My T and I were discussing my tendency to be careful about what I say in therapy. How I feel like I have to keep my feelings contained and controlled. He asked me what I was afraid of and I told him I wasn't sure except I was afraid of losing control of myself and then I told him this:

At the beginning of May when I was feeling very connected to him we had a difficult session (the subject and the emotions were difficult). I spoke to him on the phone for short time each of the next two days. I felt quite needy because I just wanted to know he was there. Then I had to wait for the weekend without contact and at some point I was longing to see him and imagining greeting him and I had this image of myself going to shake his hand and instead hugging him really hard and refusing to let go. I could see myself just refusing to let go.

Now I know that I'm not likely to do that to my T but there is a part of me that is afraid that I don't know what I will do if I'm not hyper vigilant. We didn't get to discuss my fear much the first time I told him the story and I followed it up with an email saying that I was afraid I was abusive and that I would run right over his boundaries because of my neediness. I said I hoped he could reassure me that he could keep us both safe but maybe I wouldn't have believed him anyway.

So this week we've spent two sessions trying to discuss this further. The first I refused to delve into because it was quite late in the session and I knew it would be difficult. Tonight's session he asked me what specifically I wanted to talk about regarding my email and my fears. I asked if he couldn't respond to my email because I felt like I had said something important. He said he had trouble believing I was really worried about physically hurting him. I said I was, he disagreed. I didn't want to say "you are a small man who is 60; I am 15 years younger and at least 100 pounds heavier than you...I can probably hurt you". He suggested I was afraid of my neediness and really afraid of damaging the relationship. I asked why he spent 20 minutes asking me for my feelings if he was just going to tell me what I was really worried about and asked him if he could hurry and tell me what he thought more directly. He asked me if I had ever physically hurt anyone by hugging them. I said no but I also hadn't damaged any relationships by extreme hugging either. He said but you've never been in a relationship like this with these boundaries.

I brought out the email and said look I said I'm worried I'm abusive, I'm afraid I'm going to run right over your boundaries. I'm afraid I'm going to hurt you and if I do that it will damage our relationship so yes I am afraid of that too. I said other people hurt people with hugging (my euphemism for sexual abuse) and I didn't know why they did or how they convinced themselves that crossing other people's boundaries was okay. Did they think their needs and feelings were more important? He said crossing a boundary that you didn't know was there wasn't the same as being abusive and neither was wanting something different than what another person wants. He said that communication was necessary for people to negotiate and understand each others boundaries. I was in tears of frustration and anger and feeling like I had told him this horrible thing about myself and he hadn't even responded. I said it was too bad I didn't know how to communicate because we had been trying for an hour and I just felt terrible. He said most of the talking was just getting to the subject of boundaries and next we have to discuss boundaries but we couldn't do that until next week.

I said why bother because we only have 2 sessions before his vacation and considering how long it takes us to say anything clearly we probably won't be able to process or resolve anything. So I thought I was talking about my fears about losing control and my fear that I would be abusive if I did lose control and he thinks we are talking about boundaries