I'm scared stiff of T throwing me out, for one thing. There are echoes of the fear I lived in as a child, of my dad's temper - which was probably not that scary, really. He seldom hit me. I was just so fearful of being the one who caused the long silences.

And yes, it's about identity as well - specifically, that I don't really have one. If I don't perform, then I'm nothing.

You're not nothing. Nor flawed. But maybe who you are--or were meant to be--you were never allowed or encouraged to discover. Therapy could be a safe space to explore this in real time with your T.

I understand well the terror of the long silence. It's like a virtual shunning. That was my mother's way: either exploding or silence, nothing in between possible. It can only leave a child assuming the responsibility for the relationship, and since we can't change others, we try and try to change ourselves. But it was never our responsibility. There was nothing wrong with us to change. The difficulty comes in believing that in our bones.