Awkward conversations

So I finally have therapy again tomorrow after a 3 week break, 1 session and then a 10 day break.

When I arrived for the previous session I noticed a camper van parked outside her house. It’s unusual for her car not to be parked outside her house. I carried on driving to find a space and noticed T’s car. I was about 10 minutes early and someone (T’s husband) drove off in her car about 5 minutes later.

At the end of the session on the doorstep, T pointed to the van and said that it was a recent purchase. I kind of smiled along with this dread descending inside. Surely that means that she will be going away more often…? I also thought it was the clients who were known for door knob confessions not the therapist. 😩

I really don’t want to have to mention this to her because it isn’t any of my business. Although I have felt angry and anxious this week at the thought of more breaks. In the last session, she asked me how the break was and told me that it was okay to miss her, and it doesn’t make me weird. She said that we have a connection etc, but it’s hard not to feel anxious that there is an announcement coming.

I know that I’m going to have to talk to her about this, but I really don’t want to. It feels so invasive and like I am questioning everything that she does. I’m hoping that it is just something for the weekends, but I am trying to answer my own question.

The Retreat

This is a follow up to my previous post and is about the retreat that I went on at the end of July.

I had my session as usual the week of the retreat. At the end of the session we discussed the retreat and T suggested that we be friends for the weekend. She wouldn’t be doing any therapy anyway so she would have the time to relax in between the hypnotherapy treatments. The hypnosis would either be ‘relaxing’ or ‘revitalising’ because I guess you have to do a history etc with clients! I agreed, but didn’t really think about what she meant.

On the Friday afternoon having had one treatment and seeing the way that the retreat was set up, it made sense. T couldn’t possibly maintain ‘therapist mode’ all weekend and the itinerary had two group fire pit experiences. I assumed that she meant that we would say hello and acknowledge each other, but it ultimately gave T the ability to be herself. I was still a bit daunted by her saying that she wasn’t doing any therapy though.

On the Friday afternoon/evening I had two treatments. I had Indian head massage which was amazing and I also had hypnotherapy with T. When hypnotherapy was finished it was nearly time for dinner. T organised her tent to sleep in and I think that she also phoned her husband, and I sat around the fire pit with the others. T appeared and asked if it was okay to sit next to me at times during the weekend. I said yes, again not really thinking about what this would be like.

The fire pit experience on the Friday night was about self limiting beliefs. We were given a clipboard with a piece of paper where we could write down those beliefs and throw them onto the fire. Everything was voluntary and there was no pressure to participate in anything.

We went around the circle and everyone was asked to give a fact that nobody else knows about them. This ended up as a claim to fame thing for some reason! I can’t remember exactly what she said after that, but think it might be what we are proud of and again we went round the circle. T said, ‘I am H and I am amazing’. I loved that – wow! I said that I was proud that I haven’t given up fighting. At the end when we had been around the circle, T said that she was proud of me and got a bit emotional. Well, she had tears in her eyes and said that she felt emotional. I was pretty shocked, but it was amazing to hear. Although I wasn’t able to connect to it at all and make it real, and still can’t remember it clearly enough to be able to now. She doesn’t express herself like that in sessions so it feels like part of the moment has been lost. I was kinda stunned by the fact that some people were crying and was hugely out of my comfort zone so was still quite shut down.

Once it was over some of the group went to bed and some stayed up chatting. T was telling me some things that I didn’t know about her and it was really interesting. She had been to her cousins funeral during the week and was telling me that she used to spend the summer holidays with her grandmother as she was close to her late mum, and also to get away from her evil stepmother. I wish that I wasn’t so stunned by the situation and had been able to ask her questions about her life experiences. Not necessarily deep things, I just think that she has had some interesting life experiences and has so much wisdom.

On the Saturday, I went to yoga at 7am. It was throwing it down with rain and I was soaked to the skin at the end! I hate being wet and cold, but it was very grounding looking back and very peaceful. It was Summer rain. I also changed out of my wet clothes afterwards and was able to war up without heating.

There had been a 5am-ish alarm call with the aim of doing a morning meditation, but it had started raining just after that. T had got up and gone back to bed so I only really saw her at breakfast. We had breakfast and then I had my last treatment which was reflexology.

After reflexology I was sat around the fire with some of the others who weren’t having treatments and we were called into one of the other tents. There was a woman doing sound therapy. She had different coloured bowls and things that looked like a pestle for grinding spices. She moved the grinder looking things around the outside of the bowls which produced different sound frequencies. The sound therapy went on for a while and I eventually got the courage to leave without feeling rude. It became a bit boring!

