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This may be TMI, but whatever. I've been seeing a therapist this year, just to finish the task of getting my head on straight in life. It's not been a crisis thing, more like a tune-up, and I found this retired PhD professor, an expert in relationships and stuff, who was just awesome. Funny, down-to-earth, a musician on the side, very supportive. I always looked forward to appointments and I always learned something and was just feeling great about things.
So yesterday I opened what I thought was a bill from his office, and instead, it was a letter informing his patients that he had died suddenly of an apparent stroke.
It was kind of a blow - completely unlooked-for. He couldn't have been more than sixty and was a very vibrant person. They have someone else to take his patients, but I don't think I'll call. I'm not in crisis or anything or like that. I'm just sad about it. And I'm especially sorry I didn't get a chance to say thank you, and goodbye. He really helped me a lot, though.
Just wanted to share that bit of sadness so I don't carry it around too long this morning. Life's so unpredictable. Be thankful for the people you've got around you, whoever they may be.
A therapist really helped me my junior year in college. He was a professor too, at Michigan, and I had him for a class and decided to see him. He had a bar in his office and wrote my dreams down on large index cards. The first few times I went to his office all I did was cry. He was gentle and patient (and maybe drunk, but it didn't matter). He saved me from dropping out of school and perhaps much worse. I worked in my dorm cafeteria to help pay for it; he lowered his fee for me. He made it all right to talk about myself, to remember things.
Sometimes I wonder, though, what would have happened if I had dropped out of college and used that free airline ticket to make my way to Hawaii and taken a job waitressing at a beach hotel. That was my plan. I had $1,200 to my name. I thought I could sleep on the beach or the airport. It wasn't rational. It's like the time I ran away when I was twelve and planned to live on this sandbar at Rooster River. I brought my clarinet with me. I went home without anyone knowing I'd left.
You could maybe go to the funeral, or send a card to his family talking about how much he helped you? My father received a card like that from one of my cousins when my mom died (she had apparently been a huge help to this cousin in a crisis, but hadn't told anyone she had helped), and it really meant a lot to my father.
I'm so sorry, Miko. You can't help but feel close to someone who knows your secrets and innermost thoughts. I, at this very moment, am skipping a funeral. My friend's brother. Heroin overdose at 38. For an upstanding, whitebread suburbanite I seem to know a lot of people who OD'ed.
It IS a blow. . .and I am glad you are processing it. It's sad that he has passed, and there is no where to put the loss and grief felt by his clients, assuming that he saw more people than you.
I was in therapy for 3 years, and I have a different view of it now. . .I feel sort of meh about it, and I run into him around town (Eugene is small and the boundaries between therapists and clients that seem to rule in other places are blurry) and I wonder why I spent all this out-of-pocket money in it.
Anyway, *Hug*. . .it IS a loss and I am sorry about it.
And I'm especially sorry I didn't get a chance to say thank you, and goodbye.
Miko, I fully believe he knows how much he meant to you and that he now has alot of good things in store for him in his new life. I also believe people that have passed before us do not wish us to mourn them, but celebrate them and share their memory with others which keeps their spirit alive in your heart. But, yeah, that sucks and I offer my sincerest condolences.
Awww, that's awful. I hold one of my past therapists near and dear to my heart; I can't imgaine how I would've gotten through a very tough time in my life without her support. My thoughts are with you.
I'm sorry to hear of this, Miko (and jrossi4r, too: that lake of lack called smack drowned my cousin last year). Chin up; this cat left you with strong, good memories, and that's really all you can ask for from anyone, living or dead. It's sudden, and that makes it tough, but death has a way of getting you to sit down and remember everything he said, and everything he meant, and with a trusted therapist, that can't but be good in a way.
Thanks, you guys. I'd feel weird attending the funeral, but I will definitely send a note as you've suggested. And thanks, Hugh, for what you say. For the short time I knew this person, I received some really precious awareness and information from him, and he was the exactly-right individual to be there at a key period in my life. I will miss talking to him, but I feel confident proceeding on my own.
Miko,
I've had the same therapist (cognitive behavior therapy) for the past 14 years. I was one of his first patients and I've gone stretches of up to a year+ without seeing him, save for a crisis or, like you, just some tune-up work. I remember one year he told me he almost died in a kayaking accident, which, at the time, terrified me (as I'm sure it did him!). I felt too embarrassed to tell him how much he meant to me and so I didn't.
Oddly enough, I was recently asked to name the person who has most inspired me in my life. I took a full day pondering this question before answering "my therapist" and stating the myriad reasons why. At the end of my last appointment with him, I told him this; he blushed and stammered and thanked me, saying he had also learned a great deal from me. He is now taking a good part of the summer off to travel, kayak, climb giant rocks and to perform other dangerous/thrill-seeking feats. His sense of humour is only outweighed by his sense of adventure.
From the snippets I have read of your life on this board, I'm pretty sure your therapist looked forward to your appointments as well and that he learned much from you.
(((((((((miko))))))))) It's funny (not funny ha ha, you know, the other kind) that I read this now, since I just came from my therapist's office, who I adore, who has taught/helped me so much in the 3 months I've been seeing him that it's incredible. I'm so sorry for your loss (and jrossi's, and hugh's, and my own long ago lost to heroin friends) and I think sending a note is a good idea - that and writing down what he meant to you, for you. And also for him. I've written and burned (so as to send) letters to dead friends and I've found that it helped me enormously.
Just add me along with the others who advise the note idea. I'm so sorry for your loss. He seemed to click with you at just the right time in your life, and I'm certain he looked forward to your appointments. It'll mean so much to his family to know that he touched as many lives as he has, so certainly send a note.
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