Am I Too Needy Or Is This Acceptable?

[talon]

I had a difficult session on Friday. I cried in front of my T for the first time. Snapped out of it fast...

Wherever you live MH is the Cinderella service often its an unseen illness and misunderstood illness. Clearly your therapist means well and wants you to feel you can contact as the need is great. No apology needed . It may help if you have a discussion with your therapist about how you feel. Finding an alternative sounding board such as here will help. Your therapist i would suggest is carrying a heavy workload but that's what she's paid for. Clearly she genuinely cares about you but may not be able to respond as she would like. You have a need but you are not to needy. Having friends or agencies such as helplines may ease things for you . I will keep an eye out for you . Keep strong

 

[Arebas]

Sorry my last reply had nothing! Trying again!
Arebas,
I literally just joined this group as I have been denying th...

I asked my T to not respond for a while. It helped with the anxiety a lot but unless I brought the emails up on the next session we never actually talked about them so it felt a bit useless after a while. If you can use those emails in session, I say that's the way to go. You're getting the ideas out and working on them and that's a job well done. I'm happy that works for you.
I was so relieved also when I found this forum. Everyone is always trying to be of help. And for me, reading that others go through what I am going through helps a lot too. I have always been alone and now I see that there are people out there who completely understand what I feel. It's a great feeling. Welcome! (And I'm sorry I didn't reply sooner.)

 

[Arebas]

You have a need but you are not to needy

Thank you @ROBERT TALON. I try to be logical about this. It's so hard to see through the fog of "no one cares, why do I keep fooling myself?"

 

[Arebas]

I had a week of hell but I went to my session on Friday and it was awful. I started telling her about the email and how I couldn't text her and she says "I saw that email yesterday". Half of me wanted to shout why didn't you say anything yesterday! And the other half wanted to cry in desperation. We talked -again- about emails and what to expect and she kept saying I was giving contradictory messages. They sounded reasonable to me. She wasn't understanding any of it. I said maybe I'd like it better if you didn't offer to send emails at all and she said ok, let's do that. You can no longer contact me between sessions, let's try that. And then that felt like she was punishing me. I backed out of that. She said she wasn't taking that away from me as punishment, she just wanted to help cause clearly, the emails gave me too much pain. I couldn't think straight at all and I actually felt myself start crying a couple times, to my horror. Completely lost control of what was happening and what I wanted to happen. She said she liked that I sent emails cause it's the only way she had to know what was happening cause I don't always tell her. It was like she was talking about someone else.
At some point she actually said that no one cares about anyone, that people matter in the now, when we are with them, four hours later we forget. I thought every time she said she cared she was faking.
My T is recently divorced and I'm sure that's taking a toll on her that she doesn't want to admit. Don't know if that's her pride or that she really tries to not let her personal life get into her work and thinks she is succeeding at it. Maybe her other patients can't see it but I have a whole life of training to adjust my radar to what the others feel so I can anticipate it and I know she's exhausted, frustrated, sad and overworked.
So I left and thought "well, I'm done with this".
And as soon as I thought that, I felt a change and realised all this time I wasn't really being me. The reasonable, logical 38 year old me, I was being 18. The scared, hurt and living in a nightmare of faking happiness to please a family that was falling apart with depression on all sides. I wanted my T to be my mom. To care, to love me. And she was failing me cause, duh, she's not my mom. I'm actually eight months older than her.
I felt so ashamed. And then so relieved. I went back to the texts and messages we exchanged and read them without all that toxic feeling of dread and my T was being pretty decent to me. So, she didn't ask how I was doing after a very hard session, so what? Doesn't mean she didn't care. When I contacted her she replied. Didn't say all I would have wished to hear but she was there for me in the best way she could.
I've already texted her and apologised and I'm not sending more emails. I write it down and will take it to session, whether I think is useful or not.
And that's how it all went and I'm sorry I am writing so much but I thought you took the time to reply so I should tell you what happened in the end.
Thank you all for tour support. This has been one crazy week. :confused:

 

[I_will_recover]

actually said that no one cares about anyone, that people matter in the now, when we are with them, four hours later we forget. I thought every time she said she cared she was faking.

WTF? She doesn't speak for me and by saying "NO ONE" it makes it sound as those she lumps everyone into this (her) belief system. No two patients are alike. Her inability to treat your individual needs (not every patient is a carbon copy) is upsetting and semmingly dismissive. And if I could, "four hours later we forget," I wouldn't have ptsd.

It sounds as though you've reasonably explored reasons for her not communicating well outside of sessions but perhaps it may be worth exploring why you have to repeatedly bring this up? Why the message is not getting through? Why she hasn't laid out specific rules? Why you've had to forgive her on more than one occasion? Is it because you feel guilty for calling her out (and rightfully so)? Seeing your T uncomfortable or have to make an excuse may trigger guilt. We PTSDers have a surplus of it.

If you need a T who allows more contact and is more reliable in her replies etc. Thats a valid need! Honour your needs. Especially while you are in a healing journey you need to feel safe and securely held and heard by your T so that the hard work of therapy can happen.

It was hard as the dickens to leave my first therapist. I mean lost sleep, lost weight, second guessing every feeling... But when I found the courage to leave (2 years later) it changed the trajectory of my treatment in positive. Heck, I still beat myself up (thanks PTSD :cautious:) for not having done it sooner.

Honor yourself in good time but especially in bad
You deserve quality treatment
Trust me when I say: You are so worth it