You know, IMO, usually these issues are rooted in some kind of conscious misunderstanding we are protecting, I mean inside, about our own feelings. We say they're one thing, and they REALLY feel like one thing, to avoid making them about another. I wonder, are you really worried about protecting T, or maybe on a deeper level, are you a little worried about protecting yourself from asking for something and not getting it, but as a child, you didn't know how to make it about your own needs, because it wasn't your job to meet them? It was terrifying to ask for something that might cause a bad reaction then! It was an issue of your survival, and I'm sure that is how it feels now.

It can be very painful. To essentially be a child who needs something before your T, who is unable to ask because T is supposed to know, at least, who your heart believes T really is, is and was supposed to know, but didn't.

But, that's the thing, you're protecting T from something you believe she doesn't want, when she has said she wants it. Maybe she could find a way to ask that little child about it, who is so afraid to lose her by just having some needs, some real human feelings. Maybe you could ask, too. Why did that child need to keep behaving that way all this time? What needs is she still trying to get met from T, real needs that were very serious? It's about your needs, and your own protection, never really about T's, don't you think? It's not that you are saying anything unreasonable... And you're only doing that for your survival, because you had to at some point. Maybe you could explore that and write a little about it, and show that to T. Just a little bit, just a small step. What do you think?

Eventually, you might start to find that what you *know* logically, can begin to affect what you really feel. It really can be more like that. I hope you find your way.

I hear your fear. T r trained to deal with everything in a professional manner. My Ts would have loved to have someone like you. I asked my Ts for lots of things every session many times a session. My advice would be just do it. The only bad thing you will have to hear is "no" and all the crappy reasons why his/her answer is no.

You know I was reading about this... About it being one of the paradoxes of therapy that therapists encourage you to use them to meet needs and when you do they turn around and interpret it as childish. I'm probably not using the right words, but for instance they encourage transference for you to see them as nurturing your needs and then want you to reach out and maybe ask for a hug and then tell you your wanting that hug was somehow based on some childhood need. Very frustrating, almost manipulative. I think my therapist has done this too, subtly encourage me to text him and show my neediness and then sometimes decide just not to reply to force me to interpret how pathetic my feelings are.

I guess my whole thing with this needing thing is that I'm always painfully aware of how little the other person can really meet my needs. I feel like my needs are so huge that I'm always left with the pain of knowing that what they give will never be enough. My T can never really be the close companion that I need her to be. She will never be a part of my life in the way that I wish she could, and she can never hold me and cuddle me the way I want her too. It is so painful to know that these things won't happen, that I often just end up trying to push the need away. For me I think this why I do sexualizing, obsessing: they are my way of not feeling the need.

I really started to feel it last night, and it was so painful, and the longing was so intense, I just don't know how anyone could ever be ok with living with such a huge gaping hole. I wish that T's could do more sometimes. It just doesn't seem fair that I sit across from her every session, and tell her the most intimate and embarrassing details of my life, and she can't even hold me. It's just so alienating for me, and I wish that I could make her do it all different. But I can't so it just hurts, and hurts, and hurts.

You are the only other person besides myself that I have heard say that they try to protect their Ts from them. When I try to talk about this with my T she says things like "you won't break me" "you do not bother me" "you do not need to protect me". It makes me feel good when she says those things but it doesn't make me stop feeling like I need to protect her from me. I'm sorry I don't have any advise. Just wanted to let you know you're not alone