Thank you for showing me the light!

Dear Therapist,

I’m not good. I’m scared and angry and I hurt from the inside out…but I know it isn’t your fault. I know you can’t be here with me now, in this moment of pain. I know I can’t depend on you to help me, outside of “our scheduled time” together. And so I just have to hurt. It isn’t your fault, it isn’t my fault. But that doesn’t change the fact that this hurts like hell! But I’m not mad at you. It’s just that I can’t handle the darkness… the darkness is when the demons come and carry me away. It’s in the dark that I feel him, smell him, hear him and there’s no escape. And as much as you may negate my next statement, I know in my heart that it’s true: it helped me so much when you were there for me, at night. That’s what’s really hard for me now. You WERE there. And I knew that I could reach out and find you. But now I reach out…and there’s a gaping chasm between where I am and where you are.

I allowed myself to fall into this ‘dependency’ on you, this habit of thinking you would be there for me; that when I reached out, I would find your hand there. But it’s not there now. And that hurts. I know it isn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to believe that you would always be there, you’re not my ‘mother’, or my ‘friend’…you’re my therapist. But for 2 years you were there, every night, I would reach out to you, and I’d find you there, at 11pm, midnight, sometimes even one in the morning… you were there.

I know that you have a new life now, and I shouldn’t have allowed myself to depend on you at night, I should have realized that it was temporary. I’m sorry I allowed that to happen, that I didn’t protect myself. That’s always been an area of struggle for me. And I’ll try not to get angry at you anymore because it’s not your fault, it’s my fault. I was the one who believed it, who ‘trusted’ that it was ‘real’. I allowed myself to depend on you, to count on you at night when I was unable to cope. But now there are people in “your real life” that need you at night and he depends on you to be there for him, and you no longer have time to deal with my nightly freak outs. I’m not real anyway.

I understand now that I will suffer, here in the dark, with no one to help me…and so I'll ‘deal’ with it, I'll handle it now, in the present, just like I did then. It’s no different.
I hate it, and it sucks! But I hated it when my father came into my room at night; I hated the feelings of his hands on my body. I hated that my mother never protected me. It sucked! But that’s life, huh? You used to be there for me, when you had time, but now you have other obligations and you no longer have time.

I hear you when you say that you’re the “same as you’ve always been”, I hear you tell me that you’re “still here”. But we both know that you’re not ‘here’ to the extent that you ‘were’.
The last several sessions that we’ve had, you keep asking me, “What do you want?” I’d really like it if you would stop asking me that. Because what I ‘want’ doesn’t matter, it never has. The fact that I want you to once again be ‘here’ for me at night when I am overwhelmed with fear doesn’t matter, because the decision was made…it just ‘is’ regardless of what I ‘want’ and I can’t change it. Can’t fight that! So, please stop asking me what I want. My wants and needs are irrelevant because I don’t know what’s best for me, you do, my parents did and your colleagues, they know.

What is it you always say, “Acceptance, then Change”? You changed your availability and I have to accept that – so what’s the change? Oh, that you took your support away at night, that’s the change…and I have to accept that.

Thank you for helping me see that…it’s much easier to accept my fate that way.