A joint session with you and your mom could be really groundbreaking and helpful.

As far as your mentor, I don't know why her motivation wasn't readily apparent? It seemed she wanted to share with you, get closer to you and maybe relate to you a little? I would be leery about asking and just enjoy the closeness.

I know you are afraid of getting too close, because of your past history, but I also think that being in therapy so long may have made you ... overthink? ... these kinds of things?

I only say so because I had amazingly close mentors whom I was SUPER attached to, and I never questioned them because I didn't even know to question them. It's only now that I'm in therapy that I think about things like *needs* and *boundaries.* I previously never even uttered those two words!

My relationships just were. Without too much thought or digging around in them. They just existed. And they did calm down over time as I naturally progressed to the next stages of life.