Posted by pegasus on May 4, 2007, at 13:25:07
In reply to last session w/ex-T, posted by pegasus on May 4, 2007, at 12:40:00
Sorry about this, you guys, but I have so many thoughts swirling, I just need to capture them somewhere that I'm sure I'll be able to find them again. Babble has become my "notes about therapy" filing cabinet.
At the moment I'm kind of irked at myself and my ex-T that I didn't manage to ask him exactly what I wanted to. Well . . . I did, the week before. But when we got back to it this week, we talked about one piece of it that isn't the piece that felt most important to me. Yes, I wanted to hear his impressions of me. But more important, I wanted to hear what was *special* about me. What was he sorry to lose contact with? Not just "who am I? Am I really here?", but "what's valuable about me, to you". He's right, I do have a sense of myself from the inside. I've worked hard to build that over the last few years. And I didn't really need him to confirm it. It's just that once we got into the conversation I got confused or something, and that's the thing I kept grabbing onto. I also do know deep down that he likes me, and I like him. That's not really what I needed to confirm either.
So, I still don't have a sense for what he was feeling *about me* when he was closing his practice and moving. If I try to go at it the way he was suggesting, from within myself, I'd guess that he was probably frustrated that I was not turning to my strengths, and that I kept bringing up how painful it was, and how sad and worried I was. I'd guess that he had other clients that were in worse shape, that he spent more energy worrying about. I'd guess that he knew I'd be fine in the long run, and wished I would only recognize that for myself.
I'd guess that after he left, he'd think of me sometimes and wonder how I was doing, with a sense that I'd probably be doing fine. He probably missed the way we connected and joked sometimes, the way I did take in a lot of what he said, and tried so hard. Oh! Brave! He said today that I was brave! I bet he missed my bravery.
I don't think he had a very complete sense of the pain that I was in. That I cried about it pretty much every day for at least a year after he left, and frequently for another year after that. I don't think he really understood that it feels like needing to gracefully rip off an arm and give it to someone who needs it more.
There are also a hodge podge of unrelated little details that I wanted to tell him or ask him about:
- I'm doing my counseling internship next year! At a hospice. Isn't that cool? I'm actually starting that new career.
- My daughter is so friggin amazing. She really is.
- How is his family?
- I feel so strong lately. I think I've changed a lot in a good way.
- I've never known anyone else remotely like him.Oh, bother. When I try to nail it all down, it floats around and changes. I'm going to find a way from *within myself* to work this into something good.
peg
poster:pegasus
thread:755778
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070419/msgs/755792.html