Posted by messadivoce on June 8, 2005, at 21:05:07
In reply to Re: Chapter 4 Extreme boundary violations, posted by Jazzed on June 8, 2005, at 11:10:38
I have to admit that this is the second chapter in the book that I skipped to, after the chapter on "I'm in love with my Therapist." I was kind of disappointed in how general the "rules" were, in a way. And it makes me paranoid about my relationship with my former T. He was very professional all of the time, it's true. But there were moments, here and there, where the professional context of the relationship was forgotten by both of us, and we were just two people in the room.
These moments are hard to explain. But even though I know pretty much no hard facts about his life, I did get glimpses into how he felt about me. He liked me, I know that. He got swept up into the high emotionalism of the termination. He let me write him after termination and he wrote back. He responded in a therapeutic capacity, as far as the context of his replies.
It was three weeks after my termination that I stopped by to say hi. That was when he told me that he could no longer write me, that it was a boundary violation, and that he was not doing me any favors by staying in constant contact with me. It was the closest he every came to admitting a mistake. Of course, I was crushed. I felt like it was all my fault, that somehow I should have known not to write to him and be happy with his responses.
That was his biggest flaw, I think. Not being able to admit his mistakes. In the end, that hurt me more than the boundaries themselves. I can relate to the "good cop bad cop" thing too. Even though my head knows that he cut off communication to protect me, my heart has been screaming that he did it to protect *himself* from how much I needed him; so that he could go on his merry way with his postdoctoral fellowship and license and family and leave me with...
He left me with a lot. Good things and bad.
Today all day I felt as though something was not right. I kept thinking about him, more than usual, and wondering if it had been a full year since that last time I saw him. I came home and checked through my old e-mail messages. Sure enough. It will be one year ago tomorrow.
poster:messadivoce
thread:491935
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050606/msgs/509824.html