Don't think there's anything triggering in this post...

So I had this need to tell my T about a couple of things and had been wondering how on earth to do this. He told me this story about a group exercise where they wrote things on cards and somehow that got jumbled up in my head and I felt like it would be okay if I wrote it on a bit of card. Irrational, but it worked for me so I went with it and wrote a few things down on a couple of cards.

Then I went to T feeling like my adult self, as I am now, for the first time ever. I normally feel much younger. My T said he could tell, and he thought it was good that I seemed to be preparing for the break. I said I also needed to come in a frame of mind where I could tell him something difficult, because current me thinks that's okay, and younger me doesn't.

I can't remember what he said right after he read the cards. I know whatever he said helped, though. And then he took me by surprise and asked what I needed from him right then, what would help me, what he could do. I was a bit floored as I suppose I expected him to take over and either get it right or horribly wrong. Then I thought about what I actually needed.

What I needed was to ask him question after question. Was it okay that I told him, did he think badly of me, was anything too much to tell him, did he think I had done a good job of putting my life back together as an adult, could therapy help me, on and on and on until I exhausted my list of niggling worries.

He made it okay that I told him. He's done that before, and I believe he can do it again. So that's good. Thanks to the people on this board for helping me get it together to talk to him.