We've probably talked about holidays before. How hard they are. When I was little, Christmas Eve was always fun. The rest of the holidays were difficult for me. Getting dressed up. Spending hours upon hours at church. I didn't have any cousins so my parents would invite all their old relatives over. My mother would make me be polite and sit with them and chat. It was brutal for me.

When I was turning 19, I met a guy in a bar. We made out one night. The next time I saw him, he ignored me so I got drunk and then approached him. We used to go to his car and make out. One night things went to far. I said no but he didn't listen.

I know a lot of women have been through something like that and worse but that screwed me up. Well, I was already screwed up but that screwed me up even more. There was a lot I had to hide from my family.

I do remember one Thanksgiving - I think it was before the "incident" above - that he said he was going to call me on Thanksgiving. I waited and waited all day. As the day I went on, I got increasingly depressed and hopeless. I had images of him in my mind hanging with his family watching football and having fun. Indifferent to my distress.

It's always been brutal for me to wait for T to call for that very reason. I guess I feel like his non-disclosure feeds those images I have of him, out having a good time whilst I suffer. Indifferent to my pain.

Holidays after that were always difficult. I wasn't really connected to my family anymore because I was so disconnected from everyone. No one knew what I went through so I just had to smile and pretend I was normal. I felt like my head was on sideways and no one noticed. IDK if that's why I have a hard time with holidays now. It probably all contributes.

I tried to explain it all to T both in my last session and via email yesterday and today. I thought it would be good to get close to the feelings instead of avoiding them like I always do. I figured if he knew how I was feeling, we could do something differently to rewire my brain. I finally told him that. He did write to me abotu 6 oclock to tell me he wasn't mad at me, he was upset that I was in so much pain. (I had expressed worry that he was mad at me.) It was a really nice email.

I just get these unrelenting voices in my head over the holidays telling me what a loser I am. It's very hard. I want so much to feel proud of myself. Proud of what I've accomplished. I want to have a nice partner. One that I'm attracted to. One that I feel safe with. Someone who is more sensitive to my emotional sensitivities. I want a partner who is stable. T represents all those things. I can still have a lot of that with T. He gives me a lot of security. But it hurts to really feel stuff I can't have with him and what I would have to do to have it. Everything feels so out of reach. I know how hard I would have to work to be where I want to be in life and it's very scary because then I have to recognize where I am now. It's just all very scary my friends.

Thanks for listening. And, Happy New Year.