My therapist is on vacation
Spring Break is upon us (not for me yet) and so a lot of therapists are heading off on much-needed vacations. Mine is gone this week also.
Its always hard when she's gone.
I handle it a LOT better than I used to. A few years ago when she'd go off on vacation, I took it personally. As in... she's just trying to get away from ME! *sob* Then I would struggle terribly the whole time she was gone. There'd be a lot of cutting and eating disorder stuff and a lot of general miserableness. Lots of steps backward. Then Mae would draw her pictures, and make her promise to keep them in her purse on vacation, to make sure she didn't forget us. I was always told, growing up, that "out of sight" meant "out of mind". And we were all convinced that if our T left on vacation, that meant she was abandoning us and never coming back. One time, Mae "babysat" the teddybear out of T's office just to hold onto something of hers, and made her promise to come back. Of course, no matter how many times our T would promise, it was never reassuring enough. We'd all leave a bunch of voice mails on T's phone. I dont even want to imagine what they must have been.
Things are better now. Mae did want to babysit the teddy bear again, but didn't get a chance to ask for it last week because things were too busy. But so far, no one has cut or anything, and we've only called to listen to T's voice on her answering machine twice just to hear her voice, but haven't left messages. That's progress! Mae is completely convinced that something bad is going to happen this week and has been real jittery, even during the night and keeps waking the rest of us up, and keeps needing to be reassured that no trees will fall on our house, no one is going to die, our T is going to come back, and on and on. I've been having some bad dreams, but they are not too bad. So far things are going ok. I go back to therapy one week from tonight.
I sure hope she comes back.
Posted by pilgrim | Filed under:
I guess I see the therapist going on vacation differently than others. When she goes on vacation that means I'm on vacation. I dont any kind of therapy work, no processing, no nothing'. I focus on relaxing and getting out in the yard and messing around. I'm on vacation as much as she is. .. I do want to point out that many clients feel as you do. There were times when I needed to call my therapist voice-mail when she wasn't on vacation. I would call in the middle of the night or something. It helped me so I understand how this has helped you. Also, I like the babysitting idea for the teddy. That was a smart idea. I like it.
Austin
Great progress! I think you're doing a great job of being there for Mae. I know how hard that can be at times, but I think you're doing great!