(((River)))) I hate the reason, but it's really wonderful to hear from you, I have missed you! I'm sorry this is so painful, but I really get it. In many ways, therapy is a play space, where our imagination can run free, and so we can think about what it would have felt like to be treated as we should have been when we were young: special and adored and center of our caregivers' attention. Because we see our T alone for our sessions and don't have to share them, it's a space in which we can come the closest to knowing what it would feel like. So when we run into another patient, it's like turning off a switch (or your perfect description of suddenly tearing through the sets and letting you see the infrastructure.) Suddenly, play time is abruptly done and we are left defenseless with the grief that for our Ts we are not the only, special adored one. We are brutally faced with the loss of not having had that.
You are perfectly correct that nothing has changed. Your T cares deeply for you and you do have a unique, special relationship with her, unlike anyone else, but the overwhelming loss of not having that as a child is overshadowing that.
I really believe the best thing to do is to go and talk to your T about how this felt and what it's calling up in you. I went through something similar when I found a book of poetry that had a poem dedicated to my T. He was also mentioned in the acknowledgements by a nationally known author (whose jacket picture was stunning of course
). It was so painful and shame inducing, I actually thought about never seeing him again. I posted about going to talk to my T about it and I'm including the link below in the hope it might help somehow.
That was a reassuring appointmentTry not to be too hard on yourself River, it really is perfectly understandable why you would feel this way.
AG