I started this post yesterday (10/29) and didn’t get the chance to finish it so it’s going to read as though it was written on Thursday rather than today (10/30).
Yesterday, before I could even get my bearings on the day, before I was truly settled in to my job, I missed a phone call from L’s office. There was a message that asked me to call back whenever possible.
I had a sinking feeling that turned out to be right. Turns out L is starting her maternity leave a little bit early, so my session today has been cancelled. There’s no more anticipation about this anymore, it’s happening. Whether I like it or not.
I immediately texted L to make sure she was okay. It seemed remarkably strange that she wasn’t the one cancelling our session, as she’s done in the past. For the rest of the day, I heard nothing, and I was pretty sure about what that meant.
She had to be in active labor.
I obsessively checked her instagram, waiting to see if my theory was correct and this morning, there was a picture of her little girl. She’s arrived.
This has left me with a lot of conflicting feelings. Today was supposed to be my last session, I was anticipating being able to sit with L and have some more time with her before she left. In fact, I should technically be in session right now. But I’m not. L is on leave, and I’m here again wishing that I didn’t feel so alone.
At least last time, I had L. I knew her from previous time working together so it wasn’t like she was a complete stranger. We had time to overlap and grow accustomed to each other before J left me behind.
This time? Not so much.
Let’s go back in time a little and I’ll tell you about the failed session with a potential replacement therapist and the semi-successful one with the woman I guess I’m stuck with for the next couple months.
I had to be the one to advocate for myself in this situation. It seemed like without me doing that I never would been placed with another provider and even if I did, it wouldn’t have been before L left. So yay me for speaking up for myself but also how frustrating that it wasn’t made a greater priority for us to be considered without me making it a thing.
The woman in charge of the practice, D, got back to me rather quickly. She found someone with an opening and placed me with her. At first, the session wasn’t supposed to be for even another week from now, but the next day the woman ended up calling me and asking me to come in the following day. AKA last Thursday.
I went in with an open mind, feeling like I owed this woman that much. As L had said, I probably wasn’t going to like anyone as much as her. So I expected to feel uncomfortable, a bit jittery.
What I was not expecting was to outright dislike the woman. But well, the story wouldn’t have been any fun otherwise, right? M was an older woman, at least compared to J and L. She was probably in her 40’s if I had to guess. She sat with a notebook that she never took notes in (what was the point?) and we had our first and only session.
The woman was clearly put off by me. She tried to act as if she wasn’t, but I have a sixth sense for when people are uncomfortable or feel awkward and M was practically exuding it from all her pores. It was clear and it became more clear as we went along.
We talked about my job for a good seven minutes before she’d asked anything about me, which felt weird. Still, I tried to rationalize it. She’s just learning about me, nothing wrong with that.
But of course, it got worse.
First, although I didn’t know this at the time, she lied to me. I asked her if she’d talked to L about me. She admitted that she had but told me L hadn’t said very much at all. Come to find out with L later that night that she had told the woman about my diagnoses and attachment concerns that she pretended not to know about.
She also told the woman not to bullshit me. So, M was clearly 0 for 2 on that one.
What really got me was that she did not seem to understand my attachment-related problems, which is obviously a really big piece of working with me. She kept asking me questions about what I expected from a therapeutic relationship. It sounds innocuous, but her tone wasn’t kind or curious. It was judgmental. She seemed to want to make sure I shouldn’t feel entitled to more than was normal.
That’s the thing. I felt like I was being judged the entire time of the session. It felt more like I was being sized up and M was trying to discern whether she’d like to work with me, as opposed to helping me figure out if she was a good fit for me.
And at one point, as I was telling her about how my relationship with L began as a way to consider whether J and I needed to end our working relationship, she said “so you cheated on your therapist.”
Dear therapists who do not know how to work with attachment, that is not what you want to say to someone whose relationship with therapist is paramount to their being. It doesn’t lend well to making us feel understood.
Eventually she realized she’d messed up and apologized but the damage was done at that point and I’d already made my decision.
Typing this all back, it doesn’t really sound as bad as it felt in the moment. When I first started with J and then with L, there was a certain level of comfort that just wasn’t there with M. She seemed uncomfortable and it permeated the whole atmosphere until I felt that way too.
Later, I found out that she had been nervous when L told her about my attachment stuff, because she’d never really worked with that before. Put simply, I think she was scared of me and what working with me might mean for her. At the very end, she said to let her know if I wanted to meet again, but she understood if I had concerns.
I think she had just as many concerns and it made me feel a whole ton of shame. I left the session feeling defeated and like I was about to be stuck in a terrible position. This was the woman I’d been placed with, what was I supposed to do?
In a flurry of anxiety, I did decide to make another phone call to D. In my message, I explained I didn’t think M and I were a good fit for each other and was there any way she could place me with someone else? I also apologized about 300 times because I felt like such a burden for asking.
L was great during our session later that night. I thought she might chastise me for not giving the woman a chance, but she as it turns out also had her reservations about M after talking to her. So while I don’t think she was entirely surprised, she was equally appalled by the things I told her about my session.
During that session, which was telehealth, D ended up calling me back. She was kind enough to hop on the end of my session with L and talk to both of us to find a suitable person for me to work with instead. This time, L had someone to recommend (which, why wouldn’t she just do that in the first place?) and so D reached out to her to see if I could slip into her caseload.
So last Friday I met with another L. L2 as I guess I’m going to call her. That’s probably going to be confusing but I really don’t know what else to use.
L2 was immediately better than M. She just had a caring tone about her that was encouraging at least. I was open and honest with her, she took whatever I threw her way without seeming too fazed by it. There wasn’t anything particularly eventful about our session. It was normal, but of course felt weird because I didn’t know this person at all.
The only thing that really stuck out to me was that L2 does not allow for texting in between sessions, so that’s going to be a huge adjustment. Especially considering right after I finished my session with L2 I texted L feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of her being gone.
Her response? Remember this is simply a placeholder! In a few months I’ll return and you’ll have the L experience again, haha. Until then I encourage you to lean into this. L2 will more definitely provide you a safe place to hold your feelings, but I totally get that the same level of comfort is not there right not and that can be very scary.
See how wonderful she is? Why would I want to open up and be real with anyone but her for the next couple months?
Then there’s the other thing. L2 is only working on telehealth, so I’m back to that. No in-person therapy for the foreseeable future. As if I needed another blow. That one has been sitting particularly poorly with me, because I really hate telehealth, but I felt like I had no choice to say yes to the person L recommended.
So there we have it, I’m back on the maternity leave train, full steam ahead. Preparing for my next session with L2 and hoping to feel marginally better about it afterward.
I still have more to post about what ended up being my final session with L, but this post is getting long so I’m going to return to that one later.
Ease The Ride 