WARNING -- POSSIBLE SI TRIGGER AHEAD LAST PARAGRAPH

I had my session with T last night. Of course I had my plans for what we would discuss: 2 topics, 1 of which was a powerful, positive dream that I wanted to end with. Well, my first topic was not a pleasant one, and it didn't seem right to segue into the dream so I went to another difficult topic. This ended up being a tough session with a large dose of the "nuts and bolts" that I so hate and don't want to see my sessions with T grow into. Yet we did some really good work and I got some answers to some questions I have had in his area of expertise. But I feel we are a little at odds, kind of in the way that a father who is a certain profession, maybe a blacksmith or a doctor, and who wants and hopes his son will take over his job or business when he grows up and follow in his footsteps. I feel I am somehow disappointing T by not falling into line with the way he approves of getting to my goal. So I feel I am disappointing him, which hurts. I want to "please" him. Arggghhh.

And I feel like we have approached a big wall in between me and my goal, and suddenly it is apparent to me what the wall is. I have known there was a wall but I couldn't identify its main component and now I do and have told T that I don't really want to grapple with it. I feel like I am a big coward and he sees it, and I hate that. Again, I feel I have not lived up to his expectations. Coward.

I am feeling a strong need to dump many years of stored hurt into T's office. Decades. He told me last week that I am so strong, that it is amazing. I contain everything so well. But I felt in this comment kind of a criticism or an implied sense that being so contained is not necessarily something to be admired. Like it is not necessarily good to contain everything and prevent oneself from feeling the huge mountain of hurt inside. This is the wall I talk of, that I see now between me and my goal, and I want to just slide through a chink in the mortar and not really surmount the wall and face the pain. And somehow I think T thinks this is cheating.

I'm sure I'm not making sense?

And then I was feeling depressed. I hate that. Been there done that. And at the drop of a hat I can be back there again. And then what came next was new.

Since our session I have been plagued by thoughts of letting loose in T's office, all my hurt, just an avalanche, The form this fantasy takes harkens back to my days as a teen when I coped with the emotional pain in my life due to Mom by storing it all inside and then releasing it by cutting myself. I did this for years and it was extremely helpful to me in dealing with my pain. When I moved far far away from home, I left that pain behind and so didn't cut anymore. Now it is 30 years later and cutting, perhaps my most successful strategy ever of coping with emotional pain, is intruding into my thoughts. The images are very vivid and I can't stop them. I keep seeing myself in T's office with a knife, cutting, and the blood running onto his carpet. Somehow this is very compelling to me and in my fantasy, it feels great. It feels tremendous. What a release. I'm sure T would be horrified to know I am picturing this over and over. I'm kind of horrified myself. I touch my arms and my flesh just jumps, as if yearning to release with him present. He is an integral part of the fantasy. When I was a teen, I always cut in private. And now I want T to share this???? God, I am so screwed up. My most charitable interpretation is that this is a metaphor for my desire to share my accumulated pain and hurt with T in his office. But the images are so vivid and it seems really shameful to me that I am imagining this bloodletting as a good thing and something I want to share with a guy I think the world of, my T.