As most of you know I had been really struggling in therapy because my T's wife moved into his office suite and that caused all kinds of triggers in me... from oldT's wife to my mother to other women that have caused issues with important men in my life. We had one truly awful session where I sobbed and shook and was terrified but confronted him with my knowledge that she had moved in and my anger that he didn't tell me. It was a truly low point in our relationship and I was so scared he would tell me to leave. The session instead ended with his giving me the special dragon to hold over the weekend. When I recently asked him about that session and if he was going to terminate me that night ... he smiled and said it was never ever a consideration or thought. He said that it was NOT an option. But he did say he was proud of me for being able to ask him that question and that I was very brave.

Some time has passed and things are getting easier. Our relationship is really good and I thought I could never get past having his wife around the office or believing that it would be okay and nothing terrible would happen. There were two big turning points in reaching this place. One was that my T made it obvious to me that he was "protecting" me and doing his best to not have her presence impact us. I had told him that I never wanted to see her and that I was so freaked out in his waiting room in fear that she would walk out and see me. Actually, I didn't have to tell him ... he could see for himself how anxious I was. So he told me the days she works, he told me she sees patients on the hour and I am on the half-hour and he also does his best not to run late with the previous patient so that I don't have to spend any time in the reception room and can just walk in to his office. All of these acts have shown me that he really does care about me and he is doing his best to see that I'm "safe". The result is that I am much less anxious when I begin my sessions. And if I get anxious then I remember what I know about my T and it seems to settle me down. The trust is growing.

The other thing is that I just got really mad! I love my T and he is good for me and we work so well together. The relationship is really important and I just got mad that I was allowing HER presence there to deprive me of my T and all the good that I could have from working with him w/o the fear and anxiety that she was causing me. Don't know if that makes sense to anyone but I just decided that I valued working with him enough to learn to ignore her and trust that he would not do to me what the others in the past had done. So far, so good LOL. I have also learned that it's a really bad idea to blindside my T. So the next time I had an issue (I thought I saw his wife outside his office and it freaked me out) I emailed him ahead of time to explain my anxiety and we discussed it in session with him being fully aware of what was happening with me. We barely had a ripple.

Just wanted to share that with you all. I know I've been a bit quiet lately.

Right now I am dealing with my T being on vacation next week. I'm doing okay for now. I am not worried so much that he won't come back OR that we won't be okay when he does. I am just missing him and talking with him. He has been firm about my emailing him at least once while he is gone to check in. He told me where he is going and told me it's okay to tell him that I will miss him. It's normal and expected and even good because it confirms the attachment.

He offered me the little dragon to hold onto but I told him no that I wanted to do this week w/o the dragon but I may need him in the future (when I go on my vacation) and I didn't want to wear out all the magic LOL. He reassured me that I'm much stronger and I can do this and it will be fine. I trust him and his assessment of me but we will see how I'm doing in a few days. I think the hardest part are those days when I should have a session. So Monday will be a real test. He is such a great T, how could I not miss him?

Thanks for reading
TN