Hi Everyone,

I know you are all wondering what happened during my session today with oldT and my T. I am so filled with mixed and conflicting emotions it's hard to know where to start and what to say about it all.

Did I find closure? Maybe. Did I get any answers to my haunting questions? Not really. Did it end well? I'm not really sure. Am I okay? I guess I am as okay as I can be. Seeing him again stirred up a lot of old and tender feelings, lots of regret for what could have been (if he was a more courageous and competent T) and sadness at seeing him for who he really is. It was wonderful to see Tdog and I hugged him and kissed him and brought him his favorite biscuits. He sat with me most of the session and licked my hand an arm and nuzzled my leg. He is more beautiful and sweeter than I could even remember.

I think all of this has kicked off my grieving again. Not because I want to go back to him but because it's just very sad what happened to all of us. I am still firmly attached to my current T and he is such a diamond next to my oldT who looked so sad, lumpy and wimpy and small today. Small in stature, small in his mind and small in his anger.

My T was amazing. He told me to wait in an empty office if I got there early and last session he showed me which office to use and said it would be unlocked. He unlocked it this morning and left the door ajar and even left a lamp on for me. Today was a horrible, dark, rainy and stormy day for most of the day. Right now the sun it out and it's almost jarring to me because I still feel gloomy.

When I got there my T was in session so I paced the other office looking out the window for oldT. My T finished up early with the other client and came to get me, surprising me. He had on one of my favorite shirts and he looked like the sunshine that was missing from the weather report of the day. He took me into his office to settle me down. I kept telling him I was nervous and he said he could see that! He told me he was a bit nervous too because he really wanted this to go well for me. I like his honesty.

I told him not to close the blinds today... it was already dark in there anyway and I wanted to watch for oldT. Of course, true to form, he was late by almost 10 minutes. My T was worried he would not show up but I felt that he would. I saw his car pull into the lot and jumped up and said "oh he's here, I just saw the car!".

Before that I had warned my T that my "speech" would take about 20-25 minutes if I read it straight through. It was good that we had a double session as it allowed for time to discussed some things as well. He said he would try to keep us on topic and on pace to fit everything in.

When oldT arrived in reception my T went out to meet him. They said hi and both the and Tdog came into the office. I only had eyes for Tdog and he came bounding over to me tail wagging. I have missed him so much. I gave him some biscuits and hugged him. Then I looked up at oldT. He looked the same as the last time I saw him. It was so strange... as if time just stopped. I have not really seen him for 11 months. I smiled and he smiled and we shook hands and he sat in the chair next to me (there is a small table inbetween the chairs).

My T said a few things and then asked oldT to speak with regard to the agenda we prepared and to comment on a few things we presented to him with regard to how he saw my therapy, what did he see as my accomplishments, what did he think of me as a patient, what was memorable about our relationship. He spoke about these things in SUCH a general way he could have been speaking about the guy down the street. There were two personal things he mentioned, one of which was that I conquered my fear of female T's by seeing "D" after the termination. He mentioned stuff like I had a good sense of humor, that I worked hard, was courageous, became a better parent, was resilient, conquered my fear of the woods. Then he talked about how I had worked to be able to trust again, to trust him and to trust in relationships I looked at him and he said...TN don't you feel that you were able to do this? And I said yeah I worked really hard on the trust and safety issue and I even told you that I trusted you and felt safe with you and two months later you obliterated everything by abandoning me. Now, I don't trust anyone. He actually looked surprised at my reaction.

At another point he mentioned something and I tried to clarify it and he told me to be quiet that he was not finished talking. That upset me and I looked at my T who looked pissed but I just nodded that it was okay.

He then started accusing me of doing some things that I didn't do. He became hostile. He said that a big problem of mine was respecting the boundaries. Oh that's what I asked him to clarify and he said he could not discuss that with me but he had wanted to discuss it with my T and I never gave permission for that. I said you can tell me whatever you would tell my T. (I think he wanted to talk to my T to sort of get him on as an ally). But he said no that it was a clinical conversation (uh yeah right).

At some point when I mentioned the trauma I had suffered he actually looked stumped and said what trauma are we speaking about? What does this have to do with me? He seemed to believe the only trauma in my life was my child hood trauma and that his abandonment did not cause me any pain. He basically saw me as a vindictive, angry, back-stabbing client who was harrassing him. He actually accused me of stalking him! That is a very typical T defense of blaming the crazy ex client. When I asked what he meant... he told me he had records of all the phone calls I made. Uh yeah dude, because you were supposed to see my son for a session and then I needed to get my records, belongings and insurance stuff. When he told me not to call his cell last year I stopped calling it. When he told me to stop contacting him at all, I respected that and hired an attorney. I respected anything he asked of me and always tried to take the high road.

