Tales of a Boundary Ninja

AG, I appreciate your candidness. Reading that is like looking in the mirror. I also just returned from a trip where I didn’t contact my T for over 2 weeks and had anxiety about the return session. To me it is a struggle to consider him just a reliable professional whose presence is meant to be soothing and not get too dependent on that. I hear your exhaustion. I know T’s have pat answers for some things, but try not to take it too hard, it’s probably because they always want to say something that is helpful. He can’t get too personal because he has to be objective. Still, that technique they have of letting the client determine the topic can feel like you are “reinventing the wheel” every session. Apparently it is helpful for the client if we aren’t led too much so we draw our own conclusions

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I don’t know if what I’m about to write will be helpful, or make any sense at all, but anyway:
I know exactly what you’re talking about. I spent a lot of time worrying about my relationship with T, looking for signs that it was real and special and that it was not just a professional relationship but there were real feelings involved. I spent a lot of time counting the days until my next session, dreading summer breaks, calling at every hour of the night just to ask if everything was okay. And I spent an awful lot of time getting upset for every little detail that reminded me that he was, after all, “just” my therapist (You’re five minutes late! You don’t remember the name of my last boyfriend after I spent an entire session talking about him! The gift I gave you for christmas is not on your desk anymore! You’re only doing it for the money! You didn’t answer my email! And on and on and on).
I imagined three hundred possible ways to make a dramatic exit and never come back (I actually tried a couple of times, then I obviously always came back) and, on the good days, or the emotionally needy days, I imagined it would have been horrible to finally end it.

The thing is, I (slowly and painfully) got to a point in my life where I realized I don’t really need therapy. Which doesn’t mean I won’t keep going to the occasional session whenever I feel like I need it, which is very often, by the way – it means I don’t *need* it.
There has been, at some point, after a long and hard work that lasted years, a kind of shift of perspective: that was my therapist, a person with whom I have shared a scary amount of information about myself, a person who I am 100% sure cares about me in a way that is not just professional – we did share a lot of nice moments together, and a lot of hard and horrible moments together, and there is love in our relationship, it’s right there for everyone to see -, but still, I felt more and more… detached? Independent?
I tried not to think about this feeling for a long time, ’cause it was scary somehow, until one morning I cancelled a session because I was doing something that I thought was more important (it was not work related stuff, it was personal stuff and I could have easily postponed it, but I still felt it was more important than going to session).
It probably sounds stupid, but that was a turning point for me. I suddenly got really scared and I started feeling incredibly anxious and needy and dependent, like I was all the time when I started therapy, and suddenly I was making lists of stuff I absolutely had to talk about with T, lists of problems I obviously had not yet solved, I felt shattered, angry, exhausted, I thought about hurting myself (another issue I tackled at the beginning of therapy and that I thought I got rid of a long time ago), I started questioning my relationship with T, maybe I imagined it all, nothing ever happened, it was all fake, and why does he look so distant today? Why did he use that sentence that sounded so aseptic? Why can’t I come twice this week? You get the point.
Then I talked about it, and talked about it, and talked about it, and decided that none of that mess was really a mess, and that the real problem is part of me is scared to death by change, things ending (better: things transforming), letting go and going on to the next level.

What I am trying to say with this long and incoherent rant is, maybe this whole heart box incident is not that bad; maybe it’s some annoying part of your brain that’s not yet willing to recognize how much you’ve grown, and how strong you’ve become and how you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. Maybe you’re closer to your finish line than you thought.

(or maybe I am really blabbering. That is always an option :-D)

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I imagine you have made it through to the other side of the session by now and hope that BN was the ever present caring and consistent attachment figure you have come to find in him. I’ve been struggling with the same types of things lately, feeling like my fantasy that he could be my father has come crashing down around me and that he’s nothing but a T and I’m nothing but a client. But I try to remember that we’ve shared a lot, we’ve been through a lot, and we’ll make it through this too – even if our relationship changes, even if how I view him changes (and perhaps I grow up a little bit and see him through more adult eyes), he will always be a part of who I am, and who I became and no matter what, that is special. And BN is special, even if slightly flawed sometimes. Easy to say, I know, cuz I’m not in the middle of it now (having been on break and good and detached), so it’s easier to see that it is special right now – of course when I go back, it might not be so easy. I hope you find peace with all of this and work through it.

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With the disclaimer that I get that it isn’t really so much about BN… and I don’t need to teach you to suck eggs 😉

It struck me that he may have been using what felt like stock phrases but I feel reasonably confident sticking my neck out to suggest that he is very aware of what is going on, and remembers a lot of detail without having to rely on consulting his notes. It really is very hard when clients are going through such painful and evocative experiences to even begin to forget what they are going through. In my own limited experience, the reverse is often true.

I’m not sure, but could there be some kind of parallel process going on? You already mentioned some of the feelings the invasion of your heart box evoked and how they link to being hurt by your father, and not protected by your mother. Feeling as if BN doesn’t remember, or will need to check his notes, could there be some echoes there related to other people, not seeing, or seeing and not really getting or remembering what was going on for you when you were young, while in stark contrast you were living and experiencing it? It’s kind of a leap, since I don’t know the ins and outs of your history – but I thought I would put it out there.

One of the hardest things for me as a client has been trying to hold on to the middle ground (often with my teeth and toenails!). It is a horribly difficult spot to colonise when you are used to living at either end of the spectrum; with the idealization, yearning and intimacy at one end and the misery and despair and questioning my reality at the other. Sometimes I don’t much like the middle-ground since it is only really ‘good enough’ and will never replace what I did not have.

Another thing that occurred to me is that the therapeutic relationship works both ways. Sure, a good therapist can learn to attune to a wide range of clients. But I truly believe that there something intangible that “clicks” in a good therapeutic alliance that is often unconscious. It is very unlikely that you would be working at this depth if he did not feel a connection to you, as you are connected to him.

I hope some of this is helpful and that you are able to keep wading through it.

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