I remember deliberately setting out to teach my son when he was a baby / toddler that I always come back. It's a developmental milestone, the understanding that someone will go away AND THEN come back. Go away. AND. Come back. Go away & Come back. Go away & Come Back. . It's a huge part of secure attachment, object permanence, & trust.
I had to set out to do it deliberately, because it's something that I struggle with.
That if I don't have eyes-on? They're dead or in some other way gone forever. I'll never see them again. That the only thing I can trust is what I see, right here, right now, in this moment. There is no future. There is only now. Even when I'm doing well? Trust, much less trust in the future, is not my forte. Never leave on bad terms. Never go to sleep angry. No matter terrible the fight (and how furious/ done/ or disgusted I am with someone in the moment), or how casual the leaving (running to the corner store for milk, back in 4 minutes), I always always always make sure the last thing I say to someone is something I can live with as the last thing I ever said to them. It's usually some version of 'I love you.' I've had too many goodbyes. Too many unexpected losses. Too many regrets.
I was taking psych classes at the time, however, and the Dept.Chair was my mentor/advisor. She was a total rockstar :sneaky: So even before my son hit the stages of object permanence & separation anxiety, she gave me a huge list of tips/tricks/tools to help teach those things. The biggest? Even have a lovely alliteration scheme: Ritual-Routine-Repetition.
Every time I'd leave, & every time I'd return.. purposefully incorporating key elements (rituals) that repeated. A little like Pavlov & his dogs, having those elements meant that comfort-care-soothing would attach to the rituals themselves. Build trust on many levels. So that when those stages hit -and they did- there was a rock solid foundation to lean back on.
It helped me as much -if not more- than it did, him.
Go away & Come back.
2 pieces to a system. 2 parts to a whole. 1 naturally following the other.
Maybe this is something you can work with, with your therapist when they return? Not just with her, leaving&returning, but purposefully building in some rituals and routine into your daily life to teach object permanence? To build trust? Things that you can do in your daily life when you leave and return, things that you can do when others leave and return, to start building that foundation? So that even when it happens that people leave and do not return, it doesn't shake that core, and that the automatic assumption when people leave is that they will return, instead of the opposite?
You've already done SOME of that. As evidenced by not falling apart after every single session / convinced it's your last. You'll be back. & she'll be there. Knowing she won't be there next week? Has thrown that out the window. So much so that leaving the room, doesn't automatically mean that you'll see your cat again, when you return. Even though you will. Leave & Come Back. 2 parts of the whole. Not the beginning of the end. Not game over. Just 1:2.
