Wasn’t going to post anything about this finding a new T stuff until later this week but I’m spinning around so much with it felt I needed to say something now.

It’s been seven weeks since I finished with ex-T and since then I’ve seen eight new Ts - most of them twice, three of them three times, and been back to see ex-T one more time as well. (Not to forget the two I contacted but who were just not ‘suitable’.) That’s got to be some sort of record even for me!

Can’t even begin to describe how crap I’ve been feeling over most of this time - all sorts of stuff going on in my head, from impotent rage at being unable to get what I need to a profound sense of hopelessness and defeat (with the inevitable drop back into it’s all my fault I expect too much I’m unfixable I can’t even be liked by someone who is paid to be on my side blah blah blah) and all the time I’m driven to keep looking, surely someone somewhere out there will be there for me (hm does that sound like an old pattern?)

So ok this is where the state of play is at the moment - I met one T that after the first session with her I came away totally bowled over - rabbited on endlessly to husband about how wonderful she was how I felt so heard and listened to and god damn it understood - yes folks that magical never experienced before experience of being understood, at least about one major thing in my life which I’ve never and I mean NEVER had understood - was not only heard and understood but this T actually got just how horrific and devastating the effect of that one thing is on me.

Have seen her twice more since and though she’s not exactly a mind reader - in fact she says things just like every other T that shows maybe she’s not as much inside my head as I long for - but for some really strange reason it doesn’t bother me like it does with other Ts. You know I think I like her, really like her. WTF since when was I capable of actually openly and unreservedly feeling something positive for a therapist? (or anyone for that matter!)

She’s warm and friendly and kind and caring and so very obviously totally ON MY SIDE. Wow double wow that’s a first. It’s a very strange feeling having these kinds of positive feelings towards and about her (makes me suspicious of my motives lol). But that I like her so much actually makes a HUGE difference to me - I look forward to seeing her I’m actually GETTING from her she’s not a T who sits in silence not responding to what I’m saying nor does she run off at the mouth on tangents that have nothing to do with I’m saying. She talks a lot, but everything she says is related directly to what I’m saying, and what’s so great is that she is so overwhelmingly positive towards and about me - she’s giving me some of what I’m so desperately craving. How could I not feel wonderful towards her

Ok so that’s the upside. But and there’s always a bloody but, a damned downside. She only practises one day a week (sorry to those of you who see your Ts even less often, but for me twice a week - even more - is paramount.) Even that I could live with (I’d have to wouldn’t I?) it’s that in another two weeks she is off for at least six weeks. So I get to see her twice more and then nothing until at least September. And even then there’s a possibility that she might not be able to return to work (she’s going for surgery). Oh no no no no!!!! Why why why why???? Just when I find someone who is so very right for me they are going to disappear. I’m getting my knickers in a real twist about it I cannot believe how crap that makes me feel - to get a taste of what I’m really wanting and to have it snatched away from me and nothing I can do about it. Shades of old old old patterns repeating themselves there.

If I were still at beginning to look for a T, I’d not have had a problem with this I’d have calmly gone oh ok well I’ll just wait until we can start properly. But of course the state I’m in now the very thought of having to wait even ONE week screws me up, SIX weeks is like being sent through all the levels of Dante’s Inferno. I AM NOT A HAPPY BUNNY!

Apart from everything else the knowledge that she is going away makes me really defensive about doing too much in therapy because I’m far too scared to start going into anything heavy knowing that I won’t have that sense of ongoing support from her. At the same time I’m just about bursting with things that need to come out so I’m having to sit on everything, control, regulate, stuff away and it’s killing me this incredible tension between needing to let go but having to hold on to stay safe. BOLLOCKS to being denied what I want (stomp foot, throw tantrum, curse the universe, wave fists at God!!!)

I see that in writing all this it’s become really obvious to me that no matter what, she’s the one I want to work with. Oh hell. There’s a complication, in that because I knew she would be away for all that time I’ve continued trying to find another T, and think I might have found one who though nothing like the one I like, who doesn’t make me feel good about seeing her (she’s not a warm friendly caring type and she has already said so many things that tell me she hasn’t really clicked at all to what I’m needing) - but she did strike me as maybe being able to help me all the same. This is only first impressions, I have a second meeting with her end of the week and am willing to go along without being my usual defensive picky self because I so need to start therapy NOW and need to find a way to get over that six week gap the other T has created.

But I’m really divided. I so want to go with the first T, except that six weeks for me in my state at the moment is just TOO long to wait - so I’m spinning around knowing I have to commit one way or the other otherwise I’ll get nowhere anyway. I’ve thought that maybe I could see this other T during the waiting time and pick up again with the T I really like when she comes back, but that means either I commit to the good T and therefore wouldn’t give therapy with the second T a chance, or I’d end up having to commit to second T and would have to forfeit the commitment to the good T. And the second T would no way go along with seeing me just as an interim measure until my chosen T got back - therapy just doesn’t work that way and I know I wouldn’t be bringing the stuff I’d need to make it work anyway (the whole commitment thing.)

Wow am I stuck here, torn between what I really want but unable to get it, and having the option of working with someone I don’t feel as good about but who is so much more available (right now, twice weekly, and continuous presence).

Actually don’t know what the point of this post is, except to just lay out where I’m at at the moment. In the meantime for the next two weeks I suppose I could see both of them (but both have been clear that they won’t see a client if that client is also seeing another T at the same time, so I’d effectively be lying, pretending that the other doesn’t exist and that would make me feel really uncomfortable seeing as whatever comes up in specific sessions I’d have to keep out of the other T’s sessions oh on and on and on this is a crap situation.

Well on the positive side, it does mean I will have, one way or another, a new T. Sometime.

Any thoughts anyone? Even advice would be really appreciated at this point

And thanks for reading this, I know it’s a messy post and not saying very much and as usual very LONG (what a surprise lol).

LL