Dear T,

I think my transference with you SUCKS. I see it, at least in part, as expecting your negativity and shielding myself from it by just rejecting me first. That's incredibly dysfunctional but I see it pretty clearly this morning.

I was rejected by my mom. She made it almost painfully clear that she didn't like me. All the negative things about me magnified - I felt embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated and just wanted to erase myself away. Which is what I do with you - I try to reject myself first and hide during sessions. I fear your rejection. But my self-protective behaviors only serve to keep you back and inevitably, they lead to the end of the "relationship" since I never (or rarely) come out. Frustrating the entire point of therapy and therefore, destroying any opportunity I may have to get better

Another part is the intense fear of hurting other people. I don't want my badness to affect you. That idea of hurting you breaks my heart...and intellectually, I think this partly comes from my mom saying and showing me consistently how much of a burden I was on her life and how much I just didn't care about her or love her enough.

Ok. So how do I move past this?