he is, his likes or dislikes. I do understand that it's easy to think someone is wonderful when the whole relationship is about them taking care of only your needs. I told him once that I'd kill for just 15 minutes with his wife. I suspect she'd set me straight about his "perfection."
) But beyond his recognition of my feelings, was his acceptance of them. What doesn't come through in print was the incredible gentleness and compassion with which he asked the question. He understood the very real depth of my pain and wasn't trying to minimize it to make himself feel better. We had discussed at the previous session how he was more fundamental to me, than I to him. That my relationship with him is close to the center of who I am. I think that I am still shocked, and gratified, that he fully faces how I feel about him and is accepting of it. This is really hard to describe but I think on some level I expected that being loved by me would be something repulsive or at least uncomfortable at best. Instead it was a quiet acknowledgement of my feelings. There was also that feeling of being struck to the center because he UNDERSTOOD. Someone cared enough to really listen to me and go straight to the heart of the matter (pardon the pun!).There was also the incredible respect for me inherent in the question. My T did not choose the word beloved lightly, I know him too well for that. But he also made it clear that nothing could come of those feelings which he knew would be painful. But he trusted me to handle the truth. His trust in me is a large part of what gives me the strength to face to the truth.
The painful part is about coming to the bitter end of acceptance. My T's identifying himself as my beloved (that's the other thing, the way he said it wrapped up ALL my feelings, the paternal, the platonic, the erotic, the romantic) meant that he understands exactly how I feel. There is on misunderstanding to clear up. I think on some level I've carried the feeling that if he really knew how I felt, if I really laid it out there, he'd know just how important this was and be willing to cross those boundaries. Irrational I know, and even not true as crossing those boundaries would destroy me, but it was there. There's no hope now. He completely understands and the answer is still no. I think that's a big part of the reason why the grief has crashed in on me in such a big way.
There was also a great deal of relief to have my feelings out in the open.
And last it was reassuring. Because if my T understood how I felt and why I felt that way, then I hadn't made up our deep connection. I have NO words to describe how intimate this relationship can be. We have had moments of such deep communion and understanding that it continues to just amaze me. I never knew what home was really meant to feel like until I met this man. I have a solid place to stand now because of him. and I can be more myself in his office than I can be anywhere else, I've discovered who I am in his office.
Even with having it expressed all this, I had this nagging feelings I wasn't getting to the root of things. I was talking with another friend on Monday night who asked a lot of good questions until I realized that I was once again dealing with that feeling of "how could someone like I possibly believe in a million years that someone like my T would EVER love me?" an issue that we had looked at and discussed a while back. So I went to bed that night trying to collect my swirling thoughts because it felt like there was so much to express and I wasn't sure how to say it all or even what order to say it in.
I had a dream in the middle of the night and woke up thinking "wow what was that all about?" I'm going to spare you the details because it's a little too raw to talk about but it was very sexually explicit and as I lay thinking about it I realized it was a memory of how my father behaved. That as soon as the sex was over, all semblance of care or tenderness disappeared and he was cruel, dismissive and abusive. Even in the dream, I remembered thinking "wait, this isn't a good man, this isn't someone good for me, why would I stay?" So when I woke up Tuesday morning and posted that it was going to be a session from hell it was because I knew I needed to go talk to my T about the dream and what it meant. The dream finally connected me to exactly what the intense fear was that was getting kicked up. We were reaching the "end" which meant that my T was at any moment (and against all evidence) going to turn on me and become cruel and dismissive. That the second I really trusted him to not do that (which I've been working on for a very long time and in a much better place than I used to be) is the exact moment the betrayal would happen.
I managed to walk in (with my blanket, I think the poor man flinches when I have it with me, because I only bring it when I know it's going to be intense) and tell him about the dream and the connections I made to my fears about him. I couldn't even talk in the beginning and literally just sat there panting with fear for the first few minutes. I could NOT look at him while relating the dream, and managed to get it out by going in to "reporter" mode and just saying it. But after I told him, he was incredibly gentle and told me how powerful the dream was and that he was honored that I was brave enough to bring it to him and talk about it. That did me in, and all the horror and grief of the memory flooded in. I seriously sobbed for a long time while choking out other realizations of my feelings. My hatred of my needs, of how I hated that I kept going back expecting different results, and even remembering just enjoying the sex because it was the only good part, but I knew I would pay in the end because I would be betrayed again and the pain was that much worse for ignoring it was going to happen. But I needed it to badly. The shame was so bad I couldn't even uncover my face, let alone look at my T for a large chunk of the appt. He stayed with me every step of the way, soothing me and containing me. At one point I told him that I got that he understood why I felt this way and it was not about fair in his office, but I really needed to say I was sorry for comparing him to an incestuous pedophile. His reply is that the compassion needed to be directed at me, that how horrible was it that even in a caring relationship with someone safe, that I still had to experience these horrible fears. Eventually the storm subsided and we just sat for awhile in silence. I told him I just wanted to sit and know he was there and I was safe.
I was pretty exhausted and felt very raw yesterday (I actually had a dentist appt and a three hour training session for a crisis line I'm volunteering for also that day. Long day, LOTS of coffee.
). At the end of the day, the feelings came crashing back in and I spent more time grieving. But I have felt better today. It's always such a gift to struggle through such horrible shame and have my T stay with me, understand it, and meet me only with understanding and compassion. My T told me that he thinks I've learned everything I can from him. So my grappling with the very real lacks in our relationship, as necessary as they are, are what is driving me to go out and explore my life so that I can live fully. To stay is to remain a child and that would waste so much hard work on both our parts.
But I also realize that my T is only asking me to peek over the edge of the nest and I need to time to process the feelings. If for nothing else, because I want my going forth to be just that, a going towards life, not a fleeing from pain. So at my best estimate, we're both going to be in nursing homes when I actually manage to walk out his door.
As always, thank you all for giving me somewhere to speak about this.
AG
But can I just say that this sneak peak of what lies ahead someday absolutely scares me to death! 
