Tomorrow will mark six months that I am with my new and current T. In some ways I’m amazed that I have not given up or run from therapy. Actually, I’m amazed that I am still sane! But honestly, it’s been a very long and hard struggle to find my way to a place of some stability and the beginnings of hope. So much was taken away from me and crushed in the abandonment by my oldT. I think the biggest obstacle remaining is that I still cannot think about the person I was becoming while in therapy with oldT. Most especially in the last 9 months, before he started acting so crazy, I was happy, I was really growing and overcoming so many of my fears, I was trying new things and succeeding, I was looking towards the future with optimism and hope and some new fragile confidence in myself to handle things. I have lost that feeling of hope and optimism. Right now I’m in survival mode. I am not happy. I don’t know what that feels like anymore. I just don’t feel much of anything except sad. But I am more stable and I hope one day I will feel that feeling again of joy and that I will smile and really mean it. The most I can accomplish right now is an even keel numbness that keeps the depressive emotions under control. When I feel okay I’m not UNHAPPY, just not feeling any joy.

The reason for this post is that I met with my T yesterday and gave him a gift to recognize the six months we have been together and also to somehow … in some tangible way … let him know what he means to me and how I see him in my life. I gave him a pretty flameless (battery) candle in a small hurricane lamp. I chose this because I always tell him that he is my light in the dark places when all other lights have gone out. For those of you who are familiar with the Lord of the Rings book, this would be Galadriel’s light. It has been a theme with him and it helped me to relate to him in a safe way until I could trust that the relationship we were building was real. When I would get scared I would tell him that I was afraid the light had gone out and he would remind me that, no it had not, it was shining even more brightly because of the work we were doing together. So now he has a real light, a real representation of the light that he is in my life, sitting there in his office. He has discouraged me from giving him gifts but I took a chance. I was really scared and he knew it and he teased me a bit but accepted the gift very graciously. He was very kind. I included a card with some quotes about “the light” which were appropriate. He seemed to really like it and thanked me and told me he would find a good place for it on his bookshelf. He also told me that he has some gifts from clients going back 20 years or so and he still thinks of those clients with fondness. He has a very eclectic collection of stuff and now I have added something. But beyond that, he told me he really liked the symbolism of the light and the fact that we were “celebrating” a milestone for me and that made the gift okay and very appropriate.

I also told him that I had given myself 3 months to decide if I could work with him at all and 3 additional months to decide if I could stay with him beyond the grief work over losing my oldT. I was so confused and as you all may remember… I was struggling with therapy now being a “do-over” or a “rerun” of something that had failed. That it felt like I was basically giving him my oldT’s old worn clothing. It didn’t seem right or fair and I didn’t know how to do it all over again. He listened very carefully and then told me… and I’ll never forget this… he said that well maybe he is a master tailor and he will take those old clothes and make a beautiful suit from them. That was the perfect answer. It made me cry.

He has truly been a wonderful T. We have had some issues but much of that was because of the damage my oldT left behind. We have had a lot to work through. He always commends me on my courage in coming to see him and in sticking out those first really difficult weeks. He said I looked so scared the first time we met that he was really afraid I would not come back. That made me feel good, that he cared whether or not I would return to him. I think it’s because he really believed he could help me but he needed the time and the opportunity to try. I had to be willing to give him a chance. We talked about how much more comfortable I am in his office. How yesterday I turned off one lamp. He saw that as a very good thing.

We also talked about the differences in the therapy we are doing vs. what I had with oldT. I told him how old T would give me compliments but they didn’t stick. I just could not take them in. But for some reason when HE tells me good things I seem to accept them better. He told me that’s because my oldT did not “hang” the compliments on anything or to anything like he does. When he says I’m smart he relates it to something I did or some discussion we had. If he tells me I’m brave, he tells me that in context of something I did, some challenge I faced down. It makes much more sense when he tells me things and I’m starting to “feel” what he says.

I think the biggest thing has been his absolute consistency and his non-defensiveness. He has been a rock for me. I’m starting to really understand and appreciate how he has “shown” me that he is trustworthy because just telling me this would not have made any difference. I had to SEE it and EXPERIENCE it. This is where the feeling of being safe originates from. Being able to depend and to experience the consistency. This is where my oldT really would screw up. He could be consistent for a little bit and I would start to trust him and then he’d do something that would scare me to death or upset me and we would be back to square one. And the non-defensiveness… he has that down to a science LOL. I have gotten angry with him, challenged his ideas and thoughts and told him off and he has always met my feelings with complete acceptance. And he apologizes so nicely too. With oldT if I challenged him he got defensive and if I told him that his defensiveness was upsetting me he would get defensive about being defensive!!

He thanked me again on my way out and he patted my arm, shook my hand and then squeezed my shoulder. I had to stop myself from hugging him. But it was okay. He makes me feel so safe and held and I take his warmth with me back into the real world.

So when I see him on Thursday we will be starting our second six months, knowing we have both committed to this for as long as it takes. I trust him on that too. I am really looking forward to seeing where this relationship will go. And I’m looking forward to seeing my candle burning brightly on the shelf in his office, yet knowing that, he, my T, is the real light and that he will always burn brightly for me.

Thanks for reading,
TN