Since I'm not very good at "speaking" (because it seems to have atrophied from dis-use over these years), I often write things out before I talk about them with my therapist.

This is something I wrote out - for my therapist - to get my thoughts clear, regarding what is the most difficult part of the therapeutic process.....(for me in particular)

any thoughts? i don't want there to be anything insensitive or stupid in it.

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We’ve often talked of the “safety rules” surrounding the expressions and professions of “love” in our therapeutic relationship – especially with respect to those coming from you. These safety rules seem reasonable and necessary to my logical self.

But the most difficult part about this whole therapeutic process – with you in particular – is trying to keep in check this “troubling need for love” from you, from an emotional place. I call it a “troubling need for love” because, when you think of all my history with this need, it has (in my eyes) only met with neglect or punishment, or in some way seems to have been done “wrong” and others have been hurt too. The need for love feels troubling because it feels like a bad need, a need that feels like it should be cut out like a cancer.

You have said emotions don’t think, so when my emotions are begging for unconditional love from you and sees you not reciprocating, there is no logical understanding of why you aren’t - again because the emotions "don't think". There is simply a need for love and it is not being heard. This hurts like nothing else.

From an emotional view, it confuses my view of others and of self. And it reinforces the two beliefs which keep me most isolated: “the world is not safe” and “I am poison for myself and others”. And obviously, not getting my needs met adds a measure of resentment toward you.

I can neither bear this kind of hurt, nor having a mixture of resentment toward you without wanting to run. (I really don’t want to resent you. It just seems juvenile to do so.)

The need for love not being met echoes and mirrors how it was with my parents, with peers and others. So, it is the worst kind of pain for me and why it is the most difficult part of this whole therapeutic process.

On a base level, I know much has been missing from my life. My needs were not met as a child and it seems, with all the hurtful incidents piled on over the years, I’m not even breaking even. In truth, it seems I am in a deficit when it comes to love. My thin, “string-bean” exterior frame is apropos because it matches my interior emotional thinness.

I restate, however, the safety rules about your ability to reciprocate love on even a simple level seem reasonable and necessary to my logical self.

However, it seems we need to address this issue and find some amount of resolution to it from an emotional place. If I can’t bear to show up to therapy because of this hurt, I can’t see myself healing.

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