Posted by LG04 on July 2, 2004, at 3:06:02
Hi, well I had my last session with my therapist yesterday (last session for at least two months since i am going on vacation...don't know if i am returning to this country or not, don't know if this is "termination" of therapy or just a break).
The session was okay, I cried a lot, we didn't do much but just listen to me cry and try to help me deal with the pain of leaving her. She told me what she'd miss about me and she gave me a little present (a stuffed plastic animal that she used for herself when she is anxious, it's like a little bean bag doll that you can play with when you're stressed, she wanted me to have it). Right now I am so angry I feel like throwing it against the wall.
This morning I am totally paralyzed. I feel like I cannot get on that plane tomorrow morning. There is a very primitive part of me, even pre-verbal I think, that is 100% dependent upon my therapist. Not the adult me, not even younger me's, but this very very young me. I don't even think I realized how intense this was. My therapist definitely didn't and I am pissed at her for it. I feel like we did not address this part of me.
This part of me feels literally that she cannot live without my therapist. She feels like she is totally losing her. Nothing consoles her. She just needs to see her once/twice a week. She needs to know she is there. Knowing I can call my therapist doesn't help. It's not the same. This part of me feels that my therapist is now dead. Nothing helps. I don't know what to do.
I just called my therapist (I am leaving tomorrow morning) to discuss this with her. I am very angry at my therapist (maybe wrongly so?) because I feel like we did not at all deal with this primitive, pre-verbal part of me. My therapist dealt more with the adult part of me in dealing with this separation. It was more CBT kinds of stuff. Which is helpful for some parts of me but not this totally dependent part of me.
We did discuss the dependency a few times but agreed that it was too big of a thing to try to deal with in the month or so remaining before I'd leave, that we'd start dealing with it long-term when I came back. But then I started to understand that I might not come back (except to pack up my things and move back to America) which again left us no time to deal with this dependency thing. I don't think my therapist gets how intense and primitive it is, and how life-sustaining she feels to me.
Do you all have any advice? Am I right to be so angry at my therapist (or am I being so angry because it helps me with separation...this is something i commonly do...get angry before a separation)? Shouldn't we have addressed this more, and explored this baby part of me that is totally dependent upon her? I feel that she was negligent towards me. I feel that she has left me alone to deal with this part of me. I feel like she is off the hook because I am leaving and now what I am supposed to do?
What do I do with this part of me? I feel like I have no idea how to help her. She doesn't want me. She just wants my therapist, she just wants to see her regularly and know she is there. That's okay when it's an ongoing therapy relationship and you are working thru it, little by little. But in my situation, where I am leaving for the summer and don't know if I am coming back or not, what am I supposed to do?
I am terrified.
LG
poster:LG04
thread:362474
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040624/msgs/362474.html