It's been an adjustment, but mostly okay. I figured out (with T's help) that if I wanted to continue to do "deeper" work, I need to see T at least weekly to stay regulated, but if I'm just continuing with therapy for "maintanence and support" going every two weeks seems to be adequate. I have not quite decided what direction I want to take my therapy in (in terms of deeper work versus just support). . . I feel like I'm in a stable enough place that I could conceivably go either way and am just not sure what I really want and what is best, or even how to go about making those determinations. Because I feel I need my attachment figure, I know I'm not ready to stop seeing T altogether, and that is not even in my thoughts as yet.
Yet while I've been trying to make this decision. . . it's come about that we've had some disruptions, the result of which is it has now been nearly four weeks since I've seen T. I was really looking forward to the session I was supposed to have two weeks ago, but she cancelled on me three hours before session time. It's true she had a good enough reason, but it upset me, and I communicated that-- not in an accusatory, "look what you did wrong!" kind of way, but I was fairly transparent (via email) about how disoriented, hurt, and dysregulated I felt. T was gracious about it. She called me voluntarily and talked for a few minutes on the phone, and encouraged me to email as much as I needed to over the next few days. I actually did end up emailing a fair amount.
I was very much looking forward to the next session meanwhile (which we scheduled a week out) but the day before it came I was seized with all this dread and aversion. I felt I just couldn't see T and that maybe I should go on a break of indeterminate length. I wanted distance. I don't think I was doing this to get back at her, at least not consciously. I think it's more that the connection felt severed in my mind, and the idea of reforging it was making me anxious. I actually emailed and cancelled, saying it wasn't her but that I "just couldn't deal with it right now." I said I would be back someday. (I've done this before and never stayed away for more than a few weeks.)
T wrote back very sensitively, said she hoped I was doing okay, etc, and to let her know if I wanted to talk or reschedule.
Well, just a couple days later something happened in my real life that made me feel I needed T after all, so I did end up rescheduling. I have a session tomorrow. My first in three and a half weeks.
And so. . . I'm feeling really ambivalent now about what I want out of therapy and how often I want to go. There is part of me (the needy, attached, "young" part) that wants to got back to weekly. I feel like the relationship with T, when it's stable, makes me blossom and that even though I can get by with less contact, perhaps I would flourish with more? But since I do feel like I've reached a place of relative stability and peace-- I'm not sure about getting more into the work of therapy itself. You all don't need me to tell you how therapy can unsettle things and kick stuff up, lol. I don't want emotional turmoil. I just want to keep seeing T.
And I'm thinking. . . I could maybe actually go to once a month. I didn't think I was ready for that, but it's been nearly a month and I've been mostly fine. A little internally unsettled over the cancelled sessions, but not so it's affecting my external life in a way anyone could notice. And that's all that matters, right? Or perhaps I am prizing (relative) functionality too highly. Maybe I should prize really being in touch with all my feelings and really living authentically more, even it would mean more struggling. On some level, I feel like I am scared and that I've struggled enough.
I am deliberating over these things and will be heading into therapy tomorrow with no idea of my goals for our future together or even when I want to schedule the next session (next week? next two weeks? next month?). I'm thinking perhaps I'll see how it goes with T tomorrow and what comes up when talking to her and decide then, based on that.
Meanwhile. . . I think I saw T today and that has disturbed me too. We live in a smallish town, and on Sunday mornings I pass her church on the way home from mine. I don't know if she goes to the first or second service at her church, but it so happens that the second service lets out usually just as I am passing, and I always look for her just in case as I drive by. Well, today for the first time I saw someone that may well have been her. I only saw her back, but she had T's build, walk, and hairstyle. She was even wearing a suit jacket similar to the sort of thing T often wears. The only problem is (and I think I'm going to sound like some kind of maniac here), she was wearing a long, flowy, "churchy" skirt that is very unlike T. I mean it is not like anything she has ever worn to work (that I've seen) or that I would have thought of as her style at all. There was nothing wrong with it- I like wearing skirts myself and it was actually quite pretty. It just made me mad to see T (if it was T) looking like someone she's not. Okay, I probably sound absolutely bonkers now not to mention obsessed. But I keep thinking sulky (angry?) thoughts about this skirt, and a generic "church lady" version of T I imagine wearing it, and this is somehow all mixed in with my uncertainty about therapy tomorrow evening and in the future and I just feel. . . not bad, exactly, but unsettled.
I don't know if anyone has any insights, opinions, advice, or maybe just wants to say hi and that you can relate (if that is true). But, this is where I'm at with therapy now, for those who may care or be curious.