((((((((((((((((Improving))))))))))))))))

I can SO relate to what you wrote.

I brought a childhood picture to show T once and it was terrifying. I had the same thoughts you did...T would look at the picture and see how awful I REALLY was and he wouldn't love me anymore - how could he??

And it makes SOOOOO much sense...it's hard for the child part of us to understand why we weren't loved, why our reality and the reality we were TOLD existed were so different, why the photo album shows one thing and our actual day-to-day lives showed another. It's confusing and scary.

Of course, T didn't take his love away, and finding out that someone actually COULD love that little girl was incredibly healing. It's still hard to wrap my brain around it.

Sometimes (usually?) in therapy, the scariest things are the most important things, the things that have the most potential to really shift the way things are inside of us. This sounds like one of those things.

Hopping in your pocket with the rest