I emailed the day before and said I needed to talk about something. I did this for myself (to hold myself to it) and for my therapist (so that she knew this was significant to me).

The panic was intense, but the intensity got a little easier to manage when I arrived and she popped her head out of the office and was very calm and welcoming. Because of the holidays, I started with all the family stress, then one family member in particular and how he is especially hard to deal with (examples of current behaviors). Those examples were enough to start talking about the topic without talking about it relating to me.

Focusing on the now first helped me ease into the reasons why I react so strongly to this person, and I kept it on him until I could share what happened in the past. All of that, plus the fact that my therapist is really good, made it a lot easier to talk about.

It's still very hard. But that's how I got to it. And I'm glad I did. For me it took more than a few seconds of courage. It took the whole hour and I still did not finish, but it was enough.