Asia - I understand how you are feeling completely.

It's so terrifying to be letting these, essentially, strangers into the most inner parts of us that we've kept away from everyone.... oftentimes even ourselves. It's our normal reactions to literally flee the scene instead of staying around... and past experiences have taught us that if we DO stay around, that we'll be hurt/rejected/abandoned/etc.

And it might not even be that we don't have anyone whom we could ever need as much as the T.... like, you expressed a worry about being pathetic that the only person you can talk to is someone you pay. I feel the same way (although I don't pay to see my mental health worker).

But here's the thing: if we get so scared by letting someone in to our inner worlds who is paid to be stable and safe.... then of course we don't let anyone else in. There might even be people in our lives who would love that chance... but we aren't able to give them those chances because we're so afraid of the results.

I think after we learn how to let the T in... that eventually it'll get easier to start letting other people in too. And hopefully over time, there will be at least one or two people that we feel are REALLY going to be there for us... and then we won't need the T as much. I think that's at least partially the goal, right?

I have a lot of push/pull with my T right now. I don't really verbalize it to him, but I'm pretty sure he's aware of it - it shows up in the other things related to therapy and how easily spooked I've been by different things. He knows that it would be really easy for him to say or do something that would make me run and not come back (he's said that to me). And it's true. It really would be easy, because I've pretty much always got one foot out the door. But I am trying to NOT push him or pull myself away. Instead, I'm trying to push the damn insecurities down and push away the flight response.