I seem to have virtually inpenetrable protector parts that are so focused on keeping child parts of me safe from being hurt that they refuse to allow anybody to come near the child parts for any length of time, including my t, who i have been seeing for 10 years. The most i've been able to do is to drop my guard and let her interact with them for very limited amounts of time -- after which i go right back to being armored away and guarded. I find it very, very hard to allow myself to move closer to my t emotionally, or to allow her caring to reach inside me. Even though parts of me from the beginning have cried out for a close and nurtured feeling with her. I've found that i obsessively use email as a way to try to feel connected with her because i can't take the chance on connecting for real in sessions. I want to, i really do, and i need to, if i am ever going to be able to bring out my pain and heal. But i am often stuck in a kind of guarded or numb state, and i don't know how to get out of it. My t always seems to come back to the idea that i have a part of myself that keeps me distant and pushes her away, and that maybe it is because i do not fully believe she is trustworthy. But i'm not sure that's it. I do know i am deathly afraid of attaching and then losing the relationship at termination. Maybe a part of me feels that if i keep myself from truly attaching to her, it won't hurt so much when she retires. But it keeps me aching and yearning for comfort that i do not allow myself to have.

Can anybody relate? Any ideas on how to resolve this kind of an impasse?