I may be completely off the mark, but I don't think the issue is so much about the pace, but about being triggered to a place of overwhelming emotions and memories. I think you need the skills to work with these emotions and memories to bring them to a place where they are useful, rather than disruptive, to you and your life.

I also want to say congratulations because you have definitely moved away from a cold, distant T who didn't give you any input and thus you avoided dealing with being triggered by a real human being who is giving you something, albeit in too direct a dose for right now. Sometimes there is just no way (IME) to approach a really painful or traumatic subject without getting all triggery. The trick is knowing what to do with the memories and feelings that arise afterwards.

Obviously, you need to talk to your T about your reaction and I know you can do that and it will definitely help. Until then, however, I suspect that you have already used a "method" in the past for coping with memories and the feelings that come with them. For me, I sort of conceptualize this process as finding a container for them, so they are not spilling out over me and into my life. Like putting them in a box on a shelf, being aware that I am doing this, and agreeing to take the box down and deal with what's inside at a later time, like next therapy session.

But in order to put them away, I first have to find a space between the overwhelming feelings and my "regular' self. Sometimes this is just a tiny crack where I can imagine separating myself ever so much more slightly. The most helpful thing to me is to ask myself, what are these memories (with their emotions) trying to teach me?

Here's what I felt when I brought a photo in to my T, like 15 years ago. I think he might have said almost exactly what your T said, Dad looks scary and older brother and I looked scared. Bingo, into triggerland. Why? Because if someone could look at a photo 20 years later and see so obviously that this is what's wrong with our family, why didn't anyone notice while it was happening? If it's so bleeping obvious, why couldn't someone have intervened and stopping it (him) way back when?

I was working with someone yesterday who grew up in a not so great home, and the one bright spot in her family was the aunt from NYC who used to visit once/year. She would leave notes in her aunt's suitcase before she packed up to go back home, asking her aunt to take her with her. Her aunt of course never did take her away and she also never said anything to my client, like hey, got your note, what's going on? I had a favorite childless aunt and uncle who would visit us and I always said, I want to come live with you. I actually was able to visit them once when I was 10ish, and it was heaven. I remember telling them that I wanted to stay, but my parents wouldn't allow me to visit them after that, although they came to visit us again. Understanding these memories and their place in my adult life was partly about acknowledging that as a kid, I didn't have a lot of tools at my disposal to try to ask for the help that I obviously needed. I reached out in ways that I could, they obviously didn't work, and I learned something more about how much it s*cked to not be heard (and rescued).

All this is to say that when I try to understand the meaning of the memories that are pounding down on me, it tends to release their grip on me. That even the littlest bit of understanding can crack open that space between me and "it", and give me the ability to put it away.

For me, although I haven't to any substantial degree really "mastered" the process of dealing with being triggered, the practice of coping with memories and their attendant emotions has given me a sense that it's quite survivable. I really get now that dealing with memories, no matter how painful, just doesn't come close to what it was like to actually have experienced the events themselves. I feel like if I managed to survive the actual experience that led to the memories, when I was a kid in such a crappy situation with no resources or support, then surely I can get through the processing of these memories now. I have the support of a T, support from my (chosen) family and friends, a safe place to live, etc. etc. And to work through these memories is to reclaim that piece of my life for myself, it now belongs to me, that box, to do with and work on as I like. Now I know that when I get triggered, when I'm in that overwhelmed space of emotion and forceful remembering, that I can get past it.

All of the T's that I have worked with have been able to give me skills to help myself out of this place. It wasn't until this third round of therapy recently that I actually got triggered in therapy itself. This has been a really useful experience for me. First, my T has recognized each and every time that it's happening, and he always asks me, "are you okay?" I think I am just about ready, six months later, to tell him what a dumb @ss question this is. Because I always say yes, and I don't think there is any other way to answer that question but yes. Of course I'm "ok" and I realize that whatever it is, it's not going to kill me. I think one time I was able to tell him that I was someplace else and he asked me where and I told him. But most of the time I leave in that triggered space and do my work outside to cope. I usually tell him the next week what I was unable to tell in the moment, and I think that has given him some clues about recognizing that state. A couple of weeks ago, I headed off to triggerland and I was able to tell him that I needed to focus on something else, and he got me headed in the other direction. But then I went back the next week and said, I don't want to avoid it and don't let me do that.

All this rambling in the previous paragraph was just to say that I think it's difficult, at least for me, to tell my T when I am triggered, and that's when he at least recognizes that it's happening. More accurately, it's difficult for me to deal with my triggering in T; it's actually easier for me to cope with it by myself. Which is kind of like my biggest problem (not asking for help) and my greatest strength (self sufficiency, working out problems myself) all wrapped into one. But what I hear myself saying in response to your story about being triggered and not being able to tell your T is . . . but of course. That's really hard to do. The next best thing is to tell her the next time, and see where that leads.

But in the meantime-- I don't have a sense about whether you have been in this place before-- being triggered, and what tools you've used in the past to reorient and reconnect with your solid, stable, core-- which I do sense that you have. I think you may very well know how to get yourself out of this place and while you may need to tell your T to slow the pace or otherwise back off what she is giving you in therapy (especially because you're not used to getting feedback and she's definitely not cold and distant T), I just think that it is ultimately more useful to have a methodology for moving away from being triggered rather than to prevent it from happening (avoid it) in the first place.

Anne