I was feeling very strange and off – unsettled is probably the best description. I went back to my tent and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t so I sat scrolling on my phone. The unsettled feeling just got bigger and bigger. I left the tent to see if I could find T. She wasn’t round the fire so I assumed that she was doing a treatment. It didn’t look like she was in her tent though. I did this about three times and couldn’t contemplate sitting around the fire with the others. There was also a professional photographer taking photos and I just didn’t want to be seen. I just couldn’t see that T was in her tent. It looked like it was open and unoccupied. Although finding her wouldn’t have changed anything as she was busy.

I went back to my tent again and heard lunch called. My memory of this part is confused having seen pictures of T since chatting at that time, so I can’t remember if I stayed in the tent or went out and saw T chatting, but I started walking down but turned around and went back to my tent anyway. Either way I remember thinking that she would probably come and find me anyway if I didn’t join everyone for lunch. I hoped that she would anyway. I didn’t know what to do because T had said that she wasn’t doing therapy and I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me up. I was also worried that the other two ladies that I was sharing the tent with would return and see me. There was also just no way that I could face that big group of people. I don’t actually know what would have happened. I feel like I would have had a huge anxiety attack even though I was probably already having one.

About five minutes later, T appeared at my tent and asked if she could charge her phone. She was using it for music in the hypnotherapy sessions and her tent didn’t have any solar power points. The charge point was next to my bed (a futon on the floor!) and I gave T my charging lead whilst she sat on my bed to plug it in. She asked if I was okay and I shrugged my shoulders. She asked if I needed a hug and moved closer to me when I nodded. I ended up hugging her waist with my head on her chest. This is how I imagine how other bloggers have described hugging their therapists – like a parent comforting a child. She asked if I could tell her what I was feeling and I just started crying. I just didn’t have the words and the unsettled feeling turned to sadness. I eventually calmed down and T suggested that we get some lunch. She rubbed my back and rested her cheek on my head as she said that she had two more treatments to do after lunch, but was then free so was going to come on the walk with us later that afternoon. It was the most amazing experience and not something that I ever thought would happen. T was so calm and soothing. Even now it is making me catch my breath when I remember it.

All of this didn’t really hit me until I started to drive home on the Sunday afternoon. I hadn’t expected T to give me so much time and have never been shown so much care by anyone. I wasn’t expecting it to lead to such a breakdown – can’t think of the right word that I am looking for! The critical part of me was worried that I had taken up T’s time and that she hadn’t been able to relax, even though she had asked if she could spend time with me. I also felt a huge amount of grief that I had never had such a connecting experience in my life. It is everything that I have never got from my parents. What happened in the tent feels like a sliding doors moment even though it probably would have happened in some way that day anyway. T said that it was good timing, but it seemed perfect. It was like your therapist appearing on your worst day when you really need them. Although there have been many difficult days since.

Luckily I had my therapy session on the Monday after the retreat. T said that she is used to working weekends so didn’t feel the need to have the day off even though she had been away. I could have been her only client on that day too.

I was so desperate to talk about it and to make sense of everything that had happened. She said that I hadn’t monopolised her time and she had felt relaxed. It’s funny because one thing about T really stood out for me that weekend. When we were eating she would say that things were ‘ever so nice’. It’s just so positive and polite. It reminded me of Pollyanna who played the happy game was always ‘very glad’ about everything! You don’t tend to hear people talking like that these days.

I explained the events leading up to T finding me in the tent. T said that it was a completely normal situation for her and that it was good that I allowed her to comfort me. I don’t really know what happened. There wasn’t a lot of conscious thought going on apart from the fear that T had disappeared and how do I get out of there, but that wasn’t where the emotions came from. T thinks that the fire pit experience the night before and the different environment played a part. There were varying degrees of expressions of emotion that night and there was a lot of honesty. What I hadn’t realised is that a lot of the women there were therapists or have done a lot of work on themselves so it was interesting. They are in a very different place compared to me.

Life has been difficult since the retreat though. It has amplified the grief and there hasn’t been much relief from the sadness. It’s still difficult to navigate this in sessions too. The critical part which worries that it is too much for T is still lurking. There’s also the fear that T won’t be able to be there for me so occasionally I have the anxiety about sessions being cancelled which I guess is codependency and anxious attachment.

T has been there though. We have slipped back into the therapy boundaries which I feel is really important. I feel like it would muddy the waters and perhaps make T regret what happened at the retreat if I was to text her a lot because we don’t work like that. It also keeps therapy in the room which is ideally where it should be.

