Last night I sent an e-mail to T and asked for a response. I had the big, ugly flashback during session and I was having such a hard time coping. It felt unbearable.

I remembered another time when T and I were working on a trauma, and we had a session similar to the one I had yesterday. During the session, I was curled up very small, sinking into the couch and hiding behind my hands. T was on the couch too, and he kind of perched on the edge of the couch so he could turn and look right at me, and he had me uncover my face and he said so emphatically "How you feel right now is NOT who you are". I had never heard that before, and it was like...WOW. How I feel is not who I am. So just because I feel dirty, disgusting, gross...it doesn't mean I AM those things. It was huge.

In my e-mail last night, I told him I needed to hear that again, if it was still true. Because I am so lost in those feelings. Ugh.

T never e-mailed back (he ALWAYS does when I ask, so that was weird and totally bad timing)...but he left a message this morning and said that he couldn't open my e-mails because his computer is pretty much destroyed by a virus. So, he could see that he HAD e-mails from me, but couldn't read them.

And then, in my message, he told me to remember that how I feel right now is not who I am. He said the exact words that I needed to hear...without reading my e-mail. T and I have a few catch phrases that we say all the time...like he will tell me to "keep swimming" or whatever...but this is not one of those phrases. I don't think he's even said those exact words since we worked on the other trauma and that was like 18 months ago.

It felt so good to hear T say those words. Partly because that is just exactly what I needed to hear. EXACTLY. And partly because it feels good to be known so deeply by someone...to have T just "know" what I need without me telling him. That's not an expectation I have...I know that I need to state my needs clearly because people aren't mind-readers...so, it feels almost like a gift that T just "knew" this time.

I just wanted to share that with people who would "get it".