I think I would look at her various poke and runs, see if I could see anything about them that could help me. If you were comfortable, talking about cats, etc. and she threw it in there, did that help any, lessen the fear a little because you were in a "cat" place before and after? Can you at least think about the fear a little better, knowing that it won't be directly looked at?

Sometimes I recognized that a little desensitization to even thinking about whatever the scary thing was was helpful, got me so I could think more and more about it, even if I still was not to the place where I could talk about it?