It IS a process. It changes over time. I mean, except for our big huge humongous rupture last June, T only ever calls me to change an appointment, but even so, over these 5 years I've gone from being completely freaked out and forgetting how to talk, to sounding like a weirdo, to sounding fake phony casual, to FINALLY feeling almost like a normal human talking to another human. But it's been EXCRUCIATING getting here.

I too had no one there for me as a child, to a ridiculous degree. Poor hygiene went unnoticed, not because we were poor, but because no one ever got close to me, and it was just me and my brother. My mother took care of HERself, she just didn't pay any attention to me. My dad didn't know what to do. These were old country people. But again - THEY and my brother were fairly well-groomed; I was the one trying to conserve paper and soap and water (seriously) so as not to be the burden they told me I was. So yeah, even a phone call can seem like too much - too much love, too much pleasure, too much burden. Keep talking about it, keep processing it. Like when granite writes stuff, and I answer back a whole page, it's because HER stuff meant something to me, and maybe my stuff doesn't mean anything to her, but it is what her stuff reminded me of. Some people call it hijacking, I call it PC group therapy!