Calling therapist

I have brought this up before. Those who responded didn't seem they needed or that they followed thru with calling T between sessions. This is aside from emergency calls. All my Ts take emergency calls 24-7.I used to have a T that allowed pone calls AND e-mail. MY tendencies have been to feel that if I contact my T there will be some sort of releif and validation and to clear up any miscommunications and settle my inner world down a bit.Therapists since 2005 -2011, I have felt no connection to and was basically living as a dissociated robot...hence no calls. Still went inpatient a few times...as they insisted. I have actiuall y been inpatient 14 itmes.THis newer T (since end of 2011) and all my psychiatirsts nad therapists ( wheverever I lived at teh time), they also either contacated me during their vacations or I could call them during my vacations too. Anyway up to current time. I held back and treid to block life so that i didnt feel a need to call my T ove the holidays. Now It is back to the routine. I have therapy session, I feel scatterred adn work goin g on in my world. I call T back same day or soon. I may call a couple more times. My alters may call him. Sometims i jsut leave a message just to get soem thing out that i didtn say in person. BUt for some reason I always feel a need to call and beleive it or not, I dont want to call him. I want to be grown up and appropriate, not needy. T says I have not called innapropriatley and he does have boundaries. Do any of you call as much as I do??? This week I think I went over the rules. I called twice jsut to leav a message, I called again and we talked , he never rushes me. THEN alsmost as soon as we hung up I fel t i needed to call him AGAIN> I hated myself. I realized i did not give myself time to do the things he mentioned to help myslef and I jsut called him. I think I mumbled soemthing like you dont really ahve to call back unless bla bla something. He is not calling back I am so ashamed and embarassed and unworthy and being punished. He wouldn t ever punish me. I am afradi to talk aboutthis after
"messing up" by making thi s mistake. Any comments. I wish I was more articulate inmy posts. Oh andin my calls to T as well

I wish I could call more. I don't feel like I'm worth making a call over. I think I've called maybe 2 times in the years we've been together. There have been a lot of times where I wish I could or would call. Occasionally my alters will, but mostly not.

Because of this and how not calling has sometimes caused problems, my T told me this. She's there to be someone for us to lean on. It's not bothering her if one of us calls. It's not hurting her. It's not hurting her other patients. It's one of the benefits we get in using her service. She also says that some of her patients do call her a lot, and that's okay too. She wants all of us to be alive and okay. If it takes calling her then that's fine and great with her.

Similarly, occasionally I leave messages on her office number rather than her emergency number. Sometimes hearing her voice is enough. Other times, I leave her a message because I don't feel important enough to leave one on the emergency number. She listens to it and she makes the decision whether or not to call back. Most of the time she calls back and either leaves a detailed message if I don't answer or we chat. I've come to realize that she's not punishing me if she doesn't call back right away or even at all. Sometimes she's busy. Sometimes she's helping other people. It doesn't mean she's mad or hates me. If she doesn't call back, I think about what I said. She knows me. She knows my insiders. If she thought were in danger, she wouldn't leave us hanging. I don't think your T would leave you hanging.

We also find it helps to make a list of things to do before calling. For example, we'll watch a cartoon and if we still feel bad, we'll call the T. We'll take a walk...and so on.

You are worth it. It's hard to realize, but you are.

I love your response. To be able to hear another view on this calling thing. My T knows it is hard for me to call DESPITE them all. WHen we first started he did not tell me the phones rules. I jsut assumed i could call and i did. HE never returend them. IN session after i spoke up, he stated that he didnt call back becaseu i didnt ask him to. ( meaning I have the power, wisdom and worthiness to make those decisions and ask for help , reachout adn be heard...but I HAD to ask and speak up). Snce then I still cant twist myhead around him doing what i ask. I am sure if I try to cross a boundary he will say so. He always ends his call with CALL ME ( meaning.if you need some help, I am here for you))He has even told me if on (rare) occasionhe doesn tcall back he is NOT punishing me, it is okay to recall and double check he got the message to call me. HE says i can call and jsut listen to voice message, leave a note or two or go online and see his face.
most of all I apprecite your suggestion of w to try to take care on my inner world first before calling....I am working on self comforting my system. It sounds like you have an understanding regarding contacting your t . She sounds caring. I appreciate your response, I hope I ehar some more views too. thanks

I think you're both brave for even calling. I'm afraid to. I haven't called my therapist at all, even though when I was having a denial spell a couple days ago I really should have. I just get this big panic over calling.

I was finding it too difficult to make contact with my T first without feeling a ridiculous amount of guilt like you seem to be feeling.
Now she will ring everyday and we call it the check in calls. We all kno we will have the chance to speak to her so it gets rid of the agony over whether to call or not per situation.
The phone calls vary in length greatly depending on the day.
Boundaries for people with bad backgrounds are hard to deal with. I too always think I'm being 'too much' when I am not at all. Perhaps you could arrange something similar with your T to try and ease the guilt somewhat?
Just had to input with my situation as it will hopefully give you something to think about.
Best wishes.
Bourbon.

My current T I've seen for 3.5 years. In between sessions I use email. Usually after a session, each alter wants to email her and clarify stuff about the session, or just reach out for help. She always responds, even though sometimes it takes about a day. The email seems sufficient that I don't need to call her.

The previous T though, o was different. I'm not proud of what I did, but I would call his pager number and leave a code number for one of the alters, and then hope he would call me. I didn't think I deserved to ask him straight to call me. He eventually figured out the code and sometimes would call and sometimes not. There were also times when I did get up the nerve to actually ask him to call me, but the code numbers were more frequent. I feel really bad about that, cuz I'm sure he would have called me if I needed to talk and just be honest about that. He put up with a lot of behaviors from me when the DID was at the worst.

Things are much mire stable now, and now I can ask for what I need, and the current T is responsive to that. Alysone et al.