@ladee , actually, no, I want to do the history. I want him to have every piece of information. I want him to ask me some questions. I want him to see so that if he tells me he's in this with me, I can rationally believe him and work on the emotional side of my belief system. I want enough ammo to fight the good fight. I'm exhausted both mentally and physically these days. I'm honestly ready to answer his questions, whatever they may be. If he gives up on me, well, then I have some hard choices to make. But honestly, sincerely, and truly, I can't live where I've been trying to live the last couple of months anymore. I can't keep trying to sit around and wait whole months to spit out whatever I have the courage and opportunity to say on a given day. Let's get all of my crazy, all of my brokenness, all of my dysfunction, and all of that pain and lay it at his feet and see if he picks it up. At least then I can move forward, one way or another. I'm genuinely ready to shit or get off this pot. I may not know how to just spit it out but answering questions feels a lot easier because if he's asking, then I know he needs to know instead of me guessing at what he might need to know.
No, I figured out what bothered me about today. The computer system was down so we couldn't meet over video. Not seeing facing expressions is hard. Yes, in person is better for many people (although a part of me is terrified about meeting in person someday- my whole real relationship with him has been built by video chats and I have no idea if it will translate well in person but that's future me's problem). I'm certain that played a role. I am fully aware he has other patients. Many other patients. I'm probably somewhere around 1 in 80 people that he sees. He sees me once per month. With the computer system down, he couldn't access his notes on me. Some of the questions he asked were a bit odd. It felt like I was talking to a stranger a bit. He couldn't quite play his normal role because he couldn't read the stage notes to remember the exact part. Like he said at one point that he was sure other therapists have worked with me on how to interact with my mother. We've literally talked in the past about how I've never really thought about that relationship in depth before. When I referenced my suicide attempt (well, the one I've told him about), he seemed surprised and asked me questions about it. He claimed that I never told him the details but I did. You don't forget telling someone something like that. He had completely forgotten about the EMDR in January. No, today I saw the man behind the curtain controlling the big dazzling display I normally get to look at.
Honestly, who can keep track of the intimate details of 80 different people? Today really just told me that I'm not someone who stands out to him in any particular way. And I guess that's okay but a little hard. I sort of already knew that anyway. I think it's almost universal for patients to be much more attached and feel more strongly about our Ts than they do about us. It's the same for me in teaching. My students have about 8 teachers, give or take while I have 140 students this year. Most students float through my room and I forget who they were within a year or two. I did genuinely care about them while they were with me but they just weren't special. It's a bit daunting to know you're one of the forgettable students when you're about to bare your soul to someone. I guess I liked having this illusion of the relationship being real even though I always knew down deep that it's not.