One thing has changed in the therapy room though. T had said in the tent that we couldn’t do that in sessions unfortunately – the holding, but we have. I don’t know if she has forgotten what she said, but there has been a few times where she has asked me if it would help to be back in that safe space. It’s amazing and not something that I ever thought would happen. I had read about it, but it just wasn’t the way that T worked.

I had two sessions last week as we are now on 3 week break. A 3 week break that would be 5 weeks if she hadn’t offered me a session on the 7th of October as she is then off again until the 17th. Monday’s session was a bit of a car crash. I was trying to hold back what felt like a tsunami of emotions but didn’t feel able to tell her or let it out. I tried to wing the session and we ended up having a conversation that made me feel unheard and angry. T told me to write it down and bring it on Friday if it would help.

Friday’s session was intense and the part of me who doesn’t believe that it’s okay to cry was there. On Monday I couldn’t decide whether it would be worse to open that box and not see her for 3 weeks, or to take the chance and get a much needed release. I also thought that she may already have switched off for her holiday. She said that it’s not about her and that her feelings don’t matter.

She sat in front of me for the second part of the session. She held my hands and talked me through my emotions. Although I don’t know if it was her intention to hold my hands when I look back – which is alarming. Her hands were palms upwards though and in a way which suggested that I should hold them. She didn’t pull away, but argh it has played on my mind since. She told me that I can let it out myself outside of therapy, but I still feel the need to have all of this pain witnessed. It’s lonely to think of feeling it alone like I did as a child. Although I felt it and buried it.

I am trying to navigate the break and don’t know how to feel. At the moment. I don’t have the ‘she’s not coming back’ anxiety, but I can’t rule it out appearing. It’s her father in-laws birthday the week that she comes back and she was talking about getting quotes to get some work on their house done so I’ll have to try to remember that. I just miss her I guess. I do need a support network outside of therapy, but they are no replacement for therapy.

T has gone on holiday this week and the anxiety is huge. I think that I just miss her and I don’t know how to feel about that. I miss the connection with someone who actually listens to me. She says that I need to find my ‘tribe’ of like minded people who aren’t like my parents. I also feel like I’m in the thick of the grief and don’t have a safe space for the next few weeks. She said that she is taking her laptop to keep on top of her emails so will be able to email me as part of our check-in. So at least she isn’t incommunicado and completely off grid like she used to be. I still miss her though.

☝🏻 I wrote that three weeks ago and had a session with T on Friday. She is off next week so I have another break until the 17th. I am angry… and sad. I don’t feel like she is really back even though she was talking as if she is. She has also bought a VW Campvervan so I feel like she is going to be away all the time now.

Update

Hi everyone. It has been a long time since I have posted here. I’m not entirely sure why. Life has definitely been busy. I have noticed that it has been quiet here anyway. I assumed that people are getting used to post Covid restriction life and blog when they can.

I’m going to break everything up into categories to compartmentalise it all!

Life

Life has been very up and down. My brother separated from his wife earlier in the year which has been the biggest thing. It has been very acrimonious and chaotic. My sister in law has a lot of issues that she isn’t addressing which translates into her drinking too much and general chaos and disorganisation. This in turn has a huge impact on my nephews who are 8 and 5 years old. My brother has had his own issues, but is better now that he has moved out and aims to provide a stable, loving environment for his sons.

The dynamic of my family has meant that I have been dragged into the drama and the expectation is that we all experience the same pain. I have tried to be the rational voice whilst processing it all in therapy. I have also just tried to be a consistent figure for my nephews. I just play with them and hope that they will talk if they need to.

It’s all heading for divorce now so I’m hoping that it will eventually lead to things being more settled despite my sister in law’s continued mind games. I can only hope that any trauma experienced by the boys has been minimal.

Work

Work is something that I have gradually grown to hate over the last two years. I worked right through the pandemic and we have since been threatened with redundancy – although that isn’t definite. It’s a very thankless job and just completely unfulfilling. It was the right job for me at one stage, but now I want something creative. That’s probably way in the future though.

Therapy

The last time that I blogged was about therapy – therapy breaks to be precise! That was in January and T had been away before Christmas. We had discussed the breaks and she said that they would be erratic this year. I tried to rationalise this by telling myself that it was just her resuming her pre-Covid holidays. She had a week off in February and then in March. She was away for two weeks in May which I think is standard for her. She will be away for two weeks at the end of September which is the one that I always expect because it’s her birthday. I am assuming that she will go skiing again in the Winter too.

I think that the main reason that I stopped blogging was because I started to shut down. I think that two years of Covid restrictions, and mostly the physical separation from T, had taken its toll. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I didn’t have a lot to say.

