I would call today a foggy session. It was very random for both of us, I think. I don't do well early in the day and now T knows it. I said, "I told you it takes me a long time to wake up!!"

I asked her if she felt better because something was wrong with her eyes last week. She told me about that and they were better. I asked about her daughter's surgery. She said (and pay attention, it comes back later), "I told her when she was 22 that she needed to have her wisdom teeth removed while she was still on our insurance and it was covered. I tried to tell her and she just wouldn't listen to me about that." She went on to describe how bad the oral surgeon said it was.

She asked me about work and that devolved into a wandering discussion of the state of mental health care (it's easy to get T off on this tangent). By the time she realized I'd tricked her into not talking about me, it was 11:30.

So she asked me how far I'd gotten in I Thought it was Just Me (But it Isn't). I told her I was in the middle of chapter 9 (out of 10 chapters). She asked if I had learned anything. I said I had, but I was still foggy, so it was really hard for me to articulate anything. I said that I had learned that I had shame in more areas than I originally thought. T said that she thought that was true of everyone. So she recalled this, "When I took my daughter to have her wisdom teeth out Friday, the oral surgeon kept going on about how bad her wisdom teeth were; that the roots had split, three of them had curled around on themselves, etc. I started sputtering, 'I told her when she was younger that she had to have them out. I kept telling her she'd regret it someday, but she was hard-headed and wouldn't listen to me. I told her so.'" I said, "Well, thank God she was out of it when you did that so she didn't hear what you were saying." She said, "I realized that. I threw my 26-year-old daughter under the bus because I felt shame. I felt that the doctor was questioning my parenting skills. Why would I care what he thinks?" I said, "T, do you realize you were defending your parenting skills to me also? You were pretty adamant that you had told her and warned her when you told me about *daughter's* surgery. Why would you care about what I think?"

She said that was part of the point..shame is about us and our fears and what we perceive other people might think of us. She said that on any given day, she would say she wouldn't care what the doctor thought or what I thought, but obviously she did care and was afraid we'd find her parenting skills lacking.

She asked me what I was feeling when I asked for the hug last week. I said I was afraid that she'd think I was weird. She said, "Thinking logically, have I ever been judgmental?" I said no, not intentionally. She said, "But you don't believe it do you?" I said, "No. I believe it in my head, but not in my heart." She said we have to get to the place that I believe that I am enough in my heart. She said she chose to honor my request for that hug, but what if she didn't? What would I think? I said I'd think something was wrong with me, but I wanted to get to the place where I would realize that your refusal would be more about you than me. She said, "I think you already know that it your head, but not in your heart." I said it was true.

To close, I showed her the picture I posted here. I could tell she was floored by it (negatively), but I already knew she'd react that way and it honestly did not bother me. She said she wanted to ensure that I did it for me and not for anyone else. I said I'd done it for me and chose to share with others to inspire them. She said, "That's what counts."

One thing I realize that surprises me now that it's 2 hours past session is that T does care what I think of her. I realized she was insecure when telling me about her daughter. I also realized she is intimidated by my intelligence. One of the stories that came up today was that when I was in college, right before I graduated, I had a professor ask me to finish my degree in music (my minor). When I found out it would take another year to do that, I said no. T responded by telling me one of her professors encouraged her to get her PhD. It's funny what you notice when you look people in the eye and face.