Anyway, my T put him on the spot... first he described the client (me) he saw six weeks after the abandonment in clinical terms and that I presented with PtSD and clinical depression from that experience. Then when oldT said he terminated me because he could not work with "trauma" patients, my T asked him to describe this issue of trauma...what made it so unusual that a T who says he deals with anxiety depression and personality disorders could not handle. OldT fumbled around and had nothing to say. He looked so small and incompetent next to my T. I almost felt sorry for him if I didn't want to slug him at that point.

He then brought up something that happened to him after the termination... something that effected him adversely that I had nothing to do with but he believed I did. And he blamed me and was hostile about it. He kept saying....what about me and how I suffered, what about my livlihood, what about the horrible year I have had?" And OMG, I could not take it another minute and yelled at him...this is NOT about you it's about me... I'm the patient here not you. (I wanted to yell... go get your own T, dude, this one is MINE).

I finally looked at my T and said... he's is not going to let me get to what I have to say. He is gonna use up all the time and make this about him and I will be left with nothing. So my T stepped in and said we need this to have a good end. OldT butted in at that point and said... "are you going to take me in front of the licensing board?" I told him we would get to that later... after I had my say. He wanted to know if we had started any proceedings and we said no.

Then he asked my T....what do you mean by we need a good end here? My T said the best we can do is to allow TN to read what she has prepared. And so they both got quiet and I read my 13 pages of notes.

I cried badly through most of it. I tried to look at oldT and keep grounded by newT. I had Tdog nuzzling my hand and I was holding my Ts pen for comfort. That pen is magic, I swear. And so I read as best as I could. The only sound was the loud claps of thunder and pouring rain outside. I thought gee, God is striking me here (later my T smiled and said that God was just providing some lighting and background music... I love that man).

I said everything I needed to. I looked at oldT and told him that I had loved him. That he never realized how much he meant to me. How deeply I had internalized him. I told him he was afraid of me and my feelings and probably his own. I talked about those last 6 weeks with him and how he abused me and drove me into depression and destabilized me. I then went through chronologically all the awful, painful and traumatic things I experienced. How the loss of him was devastating to me, how I grieved and wanted to die, that my family was so scared they would lose me. I talked about how he almost killed me that night. I told him it was very close. Then I described my struggle to find a T and how I ended up with my T. How he took me in and tended my wounded body and soul. I talked a lot about how kind he has been and how I finally was able to accept that he was my T. How I'm glad to be with him. That I know I'm in a better place now and I'm safe and I'm almost able to breathe on my own now.

when I looked at oldT towards the end he was crying. he was very emotional. It would be hard to sit there like a stone and listen to what happened over the past year to me... most of it caused by him.

In the end I told him he needed to get his own therapy and supervision and take courses on ethics. I told him that because of my great affection for not only him but also for his family I would not report him. But I wanted him to think of this each time he sees a patient... that it is my compassion, kindness and love for him that allows him to stay in practice because I could have destroyed his career very easily. I told him that he needs to make good use of this second chance so that he never allows this to happen to anyone else ever again.

The meeting ended pretty quickly after that. My T asked if there was anything else i needed from oldT and I said no. I just wanted him to know that I never wanted to hurt him and I was sad he would believe that I did those things to hurt him. I could never hurt him, even though he hurt me because I loved him.

He stood up to shake my hand, I stayed seated. I looked up at him and asked him if he knew that I loved him? He said, not really. I said that was hard to believe (I always thought I had this huge neon sign over my head screaming, I Love YOU). He then said "did you know I was always very fond of you?" and I said sometimes I knew. Then he said he was sorry that I suffered so much and that he never meant to hurt me like that. That was never his intention. He said he was glad I had My T and that we seemed to be doing good work together and that we had a good relationship.

Then we just said good bye. We shook hands twice at the end and he looked at me very sadly and deeply as only he could do. It's that look that lights up my limbic system and makes me want to hug him. It's that look that always made me so damn happy when I was in therapy with him. they left so quickly I didn't get to hug Tdog again and just watched him scamper out. My T walked them out and then came back to talk to me.

I will post about that later.

That is the recap. I'm struggling with a lot of feelings right now and have to go eat dinner with the family. I'll be back later.

Thanks to everyone who supported me and who was in that room with me. So many new comers and old members. You all gave me so much support and hugs that I survived it all pretty well.

TN