Mouse, you write about the process so eloquently and clearly! I hated the understanding that I couldn't put into words very well. Won't your T be surprised and pleased :-)

I almost had to laugh as my stepmother got more and more senile as she was dying over 5-10 years and I kept being pushed into positions where I was initially confused and then understood. I finally came to an understanding of my stepmother, how she wasn't all "bad" or our relationship all negative (or me all "good"/abused). I still remember the role reversal I did one morning when I had to take her to the doctor's early and got up even earlier and made sweet rolls and stopped and bought little cartons of milk so when I got to her house to pick her up I had a little picnic for us for breakfast. She was thrilled, like a child would be, and the rolls were still warm, etc. I did enjoy doing it and it reminded me of a couple of incidents in my childhood and I did feel warm and loving, a "different" person. When I told my T she was thrilled with me :-) But the whole "package" stays with me and helps me now still though it was 15+ years ago. As complicated and painful or bittersweet as some of the incidents are that help with the healing; I got so I wouldn't trade them for anything.