So, it's been a rough couple of days feeling like my T blew a hole in me with the whole touch issue - not to mention that I'm under a massive amount of stress in pretty much all areas of my life this week. I felt a little better after processing stuff here, so I decided to do a little more on my own with some journaling.
While journaling about my feeling of powerlessness, I hit upon 2 things:
1. I feel powerless because I need T, but he doesn't need me.
2. My desire for an erotic connection is my attempt to seize power and equalize the relationship.
My mouth literally dropped open on that second epiphany, because it went right to the heart of the issue I raised with my T concerning my husband. I don't well tolerate anything from my husband that looks like sexual rejection. I pretty much fall apart if ever I want sex and he doesn't. I realize now that I've been tying my personal sense of power and worth to my desirability. It feels powerful to me because it allows me to connect with a person without becoming emotionally vulnerable. And because touch is my primary love language, sex helps me feel loved even if I'm not.
I went to session today planning to talk about all of this, but I started out talking about a dream I had (about smoking a cigar in church
), and it lead to a discussion about my faith and sexuality. (Long story there.) I only got to mention Item 1 in the last five minutes. But it fit well, because my dream was also related to my sense of powerlessness, which we were able to touch on. The session was also relatively light, with lots of good humor from both sides, and his eyes showed a deep warmth for me at several points. I swear, at the very end, he seemed loathe to let me go. (FYI, I'm really missing him right now.)
I do want to discuss what happened last session with the touch issue, but I think getting some breathing space after that sh*t storm might be a good idea. The nerve is still somewhat tender, and I've got about all the sludge I can handle at the moment. Today's session was a thankfully uplifting reprieve.