Typically, whenever anyone has asked me "What's so scary about [whatever]?" that's been a conversation-stopper for me. As in: "Stop right there, buddy -- I didn't say it was scary, you did! If you're having this conversation with me, we'll need to back up and establish that I actually experience [whatever] as scary. If you're having this conversation with someone I remind you of, go talk to them and leave me out of it."

A second thing in your T's question that I'd expect to bug me is that she seems to have some picture in mind of what "opening up" would and wouldn't look like, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything to me (scary or otherwise) and I don't necessarily know what she means by it. If "opening up" was originally my expression that she was now picking up, looking at, and asking me about, that would be different. If it's hers then it sounds suspiciously like a concept, and I don't relate well to concepts.

Ideally, the way I'd want to talk about opening up (or not) would be with some specific behavior in mind that I think of as opening up -- or for that matter, with some specific behavior in mind that we call by a name we can agree on, whether our preferred name for it is "opening up" or not.

Some questions that I'm imagining being skipped over:

-- "Do you know what I mean by 'opening up'?"

-- "Do you recall ever opening up?"

-- "Can you picture yourself opening up?"

-- "How do you feel about opening up?"

-- "What seems to stop you from opening up?"

-- "What do you think would happen if you opened up?"

-- "Do you find opening up scary?"

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe you and your T have actually had this conversation but I find myself imagining that you've skipped over at least some of it, and that's where I'm coming from with this reply.

/