At the end of March I arrived for my session as usual with my mask on which we would wear until we sat down. T said during the small talk that she had been asking clients opinions about stopping mask wearing at the start of sessions. I acknowledged what she was saying but didn’t allow myself to get my hopes up about the physical contact returning. At the end of the session, she asked me if I wanted a hug. I was so shocked and overwhelmed. It was so nice.

The return of physical contact has definitely helped to move therapy along. There has still been times where I have felt stuck and that has lasted weeks at a time. This has usually required a session for T to remind me that she is okay and that she doesn’t take on my feelings. She recently said that she hasn’t experienced what I have and wouldn’t pretend to be able to relate to what I am feeling, and feels that it would be arrogant to claim my feelings as hers.

In April, T mentioned that she was going to be the guest hypnotherapist at a retreat that one of her peers was running at the end of July. It was actually a woman that she had trained and is now friends with. She said that she thought it would help me to be in an environment with the people in her world who feel free to talk about their feelings and see it as ‘normal’ to do so. I kinda dismissed it because of the cost and it not being the kind of thing that I do. It was on a farm with one particular breed of animal and the retreat was marketed at ‘worn out women’ which is an accurate description of me!

When T was on holiday in May, I started to think about what it would be like to go on the retreat. I was missing T so I guess I was partly thinking about what it would be like to spend a weekend in her presence, but I wouldn’t pay so much money just for that! I looked at my finances and I have some money in an ISA that has been sat there for years. It’s the equivalent of a month of my salary before tax so it’s not even thousands of pounds. I haven’t had a holiday for many years and don’t want to go on holiday with my mum so I decided to take the plunge and do it. To do something for me. The weekend also coincided with my mum going on holiday for a week so I would have been alone anyway. T was really pleased when I told her which was nice, but wasn’t why I did it.

I’m going to write about the retreat in a separate post because it became quite long.

I hope that you’re all doing well or as well as can be expected in this crazy world. 💜

Too many breaks

Happy New Year! It has been a long time since I have posted which hasn’t been a conscious thing. I have had to put in a lot of boundaries around laptop time. I have to update my journal for my therapy each day which means that I get my laptop out each evening. I found myself in the second UK lockdown last year discovering YouTubers and would spend hours watching their videos at night. I guess this was partly numbing and escapism. I think this was affecting my ability to work the next day and I really had to get my self sorted work wise because I was going through a disciplinary process at the time. I would also spend a lot of time editing blogs in an effort to ‘fit in’ with the way that others write. I have always found it hard to see people being praised for writing in such a beautiful, poetic way because I could never measure up to that.

The only conscious part of not blogging for so long is how I found reading about the physical contact being provided by other therapists extremely triggering. It is something that I really miss and have been without for very nearly two years. Reading about it provoked a lot of anger and passive aggressiveness which is something else that I find extremely ugly about myself. Other bloggers are able to be happy for those people, but I just couldn’t be – and still struggle to rationalise if I’m very honest. Well, I don’t deny that they deserve it but I also can’t deny my pain at this being withdrawn so suddenly. I think that I just really envy that a therapist is willing to take the chance of getting a potentially fatal virus to care for a client. To me, it says that those people are worth more than me. T has had Covid and I didn’t know how to raise the subject of her being immune and therefore unable to infect me in that time. A time that has now passed. We discussed it in the Summer and she told me that it was a temporary change, but to me two years isn’t temporary. Or it can no longer be classed as temporary after so long. Covid isn’t going anywhere so I feel like losing the physical contact with her is something else that I have to grieve. Having to live with Covid means that I am going to have to live without being physically close the my therapist.

The last time that I posted was at the end of September when T had Covid. She recovered and doesn’t seem to have had any lasting effects from it. We had two online sessions whilst she was isolating, but she was off in the first week of October because of a family birthday. When we returned to in person sessions, she told me that they were planning to go on holiday on the 25th of October. This sent me into a huge panic, although not one that she could see, and when I got home I had put all sorts of random sessions into my phone calender because I was so freaked out. I think I was dissociating because I couldn’t compute what she was saying to me in terms of dates. It sounded like a different language. We sorted it out in the next session and it was an 11 day holiday and not 2 weeks as I had assumed.

The October break worked out okay in the end because I was ill for most of the time so it meant that I didn’t miss any sessions. I think I had the Covid omicron variant, but didn’t have a PCR test because my LFT’s were all negative. I have since read that the LFT’s can still be negative but the PCR would be positive.

