Of the 3, I really liked the two women (alcoholic parents and abuse victim), but I don't think I really got that far with them, despite being with one for 5 years and one for 2 (concurrently at some points). My current T is the gay boy, and in 2.5 years he has taken me thousands of miles farther down the road than the other two did combined.

I got/get along well with all of them, but I think my issue with the women -- and it may very well be just MY issue -- is that I was attracted to different facets of their personalities. One was in grad school at the same time I was, finishing up her doctorate so she could become a licensed psychologist instead of a professional counselor, and so we had academia in common, and all that goes with that. The other one was a very earth-mothery, huggy sort rather than an academic one, and at the points I saw her, that's what I needed.

Gregory is a doctoral student right now, and I get along fabulously well with him because we make each other laugh at our similarities. He's in his late 20s, young enough to be my brother (my oldest sister is 13 yrs older than me, which is what I am to him) and has an absolutely sparkling personality -- but isn't at ALL afraid to push me, hard, as needed. I work my *** off in therapy with him, but we find time at the end of a session to wind down and giggle a bit about something silly. I think I work best of all with him because, just by virtue of gender alone, he can't be a potential "girlfriend" type to me, like the women were. Toward the end with one of them, we spent more of the 50 minutes just chatting about what had been going on with each other's lives than we did in actual therapy.

Do you know the saying "when the student is ready, the teacher appears"? I think that's what happened to me with all of them. Each of them has been able to relate to me in some significant way out of their own past issues, at times when that's what I needed. I do think it's helped.

Candy