This is, honestly, the slowest week in existence. Seriously, the earth has to be turning slower.
Every minute creeps by. I have no motivation to work, but somehow I am and I’m doing my job just fine. I’m still having trouble with suicidal thoughts and feelings, and urges to self-injure, but now it’s coupled with guilt over thinking that me and my crises are wearing T down and that she’s going to resent me and my presence in her life. I’m afraid to explain how hard the week has been when I see her in a week.
In some ways I’ve tried to get myself out of this rut, but in other ways I definitely haven’t. I’ve been taking some walks outside with my dog, and I’ve arranged to go out to dinner with a friend once or twice. In the session before T left, she said she thought I could use some extra support and suggested looking into a group, so I contacted the local agency today and was given the number for the group therapist to go through the screening process for the group that will begin in the fall. I’m still going to work, even though every morning it just doesn’t feel worth it.
The bad. I’m still struggling with drinking at night. And if it’s not drinking, I try to find other ways to push away the thoughts and feelings that come up when I’m not busy. I still can’t sit with my feelings, at least when I’m by myself. Even though I am not completely, entirely, utterly isolated, isolation is something that I desperately want, and more often than not, that desire wins out.
I don’t like that I know I’d feel at least a little bit of comfort if T were here. Feeling this dependent on her makes me feel weak.
Now I’m dissociating. Sigh. This is such a vicious, tiring cycle.
Waking Up 
These are the days where we work on auto-pilot, or at least I do. I made it through about 6 months on auto-pilot last year, and while I felt horrible and out of it, no one else (aside from T) really even noticed. Maybe next time you have a break from T you might ask for a transition object to hold on to? Something small from T that you can borrow while she’s away to hold on to when you need her?
That’s a good idea, but also really scary. I have a very, very, very hard time admitting and even recognizing that I even have some sort of relationship with my T, even though it stares me in the face everyday. And I have an even harder time admitting to T that I need her, even though I know she knows I do.
I wonder if a transition object would also help remind me that T hasn’t decided during her break that she hates me. 🙂
Transition objects have been beyond helpful for me. I don’t remember how we got on the topic, I just know I was flat out terrified to ask, and at the same time, I was terrified to go two whole weeks without T. I wish I could promise you that once you admit to T that you need her, it gets easier, but…. At least for me, once we had the first (few) conversations about how much I hated that I needed her as much as I needed her (and hated needing her!) it got a little less scary?
It’s funny what you said about T deciding to hate you during her break – my fear was the same. T said that no matter what she says, it would take quite a few “breaks” where she comes back as the same T as she left to convince me. She’s right. It does get easier and less painful over time.
You will make it!
It might be good, because after 2 weeks, I lose all sense of connection to her, and then I just shut down and go further into my “I can’t have needs” mindset. At this point, with about 5 days left until I see T, I can’t tell if I miss her or not. Or, maybe I don’t miss her because I’ve convinced myself that she hates me, and so I’m trying to detach? I’m not sure.
It’s encouraging to hear that your T is okay talking about you needing and missing her. I know my T would be, too, but I’m just terrified to do it. But you’ve definitely given me some encouragement to (maybe) try to talk to T about it next week. ((hugs))
i’m sorry you are struggling. it sounds like you are so very hard on yourself. be gentle with you.
Thank you for your kind words. xx
i hope i wasn’t too forward in that. sorry if i was.
Not at all, no apology necessary at all. I’m sorry if my reply made it seem like I didn’t appreciate what you wrote. I *am* very hard on myself, so thank you for reminding me of that.
no you didn’t come across that way at all, i just kind of thought it was pretty up front of me to say that to someone on first “meeting” lol.
Ha, no not at all! Funny how easily things on the internet can be misconstrued. 🙂