We had maybe 2 or 3 weeks of sessions when T told me that they were hoping to go skiing on the 13th of December. I was hoping that she wouldn’t go because if herself or her husband tested positive on the day 2 PCR on their return, they would have had to isolate over Christmas. But she did go. Thankfully they both tested negative and I was able to have my session on the 23rd. The sensible thing would be to keep a session fairly light before a break, but a lot had come up in that time and I would then have to wait until after Christmas.

I had received a email at work the week before from someone who was dealing with a customer complaint. They said that they had listened to a call that I had taken from said customer and to congratulate me on how I dealt with the call. He said that he listens to a lot of calls as part of his job and they are littered with bad advice and call handling skills. He also said that it is rare that he hears the perfect call like that. ‘

‘Perfect’ has been a huge part of my therapy sessions in the last few months and is something I am desperately trying to get away from so I felt weird about the word being used. I also felt very tearful reading that email and didn’t believe that it could really have been me, even though I can’t remember what the call was about. Also that unless I can replicate that perfection with every call then it means nothing.

My dad had also been away which he often can be for months at a time. He came back 3 weeks after he said he would but didn’t tell me and when he returned and we spoke on the phone he would say that we would ‘catch up whenever’. The phone is a cheap one that he bought from China or somewhere and I can barely hear him. It was his birthday a week after he got back and he went out for a meal with my brother and his family, but I wasn’t invited or aware that it was happening until my mum told me about it. His new level of disinterest in me has been soul destroying. He has never been loving or nurturing, but it’s hard to face it being so obvious and worse. My brother has given him two grandchildren so my dad makes a lot of effort to see them.

I have felt a strong pull towards my parents recently, but then had to remind myself that they won’t give me the love that I need.

My session on the 23rd was in the morning and I had finished work on the 21st for a week so I think there was a shift in knowing that I didn’t have to go back to work after the session. I could feel the pressure of my emotions as I was driving over as if my body had seams that were going to burst open. I could also feel the tension in my forehead which made the drive very uncomfortable. A lot of emotions came up during that session despite my best efforts to suppress them. I am still finding it difficult to show my emotions in therapy despite T’s unflinching nature. We had discussed feelings in a previous session and I think that part of the reason that I hold onto them is because I am finally allowed to have them. They also feel part of my identity almost. I don’t know who I am without them. There’s also a huge thing around being ‘better’ and losing T’s support. I have been in therapy for a long time, but I still can’t face the idea of being without T. I read a quote on Instagram a while ago and it talked about attachment being related to security, and it just makes so much sense to me. I don’t see T as a mother figure, but I am definitely attached.

At the end of the session, T said that she had pencilled me in for the 10th of January. She said that she is having days off in what is now this week too in between working some days. My sessions are usually on Monday’s so with the UK Bank Holiday today, I have missed my session. We have moved a lot of sessions around the last few months in an effort to try to make the breaks shorter even though it often meant a 10 day instead of a 7 day gap in between sessions so it was a false economy really.

I was so depressed over Christmas and have just wanted to sleep the days away. Apart from last Thursday and Friday when I was back at work so I couldn’t. I have really felt the disruption of the last few months and I have missed T so much. The ache of missing her has been unbearable at times and I have felt a lot of anger and hurt about how little she must care about me because she isn’t constantly available like other therapists are. She usually emails me once a week as a check-in just so that I know that she is still there. She didn’t email me last week, but I knew that she wouldn’t because it was the week between Christmas and New Year. I know realistically that T’s holidays have been so close together and at short notice because of Covid, but it hasn’t made it much easier. I never got an old normal so this ‘new normal’ is an additional level of grief on top of the grief I haven’t yet processed about my past.

I feel like I have a lot to unpack next week, but I am apprehensive to do that because I have the expectation that T will be going on holiday again in the near future. I think that there may be a connection between my anger with T being away a lot and although I am used to my dad coming and going, his noticeable disinterest clashing with another of T’s holidays and then Christmas. I’m hoping that we can get some consistency session wise, but I won’t know until I see her.

When T got Covid

Thank you to the people who replied to my previous post on Tuesday. I just didn’t know what to do at that time. The fear was huge. I didn’t reply to T’s text on Tuesday night and was planning to wait until about 10am on Wednesday morning, but she text me before 9am asking me if I had received her message. I replied apologising for not responding last night and asked for the session to be on Skype.

When I accepted the Skype call, T said hello and confirmed that she had tested positive. She said that had received the text with the result just before she called me. She said that she is okay and just feels run down, and like she has a cold. I told her that I could hear that she was bunged up. She laughed and said that she sounds very nasal. I was relieved, but had been hoping that she is asymptomatic.

