Posted by LadyBug on November 5, 2008, at 19:29:48
I'll try and make some sense of how things went. I was so nervous before, waiting in the waiting room seemed like forever. She came out, we said Hi and went back to her office.
She had a different couch, that was weird, I found out later another T in her office is going to be taking her office when she leaves so she had moved her couch in. Ok, makes sense.
I sat down and told her I had a choice to make, I could either leave it as unfinished but done or I could come back to say goodbye. She shook her head in agreement. I said the main reason I came back was to tell you how much you hurt me with your comment. I said she couldn't have said anything that ripped through me like that. Nobody could have said anything any more hurtful at the time. I reminded her of the year I'd had and how hard it was. She said, this is what you talked about when you were here before and I don't know why you are still on it. We talked about it, she said she didn't recall saying it. I said how can you have too much sympathy for someone whose just lost a grandchild in the manor which I did? Any way, it was important she KNOW how I felt. I told her I had to let go of the pain, to carry it was only going to hurt me.
I told her if anyone else would have said what she did, I'm not sure how I would have reacted.I told her I regretted not being able to have a normal termination because of time. We talked about what I would have chosen to do had she not been retiring. It did change the way I felt about seeing her again. I want to say goodbye. I knew I'd never have another chance. I said some mean but truthful things. I said "would I do therapy again, no and not only no, but hell no!!!" She looked at me and I think it must have made her wonder why I said that. I told her I didn't want 11 years to end this way but I can't change it now.
I told her I forgive her and I have to forgive myself too. It does me no good to carry around the hurt, I have to let it go.
She told me she did the very best she could with me and what I was going through. She tried to contain me so that I could tolerate what I was going through. I really believed her as I wanted her to believe me.
I told her I wanted to have positive thoughts in the room and bring in the positive regard I know we have for each other. I reminded her of how close we were and of all we'd gone through. She told me I'd gain a lot of strength since I started.
I told her our work really ended on April 15, when she made that hurtful statement to me. I told her I changed the way I felt about her. I didn't trust her and I didn't feel I could tell her anything again.
We talked about my kids, how they are doing etc. I didn't want to tell her but I did. She asked if I was divorced yet, I said no, there is no excuse as to why other than I haven't done it. Fear of my husband is more like the truth. I did tell her that no matter if he changed 180 degrees I wouldn't be with him ever again. He's done too much.
I told her I wanted to come back and next time I don't have to bring up the hurt, I can let it go. I will go back in a few weeks. I told her I wanted to be her last appointment, she said she could arrange that.
I have a problem, a big problem taking things in that she says to me when it's positive. I'm fearful of her just saying things to make it part of her job. I should have gotten over by that now.
I'm dealing with depression, because of a lot of stress I'm under with my personal life and the holidays coming up. I don't like the holidays. I don't even want to celebrate at all. Too many things happened to me that my husband did around the holidays so my internal clock tells me I'm sad right now. Does this make sense? When it's the anniversary of something tragic or stressful that happened, it's a reminder each year. Well, mine is Christmas. I started to get better with the holidays until last year when my life was unraveling. I won't go into the details for now.
Anyway, I did feel better for having gone last night. Now I have a few weeks to prepare what I want to say to her. At one time I wanted to make her a quilt and give to her when I terminated. I'm not feeling like that right now. It would be too stressful to make it be just so and she probably wouldn't let me give it to her anyway. I wish our time wasn't ending. I just looked forward to seeing her each week. When things were hard, I went 3 times a week, sometimes twice a week and then for the most part once a week.
I think I've gone through most of the grieving of not having her in my life. When I left her office last night and was driving home I felt grateful that I wasn't caught up in her power anymore. It felt pretty darn good. Hard to explain.
I hope this gives you an idea of my session, there was more that was said but these are the main things.
I'm mentally drained. It's been so stressful trying to decide what to do and then go into it not knowing how it would turn out. I don't regret going at all. She said she was so glad I called. She cares, I know she does. But it's going to end soon no matter what. It does make me sad, I will miss her so much. She's been so good to me 99% of the time.
LadyBug
poster:LadyBug
thread:861016
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081104/msgs/861016.html