Granite, somehow I missed this thread yesterday. For perhaps the first time since I've been reading your posts, you have described what happened in your session in a calm, reasoned, and clear manner. You are actually relaying what she said and did instead of what you sort of heard her say and what you thought she meant (almost always negatively) about you by what she did. You have been a "master" of projection for these 4years. I say that in the most affectionate way. I deeply admire your strength, but your stubbornness of thought is often your worst enemy (says me, who has been described as incredibly bull-headed)

You know I have always been of the opinion that your T has been working very hard to find ways to help you. Some efforts have worked; some haven't. Some you have responded well to; some you have resisted vehemently. That's just the way therapy goes sometimes. But you have made significant gains in the last year or so.

I see your progress in your ability to communicate what you need; you've broken through that barrier of silence. That's huge. You've been able to start trusting your T, so much so that you have entrusted her with your most frightening secrets. That's huge.

This T has always been your advocate. Has she made some errors along the way? Sure. They ALL do. That's okay. She's still learning you and you are still learning her. The danger lies not in errors. The danger is in not being willing to see and try to learn from those errors. That goes for both of you.

I think your T showed great insight in her evaluation of why you are wanting to "run" right now and why you have been so convinced others think you are disgusting. I hope you can now continue to do the wonderful job you are of looking more calmly at your therapy, hearing more clearly the actual message you are being given, and taking these newfound realizations about your T, your therapy, and yourself to move forward.

Sometimes our pasts are so horrible that we desperately use all of our energy to hide from them. The cruel irony is that in trying to flee from our past, we get stuck there.

I'm going to share a recurrent dream that haunted me for years. (Don't worry. It is symbolic, not literal), and then I'll shut up. I used to have this dream that I was a low-flying bird, and I looked to my left to see the lights of an oncoming car. I knew it was dangerous. I was terrified of it. I knew I had to get away from it. In my terror of it though, I became frozen in my position. I flapped and flapped my wings desperately to get out of the way, but I couldn't fly forward. I couldn't fly anywhere in fact. I was going to die because I was paralyzed by my own fear.

That's as far as that dream ever got. It was a terrifying dream to me, but the ultimate demise that I feared so much never happened. In my real life, once I took a deep enough breath to look forward and actually see that a different ending was possible for me if I just stopped trying to flee from my fear, that dream stopped.

You don't have to stay frozen in spot, Granite. Your T is helping you find the way out of your hiding place, but it is oh so scary to come out of the dark.