Short update

Okay, a quick update on this last week or so. I’m working on a more detailed post, but for now I have this…….I wanted to thank everyone who reached out to me and supported me. I spend December and the first week of January feeling so trapped, confused, and just utterly alone. Having my online friends really made a difference. It gave me the feeling I wasn’t alone, and that I had a place to go to feel safe. I’m doing this new thing, where I say thank you instead of I’m sorry. So, thank you all for being supportive in a really emotional time for me, and thank you for understanding when I don’t have the energy to leave comments or write my own posts. You all are very I important to me, and I wish for everyone of you to find safety and happiness. 

Okay, enough sappiness. Onto the update— it’s a quick list of what Bea and I have talked through and agreed on since last week Thursday:

1) Bea did not know I felt as bad, overwhelmed, and not safe as I was feeling the last month, and Bea would have been there if I had told her

2) Bea really do know when I am being “perfect” and am not okay, but I need to know explicitly that she is aware of this so we are going to see if it is helpful next time if she lets me know that she is aware I’m not “perfect”

3) I need to be more honest about the story I am telling myself in the moment (like when I am thinking Bea doesn’t want to deal with me so she is talking about other supports)

4) I need to work on being comfortable with collaboration. 

5) Bea is capable and not overwhelmed in dealing with my messy craziness, and she is going to try not to underestimate how important knowing she is there and I’m not alone is— it means a lot 

6) We agreed that transference happens in all relationships, and that it is a “lens” or template of how to do relationships. It is not bad, and talking about it can help to stop or break unhealthy/unproductive relationship patterns (maybe things that helped me in childhood or teen years, but are no longer serving me)

7) Bea can go to the thinky place AND still care/be supportive of me AND Bea can shift between the thinky place and the feeling place. She will give me a choice about hearing a thinky thought or needing her to stay with the feelings and I will work on not shutting down when she shifts to the thinky place so that I can see it’s okay and that she will go back to the feelings. 

8) We talked about the therapy relationships I had as a teen, and it’s clear that a there is stuff from past therapists that is triggering me when we try to discuss this relationship 

9) That hard truth about Kenny and not being able to do anything is painful. It literally hurts, a can’t breathe, can’t think, black hole of nothingness that I can’t find a way out of. It’s heartbreak, grief, panic. Helplessness, frustration, fear. 

10) I’m going to be brave and try new things, with reasonable rules in place so I can feel in control and safe. 

11) I thought more about it, and yes, it was very hard to lose Robin (old therapist in highschool/community college– I was 15 q. But, me being me, I never allowed for any sort of ending or goodbyes or discussion about it. We both knew that I was leaving for college in the fall, and I remember she tried to talk to me about it, something about really processing the goodbye, or loss, or I don’t know, and so I just never went back after that. And no one cared, really, because I was “fixed” so my parents didn’t care. And if was easier to just not go back than to say goodbye when I left for college. I guess I sort of suck at good byes.