Posted by TherapyGirl on December 29, 2006, at 19:37:19
In reply to Re: why can't I leave therapy? » Daisym, posted by Tamar on December 29, 2006, at 4:23:02
Hi, Tamar. I know I'm hopping in in the middle of this thread, but I have to share my recent experience with my T.
In September, she told me she was taking a week of vacation to care for her granddaughter. Not a problem, although I knew it would be hard to not meet for two weeks. Then I called her voice mail the first weekend to leave her a message for after her vacation and noticed she didn't change her message. No big deal -- I figured she forgot.
Then the following Tuesday, I drove by her office on the way to the library and there was her car. I nearly had a canniption. I waited about 30 minutes and then called her voice mail and said, "I saw your car at the office and I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU WOULD LIE TO ME. Maybe you're just keeping your granddaughter on my regular therapy day and didn't want to reschedule, but YOU HAVE TO TELL ME THESE THINGS. And you have to be truthful, because if I can't trust YOU, WHO CAN I TRUST?"
She called me the next day and I was too mad to take her call. So she left a message and said that she got my message and she hoped that I had had time to think that through and come to a different conclusion. Then she said she would call me back later. So I called her voice mail and she had changed it to say she was out until the following Wednesday. So the week was slightly different than what I was expecting, but it was still a week. I felt like the biggest loser ever.
She called me back and asked me if I had come to a different conclusion. I was completely honest with her and said, "No, not on my own. That's not the way this works. By the middle of the night, the story I told myself was that you just didn't want to meet with ME." She just said she knew and she understood, but she hoped that I would file this experience away for the next time something similar happens. And I said, "But I CAN'T keep putting myself or you through all this drama. I've lost another night's sleep, I accused you of being a big, fat liar -- I just can't keep doing this." At which point she said it was okay, I shouldn't beat myself up over this, that I'm still learning a new way of dealing with issues like this, etc. She also said that although there were any number of reasons her car could have been at the office (she was showing off her grandchild, she was dropping something off, etc.) that in fact she had planned to take Tuesday off as well, but she had to go in for an emergency session and she would have done the same thing for me if the situation called for it. She was actually very, very sweet about it and when we revisted it several weeks later, all was well and I think it strengthened our connection.
So I would encourage you to talk to your T about seeing his car at the office (of course, without all the drama I included) and see what explanation he offers. I know for many of us, it's so hard to trust anyone -- even if we have lots of experience with them being trustworthy. But I don't think this issue will go away for you until and unless you get some answers from him.
Just my hard-won 2 cents...
poster:TherapyGirl
thread:716231
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20061210/msgs/717404.html