T asked me what I wanted to talk about and I said that I had been psyching myself up to talk about something, but don’t feel able to talk it in an online session. She didn’t push me to talk about it which I was relieved about. I danced around some subjects and eventually came back to my reaction to her text on Tuesday evening. I told her that I hadn’t replied because it wouldn’t have come from an adult place. I was scared and it felt like the end of the world. I just couldn’t rationalise it. I was confused about why she was arranging a session if she is unwell, but it didn’t feel appropriate to ask her questions through texts. I think I was angry because my immediate assumption was that she hasn’t been careful – even though T can do what she wants. I didn’t say that in the session though. She asked me if I felt any differently this morning. I said that I could only assume that she wouldn’t work if she was too ill to get out of bed and it would have been worse 12 months ago as she wouldn’t be vaccinated.

I told her that I feel very strange but I can’t put it into words. I said that it’s not about me because it’s not happening to me. She said that it is about me if I feel something about it. I said that I feel stupid for getting used to the consistency and how much of an escape therapy is. Once I get into the car to drive to T’s, I know that I have about 5 hours where I don’t have to work or pretend to function. I have 5 hours away from life and a safe space to go to, but maybe I deserved to have that taken away again. I hadn’t connected any of this to abandonment until T said it. Covid is so unpredictable and T is over 50 so there is definitely a fear that T will become seriously ill. She said that she can’t make any promises because she doesn’t know what will happen, but she is okay at the moment. She doesn’t have a cough, well she didn’t cough during the session, which makes me feel slightly more at ease because it affecting the lungs seems to increase the chance of hospitalisation.

The majority of the session was spent talking about this. T asked me to think about all of the times when I had felt like something bad was going to happen and it didn’t. I said that I couldn’t remember any. She said that I can only remember the times when difficult things had happened and there will be so many occasions when nothing happened. I was so longing to be in that room especially as the session gap was longer due to T taking the Monday off work. The timing just really sucks. Work is relentless and the adjustments they have made are the bare minimum. I was talking to T in my last face to face session about the fact that it would be ‘easier’ if I had depression and anxiety that was able to be controlled by medication. I don’t mean that having illnesses such as bipolar disorder are easier, I’m just thinking about employers. Employers really aren’t trauma informed, unless it is an incident that happens in the present, and trying to explain why I struggle is so difficult. It sounds like nonsense when I say it out loud. I guess it’s not unreasonable for an employer to assume that an employee will have the foundations to function when they employ someone. I said to T that there are probably a lot of people like ‘us’ who don’t work. I have my first day in the office since Easter week 2020 on Thursday and I am dreading it. Being in the office doesn’t bother me, but I just feel so uncomfortable with my manager. There may be employers who are trauma informed but mine definitely isn’t. I work in a culture which is trying to get something from virtually nothing. We really don’t have enough staff and the pressure is immense. This week I have spent a lot of time trying to repair the mistakes of others and cover that up to the best of my ability.

My brother has also had a milestone birthday this weekend and my sister in law was talking about their night out on Friday. They separated earlier in the year, but he is now living in the family home again. She had referred to him as her husband whilst they were out, but she no longer wears her wedding rings. It’s very confusing.

Usually when I think about all of these things, I can know that I will be in the room with T but now I can’t. I keep being hit with these waves of grief. We discussed the next sessions at the end of the session and T has to isolate until the 1st of October. She said that she was planning to take the week commencing the 4th off which I was a bit gutted about. She did say that we could have an online session, but it sounds like she will be busy so I declined. So it will be the 11th of October before we are back in the same room again. There has definitely been a grief even though I am lucky that it is temporary – as far as I know. Grief attaches itself to everything now.

There was a conversation about long covid at my dance class on Wednesday night which gave me another thing to worry about. Will T develop long covid…? It can take up to three weeks after someone has recovered for it to appear. My sister in law was more unwell than T seems to be, but it’s been less than three weeks since she recovered. Then there are the idiots in the UK buying all of the fuel even though there isn’t a shortage. I have plenty right now and I can only hope that the fuss has died down in two weeks in case I need to fill my car up to drive to T’s.

I miss T’s physical presence despite being able to do Skype sessions. We did have a bit of a laugh at the end of the session which was nice. It was the kind of small talk we probably would have had between the sofa and the door, and it was still T even though she is unwell. One thing that I hadn’t considered until the comments on my last post was T’s immunity. T will be immune to Covid which would reduce the risk of physical contact because I couldn’t infect her if I was pre-symptomatic and she wouldn’t be able to be reinfected. It’s 19 nearly 20 months since T and I had a hug, and I miss it so much. She said that she doesn’t watch the news or read about the pandemic so I don’t know if she will consider this. I’m going to wait and see. The main aim right now is for T to get better and to get back to face to face sessions. I am also trying to deal with the anxiety about how T is. I remember having the flu and feeling okay when I woke up but by the time I’d had a shower, I realised I will still ill. I’m hoping that T hasn’t deteriorated or developed any new symptoms since our session on Wednesday.

