At the very beginning, I had the sense that she thought I was a bit of an arrogant jerk, which didn't though seem to preclude her from being compassionate about my stuff.

My response to that was to kind of force myself to start pouring out my life story (else, I knew I'd get caught up in how I thought she saw me and so, I'd become more and more guarded and the cycle would never end). I guess that somehow worked because I'm no longer worried about how she sees me -- I still don't know what that is (although I'm fairly certain she doesn't see me negatively any more) and I occasionally wonder but it doesn't eat me up.