I haven't written lately about my sessions. Partly because I've been distracted by the bad weather, session cancellations, having a tooth pulled. I've also been feeling somewhat wordless about things with T.

Sometimes I don't feel like I'm making any progress. Other times I feel like I am not even sure what I am doing or what T expects from me or what I should tackle next. Am I working hard enough? T tells me I always work hard and he respects that. Am I trying to control therapy? Probably yes. My T tells me that I am not in control of therapy and I should leave that to him. But to do so I would have to let go and trust. And after almost 3.5 years I am still struggling with trust and the reality of this relationship. How real is it? Sometimes I really do know it's real and other times that "realness" seems to evaporate into a wisp of mist that I cannot hold onto. I must acknowledge that this T relationship is contaminated by my last disastrous T relationship. I struggled even then with the issue of trust but I finally lowered my guard, my vigilance, and wham I got abused and abandoned by oldT.

My T tells me that considering what I have been through he is amazed that I trust him as much as I do at this point. He also told me that he does see progress in the trust and in our relationship. I think it was CD who asked in another thread about how to weave the relationship topic into sessions. Well, there is hardly a session where we don't talk about our relationship. My T feels that this is the first priority of therapy (after working through a lot of the trauma caused by oldT in the first year we worked together). Whatever I say or talk about he takes it back to us. Today I told him I was feeling bad because I was not comfortable in my own skin. Like I wanted to escape it. He said trauma will do that and then asked if he ever makes me feel that he does not accept me the way I am. I had been lamenting about my hip pain and how I now feel so much less than because I cannot do all that I used to do. He asked if he has ever made me feel like I am defective. I said no. He asked how he makes me feel. I told him that he protects me, understands me and helps me by even putting my blanket away for me so I don't have to walk around too much. He smiled and nodded. He reinforces the thought that I am important to him and that a bad hip is not going to change that. He tells me that WE are strong and the connection is solid. He reminds me that he likes me and likes working with me and enjoys our time together. Then when I protest that of course he has to say that, he tells me that he cannot be bothered to fake his feelings and asked what I feel when we are together? I pause and he asked if I FEEL anything coming from him and what does it feel like. I tell him it feels good. Like a warm, soft blanket wrapped around me. He said if it was not real then I wouldn't feel it. Then he said to hold onto that blanket and use it when I need it. That he is happy I can have that from him. he said as I grow stronger I won't need it as often. I will still have it and it will be there but I won't need it so much. So I asked him how long before that should happen and he said it takes as long as it takes and he is in the for the long term.

When I mention that I am not sure what is next or what I am doing. He tells me that right now all we need to do is to solidify our relationship. That this is important because it's the foundation of all the other work we need to do. That I have some difficult things to tell him about (made more difficult by telling this to old T and having it left out there... unprocessed and uncontained for years). He said that he does not want me to be distracted by worrying about us while I'm dealing with everything else. He said it will be difficult enough to process the hard trauma without being scared that he will disappear on me or leave me or that I will tell him something to cause him to change his opinion of me. We need to be rock solid.

I understand this and it's a good thing that he knows this. That he knows how I will likely end up freaking out after some of the more difficult sessions so he wants me to feel secure in our relationship. And yes, we ARE getting closer. There are times I can go see him and not be consumed by anxiety so we can use the entire session to talk. But other times I'm still so anxious for the first 20 minutes that I can barely tolerate sitting in his office. Then I feel so sad because oldT's office was a comforting home for me and I just cannot seem to get to that place emotionally with this T. The other thing was that I left feeing a bit scared because of how he mentioned all the stuff I still have to tell him and process with him. I'm just not sure of my own ability to do this after what happened last time.

I guess I'm wondering if any of you also work exclusively on the relationship for a long time before launching into traumatic memories or have you discussed trauma while still not totally sure of the relationship and what the fallout out has been?

I know he is trying to slow me down at times and at other times he is trying to work with me to feel secure and comfortable while I'm racing ahead of myself. I guess this may be the control issue that I struggle with too.

So that is where I am at this point.

TN