Back to online therapy

I’m supposed to have therapy tomorrow and my therapist has just text me saying that she is waiting for a PCR covid test result following a positive ‘free’ one which I assume means a lateral flow test. She said it’s unlikely that she will able to do the session face to face.

I’m so gutted. I was so reliant particularly right now on being in the room with T away from the stress of work and my own head. I was supposed to have my usual session on Monday, but we arranged it for Wednesday because it was T’s birthday yesterday. But it will also rule out Monday’s session too, although hopefully not the 3rd of October if she gets the result tomorrow. If she gets them on Thursday it will though.

I know that it’s inevitable that we’re all going to get it at some point. My sister in law has just recovered but she was only single jabbed, but her dad who is double jabbed also got it too. I just don’t have the reserves to cope with the physical distance right now. Even though she doesn’t come anywhere near me anymore. Being in the same room is better than 40 miles away though. I’m assuming that she’s not ill or enough to not be able to work.

I had just sat down to eat and now I can’t stomach it. I have had a bad feeling all day that she would cancel the session and I was halfway correct. I’m struggling to know what to say in response because my inner child is in charge right now. She is angry and hurt.

Life will never be the same again and T will definitely never hug me again. 😢

Unresolved

The last two weeks have been a bit of a shitstorm. The fallout from my last session which you can read about here – Rejection has been huge. It wouldn’t let me type over the link which must be a WP change because I used to be able to do it.

I didn’t email T about the session in the days after. At first I felt okay about waiting because I would rather talk about it face to face, but I have switched between anger, rejection and grief. T emailed me on the Friday as part of our check-in. She added the she wouldn’t email me next week as where she was going doesn’t have the internet and she doesn’t have data on her phone. She has told me that once before and I wouldn’t expect her to contact me when she is on holiday. I felt angry about the fact that I could have had a session, but she chose not to allow it.

Last week I was hit by the attachment pain as well as having to deal with work. I have realised how much I hate my job. I think that I have just outgrown it and want something more creative. Having to be creative with the truth is not fulfilling at all. I have felt quite angry and stuck. Being self employed would be a huge gamble with only my income to rely on. I know that I could keep my current job until I have established myself which is what most people do, but I also see lots of other people doing the same thing so I wouldn’t be unique. I have put a lot of my difficulties at work down to my mental health, but my job has a hugely negative effect on it too. It’s so shit to be held responsible for things that you have no control over. To be told, although indirectly, that you’re not working fast enough because they are under resourced and are trying to get as much as possible from what they do have. I don’t find it a healthy environment and maybe I have realised what I really want. I don’t know what my next move will be.

The attachment pain was awful especially knowing that T was unavailable. There was nothing that I could do but grit my teeth and ride it out.

I felt relieved on Saturday knowing that T would be going home, but yesterday I was hit with this almighty sadness. Everything that I missed out on. It was the weekend and the rest of my family being busy meant that I was alone. I don’t have a partner or children to spend time with. I have friends but only by name. I haven’t seen them for about two years and we haven’t been in touch. I have realised that they are not friends who would stick by me and we’re just not close. I felt/feel so alone. I couldn’t eat but eventually forced myself to get out of bed. I just felt paralysed by the grief.

I don’t know if T being home has opened all of this up again even though it still feels unresolved. I don’t know what T’s reaction to my anger and hurt regarding the session that she dangled in front of me like a carrot and then took away. I don’t know what her explanation is going to be. Part of me already doesn’t believe her explanation because it will have the benefit of hindsight. She is also very unlikely to admit that she was sick of the sight of me. I’m scared that if I unleash all of this need and pain, T will run. I usually have my session on Monday’s but because of the Bank Holiday it is on Wednesday. I don’t know where T went on holiday, but I’m anxious that the session will be cancelled or have to be online. If she went to Spain as she usually does, she would have to have done a Covid test yesterday which would have to be sent off to be tested. My dad had to isolate five days after he came back due to a positive case on their flight. I don’t want to need her too much because something will happen if I do.

Now my brain is questioning the time of our session. I really don’t want to have to text her – or maybe I do. This morning, my brain is telling me that she wasn’t really away. She was in hospital having an operation or something. So much anxiety.

