t, this maternal transference stuff sucks. we really are playing out the dynamic between my stupid mother and me. you know i just saw it right now as i'm typing this. i'm probably not wording this right but i'm trying. i have to pay for your attention and acceptance (i am not complaining here just making a comparison you have helped me TONS) and when i was a kid hell still today i have to "pay" for my mother's attention and semi-acceptance too, only difference is i pay you in money, i paid and continue to "pay" HER by pretending to be something i'm not, or by watering myself down to the point where she can sort of accept me; i paid and pay her with the currency of emotional misery.

Somehow the dollars that i pay you suddenly seem small in comparison.

thank you for putting up with me all this time. you know you were right time before last when you said we'd gotten down to my core issue at last which is the belief that i will never be good enough. that's exactly how dear mother has always made me feel. so we are re-enacting the dynamic with my mother but with a different end result, i am finally realizing that i AM good enough, that my mother was/is the one that's wrong. And it's likely because she has never felt like SHE is good enough, so she never learned how to teach me that I was/am. And i feel bad for her. But that's her stuff to fix. The only person I can change is ME. The buck stops here, t. I'm breaking the cycle. I refuse to accept the legacy.

Thank you, t. I don't care if it is transference. I'm going to say it again. I love you.

eta: i was eating breakfast in between typing that, and i had to stop eating, i have a lump near the size of texas in my throat right now and can't swallow. must be raw truth i just typed eh?

eta again: i just realized something else!! in that dream where i'm unwinding a shiny ribbon from around a string, the string we decided represented my core issue - the ribbon is perfect and shiny because it represents the 'fake self' i had to put on for my mother to try to be acceptable in her eyes! i love dream work SO much. my dream maker is so eloquent sometimes isn't it???