This might be kind of disjointed. When I got to the office, J’s car wasn’t there, which got me feeling anxious that he wasn’t there. But he was. I said, “You’re car isn’t here.” He said it was in the shop.
So he started by saying, “Last week.” That was it. He wanted to know if I wanted to talk about the email I sent him. He said it was on his computer monitor right then and should he print it out. So he did.
I asked J if he thought I was too needy. He said I’m not and why would I think that. I mentioned the emails I send and asking him to leave me a voice mail. He said that isn’t needy, and that everyone has needs.
And about that voice mail, he was pleased I asked him to do that, not because it made him happy or made him feel needed, but because I was being resourceful and he was glad about that. He asked how I liked the response to his email, and I said it was fine. I told him that I wrote on my blog that emails from t’s are always unsatisfying, because they don’t do therapy via email. He asked what kind of response I would have liked to get and I said I don’t think that the email I would have liked would actually have been one I liked, because if he had gotten into everything I wrote about his response would be too open to misinterpretation. And what he wrote was not at all misinterpretable, so it was perfect.
We went into, again, how I thought he didn’t tell me about his vacation because he was angry or frustrated with me, and he said that actually he feels our therapy has been going much better lately, and we have been communicating better, that I seem more relaxed and talkative. I told him I drink a Red Bull Energy Shot 10 minutes before each session and it makes me more talkative.
He said he doesn’t know why for sure he didn’t tell me about the vacation, because it was an unconscious thing. But he is fairly sure it had something to do with me having been at the beach, and him thinking about running into “customers” while he was there and it would be uncomfortable, more for them than for him, he said, and also how I was telling him about the 13 year old boy who died in my neighborhood and how one of his other “customers” told him the same thing and I felt uneasy that perhaps someone from my neighborhood is his client. He was saying that all of these things brought up in him some uneasiness about crossing lines (not me crossing lines, just lines being crossed unintentionally). I was thinking I totally don’t buy this theory, but whatever.
Then he said that when we were talking about the boy who died he was wondering if he disclosed too much. I told him that I even gave him an out, I said, “Are you sure it wasn’t me who told you?” And he said, “I can’t lie.” I said, “Sure you can, there are times when it would be fine. Besides you have lied before.” He said, “When?” I said, “I don’t want to rehash that.” I’m still not ready to deal with the lying about the blog issue. I wonder if I ever will be.
Then we talked about the part of the email where I wrote about how great it is that he was willing to go along with my index cards experiment and he asked why I thought that was important to me. And I said it meant he was accepting of my weird methods of doing therapy and he said it’s not weird. I asked how many people have ever come in with a script for him and he said no one, but people come in with artwork, and pictures, and things, and 5 people have brought their dogs. I can’t see bringing my dog to therapy, she would probably pee on his rug. So then he talked about the bell curve again.
He also mentioned how sometimes I say I am or I do something “weird” and he tries to tell me it’s not “weird” and then I feel minimized or invalidated. And I said that was true. It’s kind of a paradox, on the one hand I want to be “normal” (whatever that is) and on the other hand I know I am not normal, or usual, in certain ways and rather than deny that and tell me that I am something I am not, I guess I would rather acknowledge it. But it puts him in a difficult position of not knowing which way to go at any given time.
Then we moved on to feeling worthwhile/worthless and he asked when I feel worthwhile. I thought a bit, then said “When I feel needed.” (Later on in the day I thought about this in regards to my son’s current situation, but I’ll write more about that later.) I want to feel needed, but I don’t want to feel needy.
He told me that lots of his clients email him, and it takes about 2 minutes to read an email, and he considers my degree of emailing intermittent and certainly not too much. He said one client would email him really long emails, and she would say that she didn’t expect a reply, she just needed to get everything out, like a journal. I asked if that was too much, and he said no. He said he’s only really had one client who abused the emails. I asked how I would know if I am abusing it and he said he would tell me.
I told him how I thought when I sent the email last week that I really shouldn’t send it, that I should just print it out and bring it this week, since I knew he wouldn’t totally respond via email anyway. And that I felt too needy sending it. He asked why I sent it then. I couldn’t even answer that. He said because I was responding to the need within myself to let him know how I felt at that moment, that waiting a week would not have been appropriate for me at that time and that was good. I said, “But I didn’t think about your needs, maybe you didn’t need to get an email right then. I pictured you seeing my name pop up and saying ‘Oh God, it’s that Harriet again’”. He said, “Is that what I said?” I said, “Yes and you rolled your eyes too.” He said that isn’t what he said or thought at all.
He asked me if I thought about what we talked about last week with the trash and the recycling. I had no idea what he was talking about. He asked me if I had a hard time doing that. I said it is really hard, then I said, “What are you talking about?” And he explained how I hold on to things, like holding onto trash and how I need to take it out once or twice a week. I said, “Are you sure you were talking to me about that?” I have no recollection of this whatsoever. He said we talked about it in the last 5 minutes of our session last week. I swear we didn’t. But he went over it again. I can’t remember what it is I am supposed to recycle. He asked if I pick up trash in the street, and I said no. We talked about picking up trash from our own yards, or if there is some trash and there is a trashcan right there, and setting limits on what trash we pick up and what we leave alone. This whole metaphor is really confusing to me, and I swear we didn’t talk about it last week. I know he must be confusing me with someone else.
But it all comes down to stopping my thoughts about myself from getting out of control. If I am angry with someone I should stop the thoughts there and not let them move on to “Oh there must be something wrong with me” or “This must somehow be my fault.” Like with his vacation, I was angry at him, but then I turned it around and made myself into the bad person. I told him about how I get angry with my daughter when she leaves her stuff around, and then I decide it’s my fault, because either I raised her wrong, or I am not worthy of respect. And this can go back and forth and never get resolved. I told him about the time last month when I was moving her stuff in the garage and I was angry that she left it all there, and I broke the glass bottle and picked up a piece of broken glass and cut myself. He seemed to take that pretty well actually.
The problem is he is always telling me these things to do, and they make perfect sense, but I don’t know how. How do I stop at being angry and not let it become my problem, or that there is something wrong with me? I need more instruction on this part of the process. He can give me all the metaphors in the world, but I just don’t know how to do it.
I think that was it for today! Maybe I’ll think of more, in which case I’ll write it tomorrow. It’s late.
Tags: email, therapy, vacation, weird
