yes.. healing moments for sure. i write tons about all of this, and i have the audio recordings of every session since sometime last year. i can't even begin to say how much that is helping me, especially now. Hearing the trauma related stuff is hard... very hard... but i need to hear it. i listen to the both of us and the space in between us - and watch as it shrinks or expands. i leave him voicemails sometimes so i can "talk" to him in between sessions too. It all helps capture and reinforce the things that come up.

those negatives about what has passed by due to the way my life has been skewed - either forcibly by others, passively by them or myself... they've happened a number of times. i watch my rescued dogs and i often think i am like them - not the dog i could have been had i had things go a bit differently early on. i just have to be the best dog i can be with what i ended up having. It does get me down... and i worry about ever getting my crap together enough to even pretend to reach any potential i might still have.

it hurts... his kindness hurts... and that is part of it i guess. The parts of me that have always needed genuine, trustworthy caring have been sheltered, protected and more than a little starved... when he is kind to me it is like having those places reached and they are tender... and it brings up/out this sadness and confusion over why they have been underdeveloped. Receiving genuine caring means facing the pain of the lack of it as well.

it has been a long time coming... hasn't it? It's odd because it took a near complete failure to communicate to break through to the place in which i could trust him. We had a really bad session... and it was apparent to the both of us... his timing was crap and he did not handle something very well AT ALL. i left feeling broken, abandoned, sort of punished, criticized and scared. It was a mess. But... he did the most amazing thing... he called me without me asking him to call. That might not sound like much, but for those of you who remember the agony over phone-foolery i have struggled with... well, he ***never*** does that. He said that he wanted me to know that he didn't want me to feel abandoned and that he cared and was thinking about me... the next session we worked through it and he really took responsibility for his part in it. He didn't just hand it to me or blame it on my triggers, etc.

THAT made such an impression. When i heard his voice on my voicemail i burst into tears. My experience is that everyone hands the buck to me... no one takes their own share. He didn't do that... he thought about what happened and how i felt - on his own time... he looked at his role in it and then he acted on what he felt was the right thing to do. He actually put my feelings ahead of any reluctance to admit fault... no one does that for me.

After that things changed in a big way... he crossed a barrier with me. He took care of my feelings without me asking him to... because he cared.

he is awesome... no two ways about it

he has offered to leave a voicemail for me while he is on vacation... something he never does anymore. He has felt that i can manage better on my own than i used to and so he never does that... but this is different. He knows how raw and vulnerable i am right now. He has been so gentle and just solidly there for me.

i have to decide what i want from him in the voicemail.... and i think i want to know more about why this impacted him so much. i mean, i think i have some idea as to some of the general implications that this would have for anyone... but it doesn't feel real when i look at it for myself.. you know? After all... i thought he was going to not see it as anything... kind of hard to accept it as something really big.

thanks everyone