Don’t know what to do about this email I’ve sent

[grit]

A lot of shame in this post. I am very sorry you are struggling Barefoot. Sounds truly tense.

IMHO, I think what you were struggling was very early on abandonment issues - love me and leave me or whatever that expression is. You were resisting to note or to allow the experience in the room with her - just like you probably protected your young self back then. But you need to allow serious grief with a person who is not abandoning you.

You did not give that opportunity so you sent the email to save your face but actually you are not as you realized already.
Now you are mortified and feeling that deep shame for two folds: not going that route of facing the abandonment you felt as a baby/child and now you feel she knows that and the shame is why cannot I open up?

if we do not push through, we get stagnant. Think of anytime in your life you had a great barrier in life and how hard it was and what you did to get through. Pull that again.

Write another email.

Indicate your vulnerability by noting your recent struggles, your resistance, your shame, your need for space and acknowledge her patience, and understanding and respect. Then request, please disregard my last email and let us talk about this at our next session.

This is painful but no pain no gain. It will show (if you feel) you are ready to push one more wall down and risk vulnerability which is truly the antidote to shame - the strangest emotion of all.

I hope my post makes sense. If I am completely off, then please ignore. I am cheering for you.

 

[Nessa7]

Sending the e-mail will not be as bad as the stress you're feeling about sending the e-mail. I use the expression "like ripping a band-aid off" all the time with myself when I'm dreading something. Once it is done, you can do something else and try to put this out of your mind until you go to your next appointment.

 

[barefoot]

As far as appearing irrational, I think it's more that you appear afraid.

This made me tear up, so I think you must have hit on something!
I do think there is real fear there. I just don’t really understand why.

So, I replied to her email where she had expressed concern and asked if I was ok. I apologised for the email I sent last night. Said I had felt very clear in the moment that that was the right thing to do. And that today I just have no idea what I was thinking. And then said I felt mortified about my lack of judgement and ashamed for emailing at all.

And then she phoned me - cue wild panic as I had my phone in my hand and her name flashing on the screen - and she was very kind and warm and calm...said we all have our moments and that I’d had a lot going on so it’s perfectly normal and understandable if I have the odd stress reaction. And she said a few times that it wasn’t a big deal at all so for me to please not feel embarrassed or weird about it. It was all fine and we can just pick it up next week and together look at what’s going on for me.

It was kind of her to call. She said all the right things. It was reassuring. But also quite stressful even though (maybe because!) she was being caring.

She said she hadn’t taken the dates out of her diary and that she wouldn’t ever do that without us having an actual conversation first. So, at least I know that if I fire off any panicked emails again she won’t just immediately take me at my word and consider us terminated...

I haven’t managed to settle down all day. Mostly at the moment I am just so taken aback by how much fear and shame I feel. Those feelings haven’t gone away even though things with my therapist seem to still be intact. I know we’ll have to at least touch on it next session. And that’s such an excruciating thought.

 

[Friday]

I don’t know why but I feel really ashamed.

I’ve found that sometimes all the serious work in the world over the course of years won’t allow me to do something easily, much less well... but a single moment of levity? Gets the job done. :sneaky: But I find laughter has a habit of shining light in dark places. It doesn’t have to be true, it just has to be funny, and all the complicated reasons just sort of fall away and let me do what needs doing.

I am a woman. It’s my prerogative to change my mind. ;)

 

[scout86]

She sounds like a keeper! (You can add me to the list of people who might send such an email, although experience has encouraged me to wait till morning, reread the darn thing and THEN decide whether or not I really want to send it.)

 

[NightSky]

She sounds awesome, and I’m glad you got the response you did.
I’ve sent emails that have felt so needy to me. In general I am a fan of putting up walls and distancing myself from my T because that makes me feel less shame. So she now has me reading about shame, and just explained in my last session how what I see as needy, isn’t to her.
Sometimes we’re sure they will see us a certain way. Especially when we are in those vulnerable places. But it’s not the same to them. They aren’t in our heads.
I don’t think your conversation will be as difficult as you think. She sounds like she can reassure you and help normalize this for you.

 

[Nessa7]

When I was in my old therapist's waiting room, a child during their session slapped my therapist in the face. After I got over the shock of there suddenly being a lot more yelling coming from upstairs without any explanation, it occured to me that nothing I could do could be more shocking, embarrassing, or inappropriate than that. Very few emails could compete with that. My therapist before that had a guy so regularly do something weird and gross in the bathroom that he had to be banned from the building. Everyone has sent an email that they've regretted. It sounds like your therapist is very concerned about you, but I don't think this is going to stand out as a day that was very far out of the ordinary for her.

 

[rosey]

Thanks everyone for the reassurance and for normalising the sending of panicked, irrational emails!

I decided to take your advice and email her back...but then I found it really hard getting my throughts together and my mind kept going blank so after a couple of hours of faffing I still hadn’t managed to put a few sentences together and now she has beaten me to it and replied before I was able to get in there and explain.

Her response was brief, professional and kind...saying she was concerned to receive my email especially as I sent it so late and asking if I was ok.

Now kicking myself that I didn’t get myself together to email her earlier and feel a bit frozen about what to say in reply. And also feel bad that she has been concerned when I could have saved her the bother by just emailing her first thing and saying to ignore my other email.



