Posted by Honore on July 26, 2007, at 11:03:10
In reply to What to do when T forgets you're terminating??!!?!, posted by gardenergirl on July 25, 2007, at 17:56:12
I can't believe that he pushed it out of his mind. Termination is too important-- for someone (someone with all his faculties) to push it so far out of his mind that he doesn't know it was discussed, when it was discussed so concretely.
You had the initial discussion and all these other discussions where it was the subject, either implicit or explicit. It's not possible for him to have sort of suppressed it to that degree. Maybe he lost it temporarily with all the pressure he was under in his life, or you and he just were never on the same page about whether you were doing it-- or were only discussing it, and not actually deciding that it was happening.
One thing I'm guessing is that, part of you wants to terminate-- I'm not sure why, maybe just so as not to feel weak and needy-- but a deeper you never ready felt ready to-- and maybe you leaped to certain conclusions to protect yourself. Maybe you felt constrained to do it-- to be ready, because the term was up, and you might not be a student and the answer to whether you could continue might be "no"-- which might destroy your good feelings about his caring, and therefore was too dangerous to ask about.
I think he doesn't think you're ready to terminate either--or put another way, he's not ready to, for sure-- whether for your needs or his, or both.
But I can't believe he just pushed it out of his mind in some everyday sort of way. But that idea is scary-- because it would tend to make me seriously question whether he was losing it-- which would be terrible.
But I can't help but wonder (as wild speculation) if something related to the surgery (or something else) was happening that day or week that you discussed it-- and he got overwhelmed and simply couldn't keep mental hold over yet another overwhelming idea, ie your terminating when you and he were't ready. So he may have felt vaguely that there was a more hypothetical discussion-- or not even that-- and has thought all the talk about termination was hypothetical. I don't know-- but somehow it seems more traumatic than normal to completely forget something so important.
It is lonely to possess that kind of knowledge--or idea--one that he can never really dispel, or explain away, except by admitting something that is also frightening (that he may not have been himself for a time)-- when you depend on him to be sane and knowing about you and about himself and about life. It's a great burden to be left with that-- to be the alone with that experience of him.
But at least you don't have to terminate-- which I think is really greatly to the good. After all, you said it didn't seem real-- you hadn't felt as though you were. Maybe that feeling was more real and on point than you knew.
It might be something you just have to push to the periphery-- if he seems okay-- but maybe, too, it's important to go into it more-- to get further to the bottom of what happened, really--if only to be less alone with the knowledge.
Honore
poster:Honore
thread:771943
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070726/msgs/772074.html