I don't know why I put a trigger warning, maybe because this was so emotionally draining for me to write. Just be careful.

Hi Rainbow,

I read your thread when you first posted, and it struck a chord with me, but it took me a while to figure out what it was that I connected with.

I've had a similar experience with my T, but in a emotional instead of physical sense. There have been times where there has been intense transference where I have wanted my T to be angry with me and be mean to me. I wanted her to be verbally abusive. In some sick and twisted way, I felt that if she behaved this way, then I would know that she cared. There were three parts to this. 1) I felt that I could trust her if she was showing me negative feelings towards me. I felt that I could not trust her expressions of caring and concern and belief in me, because she could just be making those up. But it didn't seem logical in my head for people to make up angry feelings, so those I could trust. 2) I wanted her to reinforce how I felt about myself. I felt bad and awful and dirty, so I want/ed her to tell me that these things were true. So that I would know that the way I was viewing myself was right. 3) Growing up, my mom was verbally abusive. She would go back and forth between telling me she cared about me and calling me a f****** b****. So inside (I think) I feel like if someone is abusive towards me, then it means they care. It means they are taking the energy and time to give me attention (even negative attention). That I can't disentangle the two. I was so starved for attention as a kid that any attention was better than no attention (though I wasn't one to act out to get it). So I wanted my T to show me that she cared through the same behaviors that I felt my mom did.

I don't know if any of this is what you are experiencing. But I thought I would throw it out there as food for thought.