Counting Down the Visits

This morning I met with my therapist. Back in June, she announced that she would be retiring on December 1st of this year. If my count is correct, I believe that I have 11-12 visits left with her. When she announced this, I tried to have no reaction. I'm not sure if I was successful with that or not. I talked about it very, {and I mean very!} briefly with my case manager that same day when she came over to my apartment for a visit. Since then, there's been no mention of it at all between any of my mental healthcare providers. I have spoken some about it with peer specialists at NAMI however. I think that I'm trying to get up the nerve to bring up the topic with my therapist. I know right now my therapist and I have been tackling some pretty significant issues going on that need to be addressed to keep me stabilized and on a good path. 

I had come up with a list of topics that I had wanted to address with her specifically before she retired. There were eight topics, with many little subtopics and questions to explore. I guess my thinking has been that no other therapist would be capable or comfortable addressing these topics with me. I have been working with Lou Ann for almost eleven years now. She is the first therapist that I have fully trusted to share some pretty deep and painful secrets with. And although it seems like I take one step forward and two steps back at times, overall, I feel like I've made some significant progress over the years.  The past two months have found me engaging in some impulsive, self-sabotaging behavior. It dawned on me this afternoon that there is probably a connection between this behavior and the announcement of Lou Ann's upcoming retirement.  And it's stupid, because I know better. I mean, if I think about it logically, I know better. But the idea of change throws me into such a panic that I allow my anxiety to envelop me and if I'm not careful, Moby Dick will drag me to my death just as he did to Ahab.

The way I'm looking at it tonight is that I have two options. One is to continue to spin out of control, trying to ignore my feelings. The other is to reach out to my case manager and psychiatric nurse practitioner tomorrow and talk through my plan for addressing this with my therapist at our next session. I want the opportunity to show her that I have actually learned some things over the years so that I can send her off into retirement on a high note, knowing that I will be okay.