I went to my session tonight. By last night I realized that I was really being too hard on my T. He hadn't refused to talk about a topic he just hadn't figured out how important it was to me because I almost always buried the references to it in the middle of my emails. As some of you pointed out to me that a lot of my feelings of him ignoring it and leaving me alone with my struggles were transference-based. My parents were the people who ignored me and my feelings. So by the time I went in I was feeling bad about my anger so one of the first things I did was apologize for getting angry and accusing him of doing something he hadn't done.

The first thing I did was ask him if we could shake hands. If anyone remembers we discussed touch about 3-4 months ago and he told me he was okay with handshakes and then about a month ago he suggested we shake hands at the end of every session but I hadn't tried yet. He said yes and stood up to shake my hand and I told him that I wanted to end the session with a handshake but I didn't want our first handshake to be at the end of the session just in case one of us spontaneously combusted afterwards. He laughed and said well I'm glad that didn't happen because it would completely ruin my week because he's off next week.

Then I told him about some amusing stories from my work this week. Then I asked him what he meant when he told me that he would always get it wrong if he picked the subject of our discussions. I asked him if he meant I would always make him wrong for what he chose to talk about and he said no. He said that whenever he chose a topic it implied that one thing was more important than another and that was a loaded implication for me. He told me when I chose the topic I would still be picking one thing over many others but I would be making the choice or avoiding the important things at times but it would be me. I told him I couldn't get over my feeling that there should be a right way to do this, an order of things to talk about and how long we would talk about them before we moved on. Sometimes I'm angry because I think he knows the right way and he won't tell me. Right now I can admit that there is no right way which is scary.

Then he asked me to tell him about the thing I thought he was avoiding. I told him I thought we would talk about how we negotiate topics for our discussions and not the actual topic. Part of me wanted some reassurance that we were going to find a way to make therapy work. I was tempted to beg him not to give up on me but I realized he was already telling me he wasn't giving up on me by talking about the thing I wanted to talk about. So I spent some time telling him how difficult it had been for me. I told him I was afraid we would get into something and have to leave it for his vacation but that didn't happen. I talked about what it was like for me. He recognized how painful it was for me, argued with my about my description of myself and going nuts when I was triggered badly. He said it wasn't going nuts it was a very real disassociated feeling I was having and it made sense.

We finished up with some less important conversation about my trouble sleeping, near constant headache, and the fact I'm chewing on my tongue in my sleep which is really painful and I think shows how hard it is for me to relax right now. Then at the end he told me I could email him when he was away but for part of the time he wouldn't have internet service so he might now respond immediately. I asked him if I should only email if there was an emergency (and I can't imagine emailing him then) because during his Christmas vacation he told me an email I could reach him at and I sent kind of a newsy email just to connect about halfway through the week and it wasn't an emergency. He said that was perfectly okay.

Then he stood up to walk me to the door and I held out my hand and when he shook it he made an explosion sound. So when I left I was laughing. I wished him a happy vacation and I really meant it. He told me to take care and I felt like he meant it as well. It was a good session for me. I talked openly. I realized he was there for me and willing to wander where I wanted to go even though he had ideas of what I should talk about. I shook his hand I nothing bad happened, he wasn't repulsed, and nothing changed between us.

I'm sorry this is so long but I wanted to share something more positive than usual.