I was sitting in ftt's room and was wondering, with about 10 topics floating around in my mind, some more superficial than others, what I was going to talk about. Of course, the most pressing thing on my mind is family issues. I kept thinking I wanted to get down to deeper work, but the here and now was pushing at me. I began talking about the holidays and constantly doing and going and going. Then I moved on to my 2nd oldest daughter (13) and her best boy friend. I had indavertently or advertently discovered there is more going on there than I had at first believed and his mom and I are very good friends and have been discussing what to do about these 2 very young, barely teenagers. Ftt and I discussed the conversations I have had about sex with my teens and young boys and she gave me some good direction to go with that. I feel very fortunate to be able to have someone like ftt to talk to and give me the kind of advice and direction I trust. I definitely dont trust all advice or advice-givers. I see things in terms of my kids in a certain way and she understands where I am coming from in that regard.

I read to her something I had written down early this morning in my journal. And we talked about the thread here that had to do with journaling and how I really had never trusted anyone enough to not rip up what I had written before this. I wrote down a dream I had. And last week I began with a dream. And I said to her that I dont have these dreams every night and write them down. It only seems that I do before therapy! In the dream (I'll make this short) I had given birth in the house I grew up in, no one was there and I delievered the baby alone (I have had 6 natural births anyway, but doing it alone?) and then I was not sure I wanted the baby and brought it out to the street and left it there to die (???) and then when it was being taken away, I wondered if it was still alive. There are more graphic details, but I wont go there. Anyway, she interpreted this to be the child/baby inside of me. And how I feel about whether I like her or I hate her. It is difficult for me to help her when I hate her so much. We talked a little bit about that. And feeling like a criminal and that I will be punished for a crime I did not commit. Always feeling "guilty" and "bad" and that I will be found out.

The most interesting and healing part of the session was when I was talking about a couple of family members who were close with my family growing up. A cousin who moved to the west coast, my brother (also west coast) and some cousins here somewhere in NY. I have never thought they would be the therapy issue they are, but I realized I never wanted to go there. Some of my family is alcoholic and I was spend time talking about them and some of the things that went on with each of them. I talked about maybe 5 different relatives and how I saw the relationships, but as it turns out, there are deeper reasons that are possible that they did the things they did and said the things they say to me. I cannot describe the feeling of wholeness I felt after talking about these relationships that have caused me so much shame and have been a secret that I kept to myself. I blamed myself for sure for things that could not possibly have been my fault. These family members had no empathy for me and for sure I was never safe with them. They did not care about me any more than they cared about their own children. And unfortunately, the narcissism that was my mother extends to the rest of my family, and there are some that were worse. And I was an easy target.

The hopeful part of all of this is that my family is different and that had been what I always wanted. I was talking about how badly I want my family to be different and it is already very different. But the similarities to my mother and to my family of origin are things I have to change. And it will be work, but I want to do that work. I could have used another 1/2 hour (after an hour session) to get further into the husband stuff again, but the session was over.

When I came home I was telling my H how wonderful ftt was! I wanted to see his reaction. This is what he said,
H-"Are you talking about me there?
BM-"Sometimes"
H-"I think you should talk a lot about me and us. Its good for you." (I dont think he meant it in the way, YOU have the problem, not me, he KNOWS he has issues).
BM-"She is so good, she is great when I talk about marriage and you. She really understands what is going on."
H- "Are you talking about your father, because you should talk about your father a lot."
BM- (who almost fell over because I never mentioned anything about my father to him) "Why?"
H-"Just in case you are like him."
BM- "Thats a good idea, I'll talk about my father and all of it."

This conversation was a little bit of a shocker. So...he was actually supportive. Now I just have to work on yoga with him......