….and sometimes, it feels like walking around with an open wound, knowing it will be a very, very long time, before it starts to close.
I wrote this post more than two years ago, after a very distressing session in which we talked about the end of therapy and the fact that my therapist will move to a different part of the country, eventually; and we briefly talked about death – her death.
Today we talked about the end of therapy again, and what the ‘after’ might look like. There is still no concrete date, she doesn’t know exactly when she will retire, the discussion wasn’t prompted by any ‘announcement’ on her part. But the anticipatory grief of that ending follows me constantly, and I do not know how to shake it, and so it seemed that it was something we should talk about.
I didn’t cry very much, though I was digging my fingers into my arms, and at the end of session when her doorbell rang, I didn’t hear it.
When I got home I lay in bed for a short time, hugging a soft toy that I have named after her. At least when you cry at home, in private, you can cry loudly. Moans, wails, stepping-on-cat-tails noises escaping from my body – too embarrassing to voice my pain in anything but words and water, in front of her.
I cannot cope with the thought of losing her, and of losing the best adult relationship of my life. I cannot cope with losing the only person in my life who feels like a parent. I know she understands loss, but I don’t know if she understands what this loss feels like to me.
Here’s the difference, I think, between the two of us. She may mourn, for a little while, but ultimately will be content to remember me occasionally, through the things that were important to us and that remind her of me. She will keep me alive in those ways, and she will continue to feel connected to me in those moments – and that will be okay, and enough for her, in a way that it would never be okay or enough if that was the basis of her future relationship with her biological daughters. I’m not family to her – but she’s the closest thing to adult family, for me.
She has told me ‘once a mother, always a mother’, and I believe her. I know she will always be my therapy mother, but ultimately that is a particular type of mother-daughter relationship in which leaving home is more like being bereaved than moving out. Mother lives on, but only internally. And as for being a mother (rather than a therapy-mother) – when you have a child you might look forward to a bit more time, independence or adult interaction when they are older, but there is no wish or desire ever to be ‘relieved of duty’, as it were, whether your children are physically present, or not.
Our therapists may care for us, remember us, even love us, but I guess they have to leave us behind. There are too many of us – clients – and too many other facets of our therapists’ lives. They carry us attentively and lovingly, sometimes for years, but at some point they have to be ‘relieved of duty’. I don’t say that because I think that somehow my therapist’s care for me is just a ‘duty’ of her profession – it is genuine. Neither do I think that her care of me is a burden (or at least, not most of the time!). But I think I need to be careful that it does not become so, after we have finished.
You go through therapy trying to sideline the massive inequality between you, which you know is there but is too painful to think about. You build genuine, caring, deeply trusting relationship – and still you try to turn aside from the knowledge that for perfectly legitimate, necessary, and ‘nobody’s fault’ reasons, you are not loved in quite the way that you love. And you try very very hard to be okay with the way in which you are loved, because it is still the best way that you have ever experienced, and you are very very grateful.
But the elephant in the room is never bigger than when it draws itself up in fear, at the prospect of eviction. I don’t know how to handle it other than by trying to bury the worst bits of it again. But even when I’m not talking about it session, feelings of sadness and prospective loss follow me everywhere – which is why I was talking about it in session in the first place. I hate that it is taking away from the otherwise wonderful feelings of connection and closeness I’m experiencing in sessions (and between them) these days. But what can I do? The loss is coming, I simply cannot – unlike my therapist’s doorbell – not hear it anymore.
I come through the door, therapy-wiped-out, and head for the bathroom. Afterwards, I manage to pull my tights up only half way, and proceed to climb the stairs with them still around my knees. I fall into bed and pull the covers right over me, where it is dark and warm. I remember shivering with sobs, not cold, earlier. But now I am cold.
I just want to be hugged tightly, so tightly. I wish I had carried on crying when I was with you, because now I want to cry, but I can’t. When I was with you I felt I should be talking, not crying the time away. And yet I wasn’t finished with the crying, and now it feels too late, and what if it stays unfinished? When I was with you, I felt I had to stop. It was a hard, un-pretty sort of crying, and…
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December 1, 2017 at 2:58 pm
Oh my! You totally nailed it with this:
‘You go through therapy trying to sideline the massive inequality between you, which you know is there but is too painful to think about. You build genuine, caring, deeply trusting relationship – and still you try to turn aside from the knowledge that for perfectly legitimate, necessary, and ‘nobody’s fault’ reasons, you are not loved in quite the way that you love. And you try very very hard to be okay with the way in which you are loved, because it is still the best way that you have ever experienced, and you are very very grateful.’
I totally agree with everything you said.
Sometimes (all the time!) the thought of them not being there anymore is agony- I wrote a post about that a few weeks ago. Some days the agony is more acute than at other times. This time of year is tough isn’t it?! X
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December 1, 2017 at 5:04 pm
This is so accurate. The fears of therapy ending, but your passage about trying to accept the amount of love you get versus the amount you give just broke my heart because I feel that so strongly. We know exactly why things are as they are, why boundaries are set in place. But that doesn’t erase the sting of knowing that the quantity and quality of our love for and attachment to them is not (and cannot) be reciprocated. It’s strange, too, to know that if it were reciprocated at the level or intensity we wish for then our therapy probably wouldn’t work as well as it does because our therapists could not be clear headed or impartial. And yet I still like to believe my relationship with her is special. Like even if she won’t love me the way I want, she might cherish our relationship more than that of other clients. Keeps me going, even if it is likely false. You write so powerfully, I always look forward to seeing what you have to say and hearing your reflections.
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December 1, 2017 at 4:29 pm
I so totally understand and you put into words that which I haven’t dared or haven’t allowed myself to think. I’ve been with my therapist so long…lulled maybe into a false sense of security but still that scared feeling underneath of when the end will come and how I will be sidelined. Lately she has been saying, I won’t be here forever. I know that. But her telling me that forces me to think about it. I feel I haven’t healed fast enough and this is a tool she is using to speed it up, even though I know the end could come in a year or two or sooner. And how I wish I could allow myself to grieve in anticipation. Great post. As usual you put your feelings out there which mirrored mine. Thank you.
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December 1, 2017 at 6:32 pm
I feel your pain. ❤
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December 4, 2017 at 1:26 pm
Extraordinary as a piece of writing and its insight into the dilemma you describe. Talking about death, as you did, may be the key to a different way to approach this. I recently read Paul Tillich’s “The Courage to Be,” which faces questions of death, the anxiety of living, and meaning from several different points of view, including Stoic, mystical, and religious. It is a very difficult, very abstract little volume, but it might shift your perspective just a bit. I’m not guaranteeing an epiphany, unfortunately, but you have the good will and concern of many of your readers, this one included.
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December 4, 2017 at 2:06 pm
Thank you…..is what I’ve written true? From a therapists point of view? I am going to ask her tonight and I’m afraid that it is true and I was right and I still can’t come to terms with it…..
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December 4, 2017 at 3:12 pm
Your therapist is the only one who can answer this because she is the only one who is your therapist- the only one whose answer make a difference for you.
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December 28, 2017 at 12:42 am
I have never felt so understood by someone else’s words.
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January 4, 2018 at 10:36 am
You expressed what I struggle with so much as well
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