I have parasomnias (night terrors and hallucinations etc) though they are under control at the moment as the melatonin I started taking in January seems to have knocked them on the head. I’d taken a melatonin and was feeling sleepy as a result but I wasn’t asleep...I was sort of in that pre-slumber state. Not really, really alert but aware of what I was doing.




I don’t know why but I feel really ashamed. Partly, I think, because I have let her see how irrational I was. Usually I keep those things to myself or blurt them here in the forum! And partly because I said some things about myself that today are making me want to crawl out of my skin. I just feel so mortified.

sounds like you have a good therapist there. Best way is always honesty, explain as best you can what happened. It is lovely that she understands and cares for you.

 

[blackemerald1]

Use drafts... and always sleep on them. Usually I've forgotten I have written them. I have SO MANY drafts it's ridiculous!

Every now and again, I read them and they're quite illuminating on what was happening a few years ago and why I got so upset. :rolleyes: I'm so relieved it was never sent... :)

You've got a great therapist there barefoot!

 

[barefoot]

Yes... I am usually very much a ‘save a draft and read it again in the morning’ kind of person. Which is why I’ve been a bit rocked by my lack of judgement here - I just don’t fire off emails about important stuff (especially involving making important decisions) in the middle of the night. Well, I don’t...until I did!

I think things are going on for me that I don’t really understand yet...because I don’t think any of this is about my therapist or about the email or about me suddenly deciding to quit therapy then the next day changing my mind. I get that those are quite usual things and not a massive deal...not things that would generally create such levels of fear and shame. But the way I’m feeling...so much shame and so much fear...something is a massive deal, I think...and it’s coming up in this way with this context around it...

My therapist implied that she thinks this happening is a good thing because it means something is shifting/emerging that we can then unpack together... I suppose that’s something...though these levels of shame and fear really, really make me miss dissociation!

 

[shatter eyes]

This is exactly what i began doing not long ago. When i read the drafts it is like WOW WTF and filled with typoes and ramble scrambles that do make sense while making no sense at all. I think it is a way for us to process concerns too by writing it out it activates our left brain where analysis lives. I wonder will this be a criteria in the DSM...

Use drafts... and always sleep on them. Usually I've forgotten I have written them. I have SO MANY drafts it's ridiculous!

Every now and again, I read them and they're quite illuminating on what was happening a few years ago and why I got so upset. :rolleyes: I'm so relieved it was never sent... :)

You've got a great therapist there barefoot!

Barefoot,
I am glad you no longer feel alone and are surrounded by a group of "writers".

 

[LostInCPTSD]

Glad I’m not the only one.. but what I did was followed through with not seeing her again. I too was ‘falling in love’ with her but couldn’t tell her.. I just sabotaged it by ssking to cancel our next appt & that I will reschedule in a week or two. I never called back to reschedule and she never contacted me again. I saw her 2-3 hrs a week for 18months. best T I ever had. I guess I was also testing to see how much she cared? like, to see if she would call me in a week or two (or maybe a month or two months at least!) to check on me or see if I ever went through with something unhealthy. She never did. This just left me feeling abandoned & rejected even more, like my own mother, father and step fathers did )which she of course knew all about). I know I’m to blame, but it still hurt. I did see some evidence of what I later discovered may have been some ‘empathy fatigue’ which honestly was what hurt and got me to revert to my inner child or possibly ‘sabotage’ my only life raft - but not sure. Especially when so much was in the balance. Also a side note, I felt the CPTSD wasn’t getting any better. It was jus great to have ‘a friend’ to listen, someone who actually cared - which I never experienced before in my life.. and that’s what I got out of our appts. Aside from that, I would get just as upset and have days upon days of exhaustion after every appt - the triggers I went through every appt for the 1.5 yrs. It’s been two years since our last appt, and I really want to find her again, but when I think of it, I get extremely insecure and terrified of any possible rejection or ‘excuses’ that I may receive. I don’t know what to do.

Yes... I am usually very much a ‘save a draft and read it again in the morning’ kind of person. Which is why I’ve been a bit rocked by my lack of judgement here - I just don’t fire off emails about important stuff (especially involving making important decisions) in the middle of the night. Well, I don’t...until I did!

I think things are going on for me that I don’t really understand yet...because I don’t think any of this is about my therapist or about the email or about me suddenly deciding to quit therapy then the next day changing my mind. I get that those are quite usual things and not a massive deal...not things that would generally create such levels of fear and shame. But the way I’m feeling...so much shame and so much fear...something is a massive deal, I think...and it’s coming up in this way with this context around it...

My therapist implied that she thinks this happening is a good thing because it means something is shifting/emerging that we can then unpack together... I suppose that’s something...though these levels of shame and fear really, really make me miss dissociation!

That is great response from your T.. ! When I would send a ‘panic email’, I would apologize profusely during next appt, and she would just make a comment like ‘it’s ok..’ or ‘yeah, the emails do get a little intense’ or ‘a little much’ or ‘a little long-winded’ or something like that.. making me feel even more silly, insecure, dysfunctional/isolated.. eventually I stopped sending after she eventually stopped responding. (This was a few months before the situation I stated above) .
She eventually would just say she ‘didn’t have time to respond, but feel free to keep sending if it helps’ (not sure I believed her at that point). Naturally I kinda hoped for the response you received, quite frankly. Sounds like you found a great T that understands your symptoms & how complex this all is.. (thumbs up!)