Rejection

I had therapy today.

T told me at the end of last week’s session that she is away from the 21st to the 28th. She gave me the impression that I could have a session today and at the end of this week because the Bank Holiday on the 30th means that I can’t have my usual Monday session.

At the end of the session earlier she said she could do Wednesday the 1st of September. She had first asked me what we had arranged last week. I told her that we hadn’t discussed anything because she didn’t give me any information and I didn’t really understand what she was getting at.

She said that I could have a session on Friday, but it’s too close together and that I can cope. I told her that I can’t but I obviously have no choice. She didn’t contradict me.

I feel so hurt and so rejected. She didn’t even give me the chance to decide if I want a session on Friday. It’s obviously too close together for her. I have been living with the hope that I could cut the break slightly shorter. But T doesn’t want to be anywhere near me. She hates me. I’m such a burden. I feel so worthless and so stupid for believing that anyone could ever care about me.

Incomplete

I had therapy today and mentioned the fact that I miss the hug that T and I used to have at the end of each session. It wasn’t discussed because I had mentioned a few things. The session only ended up being 45 minutes because I was late due to horrendous traffic.

I am now full of regret for mentioning it though. She didn’t say that we will discuss the rest in the next session. I feel like I have done something wrong and just angry with myself for ever allowing T close to me when it was ultimately going to be taken away from me. It was taken away from me because I don’t deserve it.

I am on the floor emotionally now and so full of regret for even raising it. The need for love with nowhere to find it is so painful. I am fighting the need to email T to apologise for today and for everything that I said in today’s session. I feel like that would make it all better. I have to do something.

A Million Reasons

This post is me being fired back into hypervigilance and abandonment issues.

I had my session today which went okay. I was in a pretty vulnerable state at the end when I realised that I am hiding behind everything that is going on in my life at the moment. T said that I am taking on everyone else’s stuff that I have no control over. When all of the chaos of work and my brother’s marriage breakdown is taken away, there’s just me alone feeling worthless.

At the end of the session whilst we were both updating our phone calendars with next weeks session, T said that if the session ends abruptly next week it is because she has to ‘dash off somewhere’. I was like ‘err okay’. When I got into my car and started the drive home my mind started to tick over and wonder where she would be rushing off to. My go to was a hospital appointment, a mammogram for example. But would it be a routine screening or because she has found something? It must be urgent if she has taken an appointment that she will just get to on time. Maybe she is taking her evil stepmother to an appointment or one of her in-laws. It could even be a hair appointment or some other beauty type appointment. It could even be a client requiring a home visit which her website does say that she offers. Either way I am super anxious. She is obviously entitled to make appointments outside of our session time because a client should really be out of the door as the session ends. I don’t mean that to sound heartless, but I’m sure that some therapists do work like that!

My mind is working overtime trying to find an explanation for this. I used to worry that T would terminate our sessions because I was too much or she had decided to stop working as a therapist. We have discussed that a lot so I feel more secure about that. It doesn’t stop the fear that T will be taken away from me when it isn’t her choice or mine. I don’t really know what to do about this. T has probably been to lots of places and appointments without me being aware. She had an operation a few years ago immediately after she returned from a holiday so she emailed me to warn me that she would be on crutches and bandaged up to the knee when she answered the door. It was a minor operation and she was recovered fairly quickly.

She is not obliged to tell me where she is going and any health issues she has either. The boundaries mean that she can’t say a lot about herself. I can only contemplate discussing it after it has happened and at the same time as I raise the lack of physical contact. That would be the week after next. The only thing I can think of to do is to ask T if we can start the session earlier. I was 20 minutes early today, but I parked about 5 minutes away and then parked on T’s road for 5 minutes before going in. I can’t guarantee to be early, but it saves me waiting 10-15 minutes not doing anything. I think she usually leave 30 minutes between each client, but I don’t know how my 2.30pm session works with her lunch break. Although, if this her way of cutting out the extra 5 minutes small talk whilst I put my shoes on and sanitise my hands I will ruin her plan.

I keep trying to re-run the session in my head to see if T was showing any signs of being worried or not focused, but I would have picked up on that at the time. Or that she was preparing me to be without her. Surely even T couldn’t compartmentalise a major health worry and just carry on listening to others.

I have my disciplinary kind of meeting with work in the meeting and I wasn’t prepared for this curveball. It might not be anything! It’s just the attachment making itself known. I also find being rushed at the end of a session quite triggering as I’m sure most of us do. I hate having to discuss the therapeutic relationship in therapy. It is deeply uncomfortable and just makes me want to run away. I just can’t lose her.