I'm trying to work out once and for all what I call T's "lying" to me. I've brought it up with her a few times, and it hurts me whenever I do. She has said that she's sorry.

Today when I said "I hate you" it was about her taking the things away from me, especially holding her hand. I told her "you said every time I asked you that you'd never take 'holding your hand' away. I asked you almost every session. You lied to me!" She said that she couldn't let me hold her hand forever, or something to that effect.

Then I said "you just took it away without discussing it with me. Once we did something where you let me hold your hand, then you slowly took it away. That was okay for me. After that time, I remember a session where you said I could hold your hand only for a short time, and you let go. So I KNEW what you were doing but you still didn't discuss it with me."

Then there's the two walks we took, and the emails. I knew that maybe all of this was going to be hard to ever give up, but like a kid eating too much candy, I kept my thoughts to myself for a long time. Then I told her.

Today I said I've been in therapy longer than she's been practicing, and she admitted maybe it was her inexperience, and I knew better than she did, that these things would trigger me.

That's when I said it's not fair, I'm your job, and I wish you had acted like that from the beginning. I said "what good is it to feel connected to you?" and I answered myself saying "there's a reason. I know there is."

I felt more connected to her after this conversation. When she had me "go inside", I was calm and sad, but not angry.

I know my T didn't mean to lie to me. At first she didn't realize she was giving me too much. I don't think holding hands was wrong, and emailing me wasn't wrong either. She agreed that the goal was for me to internalize the caring, and I think I've done that. I don't think she realized how attached I would get to her though I told her about my pattern. I think she should have known.

The answer to my question maybe is irrelevant. She didn't tell me "I didn't lie" or tell me "I did lie". I think she wanted me to stop wanting to hold her hand when I was ready, but realized I'd never be ready. Maybe I would have, though. We could have stopped it more gradually.

I told her today that I feel heavy when I think about separating. We did SE about it. I am very glad that I have all this time to work on this issue as an issue which was hard to do when I wasn't actually leaving therapy. I think it will be okay this time. It helps to tell my T exactly what my feelings are and then she helps me with where I feel them. i never did this with my other Ts. It's hard but productive work.