It's more like a slow-motion train wreck, really...

It all started two weeks ago, when T and I were talking about my marriage. For some reason, she got really straightforward with me and told me that the reason we were having so much drama is that unmet needs were being stirred up for both of us. But that H's unmet needs were much younger than mine, more like toddler age, whereas mine were 8-9 years old through teenage, and thus I had enough development to be able to meet his needs, but he was effectively to "young" to attend to mine.

At first I was focused on what that meant about my marriage. It seems true that H can act relatively younger than me, especially under stressful relationship situations, and it was both sad and a relief to acknowledge the reason why I felt like I was carrying almost all the load in the marriage and getting nothing back for myself.

But over time, I started to ponder what it meant about myself when she essentially said she thought my issues were older, because I felt like I had needed to work through some much younger stuff in therapy previously, especially things that came up with oldT and ended up leading to that therapy falling apart. So I went back and asked about what she meant. She said that it seemed like my needs were pretty well met up until a certain age, and then said something about "good enough" parenting. But she said we could talk about younger stuff as well, and went and got a chart for me about developmental stages. Except that was the end of the session, and although I felt really stirred up for some reason I couldn't identify, I left anyway.

That evening I realized I felt like she was invalidating the work I had already done to get past the really young-feeling stuff I'd struggled with in the past. Like I had worked it out on my own because I was afraid of things falling apart like they did with oldT, and as a result she didn't even believe I'd ever had those issues. So I emailed her to say that, but she never responded to that particular email.

The next day she left me a voicemail saying she needed to slightly move my next session because she was going out of town, and then as an aside she let me know that due to insurance reasons my sessions would now be 45 minutes (having previously been 50-60 minutes). She asked me to call her back about scheduling.

I felt awful without fully understanding why. When she returned my call, we rescheduled the appointment and she explained about the session length change, but I wasn't able to express anything about what I was feeling, so I just let her go...

Later that I I realized it felt like the younger parts of me already felt like T was saying they didn't exist or didn't need her help, and now they were thinking she was shortening sessions because I was supposed to be grown up enough to be able to handle a shorter session. I emailed T about that, and she replied and suggested maybe we should do two sessions per week a while if that would make it better. Which I really don't want to do because I already have to drive half an hour each way to her office just to have a 45-minute session.

So yesterday I arrived for my session, which was supposed to be 2:15-3:00 because she had to leave to go to the airport. But her previous session ran late, so I didn't start until after 2:20. Then her officemates were loudly doing dishes in the hall, and people were walking past the window, and I was feeling like it would be better for me to turn around and go home because there was no way I could actually get into anything significant in the amount of time we had. But finally I tried to talk about what was going on, and that I wished she understood how far I have come.

Then she started going on about all the kind of surface changes she had observed in me, like how I'm doing more with my life and have more direction, and how my relationship with H had changed and how I engaged with her differently. When she finished saying that she asked if it that helped or was what I meant and I shook my head because I didn't want to say no, that was so completely off it's not even funny.

Then I thought of oldT and how I would not have had to explain those things to her because she was there and saw them first hand. I had dared to let her know those younger parts of myself and let them attach to her even, and it didn't work out but at least she knew. And I started crying because I missed her so much. Like, crying harder than I'd ever cried in therapy before. Except at that point it was already 3:00.

T had no idea why I was crying. She asked if the tears felt like release and I said no. She asked if it was sadness and I said yes. Then in between sobs I saw that she'd leaned forward really far and was holding out her hand. I held her hand for a minute then I had to ask for her to let go because she was still holding on, lol. So I collected myself to go. She asked if a hug would help, and I said no but I hugged her anyway. Then she told me she would have email on her trip and to email her. Then I left and cried in her bathroom, made it to my car, cried some more, then finally got myself together and went home.

After I finished everything I had to do yesterday and had time to email T, I started crying again, completely off the hook sobbing. I wrote and told her that I was missing oldT because she knew those parts of me that I felt like T was trying to tell me didn't exist. I said I didn't know what else to say, that it felt hopeless to make her understand and that I felt like quitting.

Last night I dreamed I was in a play. We were performing in a beat up school building that was missing windows, and there must have been a storm going on outside because there was rain and water coming inside, and wind gusting down the halls, and everything was slippery and wet and I could barely make it up and down the stairs safely. In the play I was trying to play way too many parts, and some of the parts appeared in the same scenes as each other and I didn't know my lines. I don't remember fully, but one of the parts was an adoptive parent and other one was an unsatisfied customer.

I woke up and thought that said a lot about my situation. That the wind and rain represent the sadness and upheaval I am feeling. And that I was trying to play the role of parenting my inner children, and at the same time being an unsatisfied customer in therapy and the roles were interfering with each other.

So that's what's going on. I can't see her in person until the Saturday after next because she's on vacation in another state. I don't feel terrible right now, and actually things in my everyday life are pretty good. Even things with H are going better for now. It's just that I feel like T has forgotten all kinds of things I've told her and is trying to erase huge parts of my history of what I've struggled with, like how it's kind of a triumph for me that I even feel like I have the right to exist and have any emotional needs, and that I can get through a week between sessions without feeling something screaming inside with abandonment and then cutting off and going dead, or that I can take in supportive contact now from T without it feeling terrifying. I don't think those were teenage level things. They felt much younger...

Thanks for reading. I just realized this is incredibly long!