clk6: I NEVER told my T I love her. I would never have thought of saying those words to her. But it's kind of funny. I told her that I "obsessed" about her and that it felt like I was "addicted" to her. She knew I looked things up about her online, and that when I saw her around my community, I "watched" her kind of secretly. She knew I wished she could be my mother and that I was jealous of her daughter. She knew I kept the appointment cards she gave me each week. She knew I thought about her all of the time. But, I never could let myself use the word "love".

When I had a dream about love and telling it to my T, voices in the dream said "it's not a good thing". I did tell her that and she then told me that it is normal for clients to feel love for their Ts. But I was embarrassed by that conversation and never told her I loved her.

Actually, on the phone I once said "I think the baby stuff means I love you." She said "I hear you, but I have to start my day." I almost never forgave her for that response. It was about 8 a.m. I didn't really love her then; I just wanted her to love me. Someone I knew online sort of dared me to do it; my feelings weren't real anyway.

I think I want to go over it with her and be sure she knows what a major breakthrough I think it was, and see if she thinks it is too. After all, it took 6 years to get to this point--to stop obsessing and fantasizing about her--and to see her as a real person. It's more complicated than that--transference and so on. I know I told her, but I didn't realize it was a major thing until afterward, so that's what I want to tell her.

sunrise: Interesting what you say. It's just that I WANT so much for my T to acknowledge to me that she also thinks it's MAJOR. It's a better ending to my therapy than the way I ended last year.