I can relate too! I write freely but when I'm face to face with people I stumble over my words. I used to give my Ts papers I'd written, or show them parts of my journal. That was easier.

My current T never let me email her. She said I had to look at her and tell her, or if I couldn't do that, print out what I wanted to email, and read it to her. Even so, I wrote her a few poems that I gave to her because I didn't want to read them.

Once when I talked about a difficult subject, I put a pillow in front of my face. Then, later on it became easier to talk to her. I got used to direct eye contact with her though it's still scary. I think it's hard because we are very vulnerable in therapy. We are afraid to let another person see what's deep inside of us. It's just scary!

The answer for me was to just "do it". Read it, cover my face, look at the floor, but just start somewhere. It will get easier when you see that your T accepts whatever you say. You don't have to say everything at once. Just start somewhere, and see what happens. I think a lot has to do with trusting your T. That happens gradually, and you can't make it happen any faster than it's going to take.