Ms. Control,
While reading that about your T might have been a factor by unconsciously helping you to believe he would understand, I would venture to guess that it had more to do with the inherent structure of therapy. You are going to see someone who is imbued with a sense of both authority and knowledge (after all, they're the "expert" on these issues) and they are paid so that they attend completely to your needs, focused on understanding how you feel and accepting you just as you are.

In an any other relationship we have as an adult it doesn't work like this. We are either an equal, where there is give and take, a subordinate where we are taking direction and serving (in a job though which in some ways exempts our emotional life except insofar as we need to manage our feelings so they do not interfere with our functioning) or a caretaker when everything in the relationship flows to the other person (our child or taking care of a dependent, elderly parent).

If you go back to early childhood, ideally the setup is that you depend on a wiser, stronger person (mom and dad) who you believe has all the answers (we believe this in order to feel safe and because for most of our problems mom and dad do have the answer). They are also focused on being attuned to us, understanding us and they love us no matter what. If you didn't have that (and sadly, most of us here did not) than the structure of therapy is so close to being the child in a parental relationship that our long repressed needs come back. In the case of someone who suffered long term trauma, our most urgent need is often to have someone help us process the terrifying and overwhelming feelings caused by the trauma and to understand and integrate what happened to us. Often we have carried this for decades and the split-off, traumatized part of ourselves is desparate to speak (even while it terrifies us) so when we see someone who "fits" the role of being capable of listening, we open up.

Does that seem to fit for you at all? I know this is really confusing because the truth is you are getting hit with a whole lot of stuff you have unconsciously kept buried and out of your consciousness for a long time. We don't tend to bury the good stuff.

AG