I hesitated to write this post. Though I am a writer by nature, I rarely give myself the time to do so. Publicizing my therapeutic voice can also be shaky at times, as my work is so sacred to me. It’s my age old internal conflict of being a private person and simultaneously always finding myself in the spotlight. It’s something my own clients lovingly challenge within me as well. But, when it came to Tee, I had to take the time to string some of my thoughts together and it felt right to share it out with the world.
I am coming off one of the busiest peak seasons of my practice, with my summer slowdown being extremely short, as another season of covid influx means I will be very busy soon here.
I even experienced my longest sabbatical ever in this season. My time away was difficult. I let my clients know I was completely unavailable– a first for my practice– and I went away. When my phone really stopped ringing for appointment changes, breaks, vacations, reminders to fill out papers, resources, funny videos, pictures of my client’s major life moments, and everything in between, the silence was hard to deal with.
But slowly, I rolled back in. You could hear the excitement in my voice with every session’s start. But little did my clients know that I was actually nervous. Imagine? I could do this with my eyes closed. But, I came back with a good old case of therapist guilt, especially about Tee.
One of the things that was waiting for me was one of my sore spots as a therapist. I had a scheduled closing with a client from the original starting cohort of my practice’s humble beginnings and so termination mental prep had begun. I don’t like the word termination, I think it is so sterile and clerical. In my own practice they are known as graduations, partly to make it palpable for my clients and maybe slightly, for myself.
On the other side of me was Tee. I didn’t think too much about this closing session, mainly because things with Tee were always easy. There was a natural flow to our sessions.
It was relieving to see her on the other end after putting off our closing off for months at this point due to my leave. I was deeply worried she wouldn’t show, given how busy her schedule had become.
So we slowly started to peel back the layers, or, I had intended on doing so. But leave it to Tee to rev up our engines with her thoughtful words about therapy, us, and her process, right from the go. It was very her, in the best way. All gas, no brakes. But what I didn’t account for was the frog in my throat or the tears burning my eyes. I refused to take away from her at that moment and we were only a few minutes in, a new world record for me. So we chugged along and proceeded to talk about all the things.
Tee is one of the youngest clients I have ever had in my practice. My conclusion is that Gen Z truly terrifies me in the best way and they also give me so much hope for the future. Seriously, I could write a book about Gen Z in therapy because it is just that amazing. (I love that all of them refer to therapy as spilling the tea, but am also slightly concerned)?
At that moment, I could vividly recall so many memories of Tee, how much she made me laugh during our consultation… how excited I was to work with her. She is truly one of the funniest people I know. The amount of times she made parallels from her life to the Stanford Prison Experiment and referenced Stockholm syndrome was probably ten times too many. It represented her sarcastic and dark sense of humor, but I always let her do her thing. It was cathartic for her in a way that made sense to her.
I asked Tee what some of her favorite parts of therapy were and I was genuinely surprised by her answer. Her immediate response was how I would sometimes use endearing nicknames to address her. It was something that would have totally slipped my mind during this conversation, but was so meaningful to her. Truth be told, most of it were things that would accidentally slip out of my own mouth as a habit, but I felt honored she felt seen by it. She proceeds to share that she loved that I felt like her sister. I’ve heard this many times, but my first thought was, wow, you felt that too?
But how could either of us not? Energy is everything and everything is alive in a therapy room.
I looked at Tee and I told her it felt like she had grown up right in front of my eyes. We ran through all of the major milestones she had in our years of working together and it felt never ending. We highlighted her strengths, the things she had handled with grace, all of her growing pains– all of her roses and all of her thorns.
We start rounding out towards the end of our session and I decide to share some of my own things with Tee.
The truth is, yes, Tee grew up in front of my eyes. But I feel like I grew up with her as well. I tell her how she started out with me in the very early phase of my practice. I worked long days and long nights and I loved every second. I would get off of my 9-5 and work with my practice clients until the late night. I took consults on weekends! I didn’t have a second to breathe. But every night I was truly so happy about my growing practice. Tee was with me as I ironed out so many kinks, worked on my own skill set, my knowledge, my fears, my hopes and everything in between. She was a cheerleader in her own right, without even knowing.
As I honed in on my therapeutic skills, built up my toolbelt, and found the courage to quit my job, I changed so much as a person and as a clinician, just from knowing Tee. I thanked her for trusting me with her own journey and being along for mine. Her belief in me helped me believe in myself.
Tee and I had so many simultaneous life events and she had no idea. Therapy is so weird in that way. We lost our grandparents, we had huge life transitions, we moved cities at the same time, and many shake up’s that also somehow overlapped. I still remember how Tee was one of my first clients to inquire about seeing me in person, which seems like a very normal question post pandemic. But in true Tee fashion, it was because she wanted to give me a hug in person one day. Moments like that are hard to forget. Tee had an innate ability to make people around her feel special.
After wrapping up our session, I found myself a bit teary eyed. What was I crying about... actually? Probably a multitude of things. I’m sure it’s more nuanced than I even understand, but something about my time with Tee felt like I couldn't fully cleanse it from my palate. She didn’t have a linear progression and transition. With some clients, I know that when they reach that ONE goal that they came for, they are busting out of my office. I don’t recommend this of course, but I honor my client’s processes. I wanted better for Tee.
I wondered if I did her justice. Unforeseen circumstances cut our therapeutic time a bit shorter than she had preferred, but I wondered if I could have done more. I wondered if I set her up to take on the world. I wondered if there were times where I missed the opportunity to challenge her to dig deeper. I worried about her and started projecting all sorts of things onto our closing.
But Tee didn’t need a perfect ending. She didn’t need it to be wrapped up in a nice little box with a perfect bow on it. This was my stuff. The truth is Tee and I were always kindred spirits, but this is how it feels with most of my clients. I think that’s why it really works for us. Many western therapists would frown upon this, but this is my honest perspective. There really was a sisterly feeling to our interactions.
There was also such a genuine sweetness to Tee that I always admired. I wanted to put her in bubble wrap and protect her from the harshness of the outside world. I believe in letting people have their processes, even if it is sheer chaos. But with Tee, I worried that the world would harden her in some way and I longed to shield her from it.
And let me tell you, Tee is not worried about a thing. She’s on her way to another country at this exact moment, without a care in the world. The truth is Tee had a life before therapy and she will have a life after it, as well. She is beyond well equipped to deal with anything life throws her way and I cannot bubble wrap her through every hardship. It was her time to do it on her own.
My job that day was to have a human therapist moment, but to make sure I wasn’t over identifying with Tee and clouding my clinical judgment, nor being too hard on myself, as I navigated my own emotions. It was emotional.
I will always think about my time with Tee as so sweet and special. Her treatment, the hilarious metaphors, and even her closing, was so authentically and uniquely her.
So, I’m going to close out my thoughts in a way that is uniquely me and that is by sharing my hopes and wishes for Tee.
Tee, I hope you read this one day and immediately know that it is about you. I hope you come back to it when you need the reminder. I hope you learn to love those qualities and quirks that you possess and can be understandably frustrated with. I hope that even when it feels hard, you can one day see those traits as endearingly as I do. Thank you for being such a gift to the world and unknowingly sharing that with me– even when I didn’t know I needed it.
Tee’s absence from my weeks will be felt. I’ll wonder how her trip went and all of the other things we would giggle about. But the best part about having a mutually net positive treatment cycle is that she will always have a space in my practice, should she ever need it.
And if she never needs to use it, I will always be cheering her on from afar.
May we all be more like Tee,
Ashley
