People have posted some stuff about massage therapy on here and as I have a real issue with being touched by anyone, thought it may be good to challenge that and start to experience touch with someone who may appreciate my difficulties.

It was going to be a difficult weekend this weekend as for the first time ever my kids were going to stay at their dads and I knew that would be hard work for me emotionally. So I decided to book a session with a massage T today. I was fairly terrifed, but she was really calm and matter of fact and that made it easier for me.

It was tough, she kept telling me to remember to breathe! We were just chatting as she was doing the massage and a few issues popped into my head and we just started to talk about them, just like having a chat, it didn't feel heavy or threatening.

She managed to get me to talk about a trauma I had experienced in the past (see recent post of mine) and she was so calm and helped me to start to reframe it - all the while doing the massage thing and reminding me to breathe. I could really see how having touch in this way helped the process, she could immediately feel when I was getting more tense and then massaged which helped relax me. It makes such sense to be soothed when feeling wobbly. I think as it was massage and that was the expectation, ir felt less intimate and therefore less confusing than my T's offer to hold my hand.

I can't afford her alongside my T (well maybe could afford once a month) and just now I have been thinking, how much easier it felt with her (my T is a man).

So my dilemma is whether to stop the work with my long term T and go to see her instead.

I don't think there is anything my regular T is doing, or not doing, but I am begining to realise how utterly important his approval of me is and I think it is this that is acting as an obstacle. Maybe deep down I have strong feelings for him and I can't get past them to do the work. I am even scared of telling T that I saw a massage therapist - it didn't enter my head to tell him before I went, but now that I went and she taught me a different way of looking at stuff, I sort of feel guilty and disloyal.

I know how I would respond to this post - TALK TO T!!!! but as I am privvy to my feelings and the sessions I have with T, I know I can't do that - I think I am majorly scared that he will reject me. I also know in my rational head that this may be a real breakthrough and useful thing to work on with T.

I am not sure what I am looking for really - but maybe just wondered if people have had similar experiences and what they did.

Thanks Soup