Saw my T today for the first time in eight weeks. I wanted to hug her straight away, but she said, let’s get into the room first. A curious policy, but I got my hug. She was wearing a green cardigan over a grey dress.

I said I had made some notes during her absence, but I wasn’t going to use them today. Instead, I was going to enjoy being with her again. I spent several minutes over the course of the session with my eyes closed, just soaking up the love.

I had missed her but I didn’t start obsessing until a week or so ago. I had sent her big bunch of pink flowers over the internet. She said they were the most amazing flowers she had ever seen. Her email had spoken of “soft creams and apricots and the occasional bunch of blackberries”. Real blackberries, apparently. She obvious spent a lot more time on those flowers than I did! A connoisseuse.

I had learned a few things about myself while she was away. There is no substitute for seeing her in person. Sending her flowers and even receiving her email were disappointing in comparison. I realise now, that in sending her emails (when I was allowed to), I was only hurting myself. She said that I had learned something about deferred gratification.

In past breaks, there was always the fear that starting up again would merely bring more pain. There was a part of me that would have been quite pleased never to see her again. To look forward in joyful and loving anticipation (how Christian that sounds!) was a new experience for me. To love without hating was a big risk.

I told her I had realised that I didn’t mind being vulnerable and dependent with her.

I said, I have found my happy ending. There is nothing left but for T and me to live happily ever after.

I told her what I’d seen on PC. What Ts look for in a patient is motivation, open-mindedness and introspection. Given that I had those qualities, why was my journey so long and difficult?

It must have been my scientific, rational approach. I had deliberately neglected my emotional life, so there was no way my T could explain the process in words that I could understand. It was like trying to describe colour to a blind man.

Ultimately, all she could say is, “You’re going to have to trust me.” A complete stranger (blank slate, remember?) assuring me that the real and present pain would be worth it in the long run in ways I wouldn’t understand until I got there.

This went dead against my nature and experience. Believe nothing unproven! Yet the pain that brought me here was even worse than the pain of therapy, and I had run out of ideas. Somehow she won my trust.

We talked about words. How therapy is dependent on words, yet we cannot remember accurately what we said and what was said to us. She said she wished she had taped this session because I had expressed myself so clearly. All she can take away is the meaning and how I made her feel. I said, "What I see makes a much bigger, deeper, more lasting impression. The biggest thing I remember is seeing the tears in your eyes. That was worth two years of hearing you say, I love you." She agreed.

I said I owed her an apology and a compliment. I am ashamed to say that I did not at first form a very high opinion of her intelligence. (Part of this is my analytical intelligence’s contempt for emotion intelligence.) But over the years I had grown to respect her brainpower and she was now my number one intellectual sparring partner.

Later in the session, I got a sudden impulse. I asked to see her tattoo! Not so fast! You have to pay to see that tattoo. You have to work out why you want to see it. We finally agreed that I had a childish curiosity and also a teenage boy’s desire to see as far up her leg as possible. We also talked about why she would ever want to let me see it. Then the time ran out.