> ...don't like to spend time on pleasantries and talking about stuff that is superficial.

yeah, i guess i feel the same. i don't see him often enough for me to feel comfortable spending too much time on pleasantries. but the i suppose i have difficulty getting into it too. maybe it is that i find talking about the hard stuff to be fairly distasteful and so i figure therapist finds it similarly distasteful. so it is only after he has done some work around trying to get me into talking about something meaningful that i feel that he really is okay about my opening up which means that... it really is okay. jeepers. i should tell him that, huh...

> I have a whole week to decide, and usually the most important thing will rise to the surface before our session. Occasionally it doesn't and I am not sure how to begin, and T lets me sit there in silence and let whatever I need to talk about come up. Sometimes if the silence grows too long, he'll say "just let it come, I'm here," in an easygoing way that is reassuring and not pressuring. He also has told me that if I need more direction from him, to please ask him.

hmm. so mostly you figure something that you want to talk about before you go and then you just get into it right away? sometimes i do have something on my mind but i still don't typically get to it until halfway through or sometimes not even until he says 'our time is about up' (so i can just say it and i don't have to elaborate on it further). i have expressed gratitude to him that he doesn't just leave me sitting in silence when i can't think of anything. i just find it so very hard. i've been in trouble with therapists almost constantly for not being able to take more direction with talking to them. it is hard to explain... sometimes in session... i feel like i'm about dying of shame. just being there. not shame around going to therapy exactly. it is that the therapist is focused on me. observing me intently. about my existence. that another person is really seeing my existence. and i feel like i'm about dying of shame. i do try and talk about me. and my therapist really is very gentle and validating and non-judgemental. and i can see that he really is trying to put me at ease. but then i just feel so scared that i will say something and he will see me more clearly and he won't be able to contain his revulsion or anger or whatever. i wish i could mute these feelings... i wish so much i could...

> Sometimes T will offer "bait" to me and it is up to me to comment on it or not.

lol.

> I hope that is helpful to you as a comparison point for your own therapy.

yes it is. thank you. i see that i'm a bit strange in that i don't just jump right on in. i guess my t thought i would do that more over time as i felt safer with him. but what seems to be happening is that i did feel a little safer and then i started to care and so now the very safety is feeling very unsafe. i guess that is what he was getting at... how we could better get me talking so i don't save up the important stuff and express it as a rushed comment as i'm on my way out the door.

it is so hard.