I'm feeling a little wrung out so will try to be concise...basically I was sharing with him how I had been feeling much more vulnerable and open-hearted over the last week, very much wanting to connect with the people I'm close to (which is a big thing we're working on), so it felt like a good, important thing. And then I asked him a question I'd asked him before and he'd declined to answer, and he declined again, asking me why I wanted to know. The question was, why did he decide to become a therapist?

I think my asking was partly an extension of this desire for connection I'd been feeling--I wanted to know him a little, not just as this listening body but as a person. And when he declined, I think it plugged into some of my early feelings of deprivation and not being able to both know and be known by the people I'm closest to. Despite the accuracy of his empathic reflections, I still don't feel known yet, and I think that's pushing some buttons.

A lot of this, too, is exactly what elliemay was talking about--that it's early days and neither of us knows each other all that well yet. He doesn't know that I do in fact have very good boundaries; I don't know, really, how present he is or whether I can truly trust him. So I suspect this will continue to sort itself out and evolve as we continue meeting.

God, this is painful. I felt so deprived of loving connection as a kid, and the austerity of this environment just brings all that pain up to the surface. I know that's the point, but it doesn't make it any less painful. Sigh.

Thanks for listening, everyone.