)We sat down and my T asked how I was doing, and I told him that I was doing surprisingly good. I talked to him about feeling so triggered the week before and calling him and that making me wonder about Christmas and was there something significant I was missing, so I called my sister. After talking to her, I realized that there was nothing major, it was really about the the fact that this season calls up so many different emotions and I had spent years avoiding them. And I was realizing that it was ok to feel them, that I was going to feel sadness and loss and disappointment but also joy, and gratitude and love. I told him about my family going for the Christmas tree on Sunday and how much fun we all had together and that I sat down to take a break while we were decorating the tree and it hit me that I had so much more than I should have. That he's told me in the past that I had done a lot more with my life than a lot of people with my background were able to do and that I think I was understanding that, And that I was really grateful for that. And that I trusted I could handle the emotions. That I knew he was there to help me handle them. That I had a sense of stillness and peace inside and how, though it was still very unusual, it wasn't as unusual as it once was. That although it wasn't as strong or intense as in my dream of running downhill, that I was pervaded with sense of well-being. And that feeling this way doesn't seem boring anymore. Got a good laugh with that one.
My T started talking about the changes he has seen in me, he talked about the week before and how I came in so upset about the appts but that we were able to talk about all my feelings and I was able to hear his answer.
We talked about the whole issue of not being able to control everything, that wanting that steady appt was my way of trying to make sure nothing bad happened. I told him that I realized that safety didn't lie in controlling what happened, safety lay in knowing that we could work through anything that came up. He got very excited, I swear he almost said, "By George, I think she's got it." I told him that I was really experiencing a deeper sense of trust in our relationship. That it wasn't like I wouldn't get terrified again or worry about him leaving, but there was a bedrock sense that it was really ok. That I had pretty much brought up every imaginable subject and I really understood on a gut level that it was ok to come and talk to him about anything. He told me he was happy to hear that. There was a very serious sense of progress. He talked about our relationship from the beginning. Me feeling like I shouldn't be coming, then feeling like I talked him into letting me come, how I dealt with the boundaries. At one point he talked about how neither of us realized what was happening in the beginning but looking back it became clear. The way he said it made it so clear that our relationship is real, that we both affect it and that it has grown between us. About my understanding shifting from my being crazy and damaged and wrong to realizing that I didn't get what I needed, that my reactions made sense and were reasonable under the circumstances and that I just needed to go back and get what I needed and I would be alright. And how impossible that was to do on your own, that I needed a place to go where I could talk about all my feelings and have him be able to hear them to see what I was doing. That its hard to change something you don't even realize you're doing.
I told him that it was really sinking in (alot of things we talked about, we've talked about in past sessions, but now I'm really getting them) that there isn't a destination or a stopping point, that life isn't like that. That its really about dealing with it as it comes but with a sense that you can deal with it. I told him about a description of music I read once on a blog that music allows us to see time because the only way to hear music is one note after another. That there was a flow to life that you experienced it one emotion after another, that taken all together made the melody of your life.
He was very complimentary about how hard I had worked and my willingness to be open and risk talking about my feelings. That he would accept his part in it, and that he had worked to provide safetly but that none of it would have happened if I had not been willing to work so hard and risk so much. And that my growing sense of stability and equalibrium were a sign that I was learning to move with the flow of life. I told him that I had learned to trust myself by seeing him trust me.
I just feel good. Safe, content, cared for. I know the boundaries are there, but within them is total freedom. I really understood on a gut level that I really can trust him and depend on him.
And it hasn't been that long yet, but so far I haven't had my "this is too good to be true, when am I going to get hurt/abandoned/betrayed by him" reaction. But with a clear understanding that it may get hard again. But I'm not trying to run which is VERY different.
And there's this sense of major shifting going on, like I'm not really going to know everything that's going on inside for awhile. But not in a bad sense. Strange, but welcome.
AG
) I think of it as my virtual T.