Calista, something recently made me think of you (forget what it was), and I wondered how you were doing. I'm so sorry to hear that things are still this way for you.

As you know, I get the self-sabotage, followed by self-loathing, followed by further sabotage, followed by further loating...

Is there anything you think you could do to really force yourself to tell T about it? As in, can you think of a way to set up a situation where you MUST tell? The phone appointments are a good suggestion. I know it sounds awful, like you are going to hear from someone else all the worst things you think about yourself if you tell, but keeping this to yourself has got to be this massive burden. It's got to be wearing you down to have all these hidden behaviors and secrets. In the thick of things sometimes I would just start falling asleep when things got difficult, my body would literally shut down because I could not handle the stress.

I wish I had some kind of solid advice for you. My behavior got blown out of the water when my H found out, and that's not really a way I recommend pushing yourself out of it, but it was effective. I can tell you that despite the pain and chaos of having it all out there, it was a relief (in a way, it was a relief for both him and me). I wish I had found a way out of it much sooner, that H had heard it from me instead. I do deeply deeply regret keeping it from T. It sounds like it will be terrible, and it will feel bad talking about it, but you already feel bad -- if you can get yourself to do this, you can relieve yourself of some of the burden. I can understand that it may seem like too much to tell H right now. But it will help to tell *somebody*.

What do you think you could handle right now, in terms of reaching out? Could you do a phone appointment? Or write T a letter so it's not face-to-face? Do you have a friend who you can ask to take you to therapy, or some other way of getting there where you won't feel like you can just get out of it? Sometimes, you just have to trick yourself into doing things that feel impossible.

I hope to keep hearing from you.