Asking T to stop reading my emails

What did you decide to do?

I searched through the Psychology Today listings and composed an email to send to potential new T’s, but then I went to my scheduled session with my T and told him how I was feeling about all this. We talked in detail about how hard it is for me to come in to see him most weeks, but how I still want to come and what an agonizing tug-of-war that is. Some of it might be related to guilt about getting what I want emotionally and feeling wrong about seeking help and expressing needs. I’m not sure, but I suspect I’d feel that way with any T I’d see. Anyway, it’s difficult to put into words, but I left that session feeling good and calm and feeling understood. He’s on vacation this week, and I feel myself pulling away again as has been my pattern, but I’d give just about anything to feel the way I did at the end of our last session.

I haven't read all the replies to this, so apologies if I'm writing something that has already been explored here.

I see myself in a lot of what you have written. I am also attached to my T and see him as a sort of parental figure and I am very much guilty of sending him emails for the sake of feeling connected. I also express myself better in writing than I do in person, so it's an incentive to write to him, particularly after sessions where I felt unable to express myself well. He always replies to emails about scheduling but he doesn't respond to longer ones, where I write about how I'm feeling. He "welcomes" them though, or at least that's what he said. His lack of reply, however, always makes me feel like I did something wrong by sending it in the first place and therefore I end up agonizing over every word until the next session. I tried to stop emailing him and in fact, I haven't since almost 7 months ago...but recently the needy child in me took over and tried to get some sort of reaction out of him by emailing.

I'm wondering if by asking him to stop reading your emails as opposed to not sending them at all, your inner child is trying to make him react a certain way? Maybe you were even hoping he would start replying if you said that because he would have realized he's hurting you? I don't mean this in an accusatory way at all, by the way-- I think this is exactly how my inner child would try to manipulate the situation, so I'm just curious if any of this speaks to you.

I also think it's one thing to understand something from an intellectual point of view and another thing altogether to understand it from an emotional point of view. For instance, intellectually speaking, I completely understand why my T only responds to scheduling emails. This, however, isn't enough for me to accept it emotionally as well...especially because I am prone to thinking I did something wrong when people don't respond to me. And although I am able to make the intellectual distinction between him not responding and him ignoring me, the emotional brain wins and overall, I still feel like he rejected me by not responding. So I guess by sending him a "feelings" email, I am hoping that he will respond and the emotional brain will be satisfied too. If i were to bring his lack of response in session, I would probably inadvertently do it in a way that (I'd think) would force him to respond in the future because that would gratify me (though I'd hope for my sake that he would uphold his boundaries and not give in to my neediness).

I'm sorry if this is convoluted and strange, it's hard to put into words exactly what I think. I do hope it makes some sort of sense.

Yes! It sounds like you have had a very similar struggle and it’s interesting to hear how you processed it. By the time I saw my T I had realized that asking him not to read my emails wasn’t the solution, but I was still feeling pretty desperate about wanting to stop that behavior because of the way it makes me feel sometimes (needy and like I’ve done something wrong). He once again repeated that he welcomes my emails and always reads them and that he’s not asking me to stop. I pushed him, I think, by saying that he was being black & white, in his thinking about this topic, and he ended up saying that if I ever *really* needed him, then he would respond. I have since emailed him a few times. Like you, there’s actually a big part of me that wants him to uphold his boundaries. It’s confusing because I can also feel hurt when he does this. Anyway, he’s been on vacation and I haven’t seen him for a week and a half now, and I haven’t emailed him. I’ve definitely been posting more in this forum, so I guess that’s how I’m coping. Thanks for sharing your story.

My story is a bit dofferent

When I contemplated seeing a second T I knew I couldn't do it without Ts support. While and I we still accomplishing a lot I felt stuck in regard to my trauma. Initially when I approached the subject she offered to step back and let me work with the new T and if I wanted to after. Initially I tg and bl she was a but upset but it was more that she couldn't help me more. When I told her I wanted T 2 only for the trauma stuff and her and I would work still work on everything else. She was very receptive and said she would do whatever i needed her to do. Also secretly I was afraid she would retire really soon and I would be on my own. Everything I read about EMDR really quick.

In my first email to Emdr T I told her that I saw T and what I needed from her and that I would see T for everything else. She was wonderful and talked to each other in the phone a couple of times. To make sure they, to a certain degree, the were working together and stepping on each others toes.. Ultimately they wanted to whatever was best for me.

Gave 2 Ts who knew about each other was a God send when T passed so unexpectedly.

While I was reading through this thread my thought was that the problem is likely to be just about ALL about this:

Pretty much all of the conflicts, ruptures and ambivalence you experience seem to have this issue at their core... the endless tussle between experiencing a yearning for connection and support, being hopeful and vulnerable about being able to finally have that need recognized and responded to by an Other, and then retreating and protecting so as not to be rejected or hurt (and being angry at self for needing or wanting in the first place).

Vulnerability is SO hard. You are right in that it is so much easier to simply depend on self and get through things on your own.
But yet... the wanting still exists, because we are human.

Yes, I think you are exactly right about this being a main issue right now. Even right now I can feel the wheels turning in my head as I start to wonder what it might be like not to show up for my sessions this week. He was on vacation last week and I resisted (pretty easily) emailing him. I expressed frustration in our last session before his vacation and it felt good to talk about it. I remember that I left feeling connected. So I’m not sure why I would even consider not showing up. Maybe I’m worried about bigger feelings like how I shouldn’t want or like that connectedness I felt during our last session, so I need to show that I’m in control by no-showing. It’s all very maddening, but I do believe you’ve hit the nail on the head.