You guys are right, I think. It wasn't an argument. A lot of my past and current feelings are all mixed up...mixed together. My anger and fear..my dealings with Abusive Pdoc..and my dealings with T are all mixed together right this minute. Does that make sense? Probably like being triggered and PTSD....:

T and I were talking about boundaries: My adult understands/is satisfied that T will never say, "I love you" to me...But the little girl part is sad about that and her feelings are very hurt. I don't understand this...how I can be of two minds about it.

She responded to one of my emails and said this,

"I think it was a very good thing for you to do...set the boundary. I am responsible for that in our relationship but you are also responsible for yourself and have the right and obligation to yourself to set boundaries for yourself.

Nothing has changed from my point of view except that I heard you set a very important boundary for yourself and I am happy about that.

Yes, the child in you needs nurturing and love and understands those things from a different perspective than the adult in you. When we are children we need to hear I love you from significant people in our lives. Your child wants more of that because you didn't hear it or experience it in your life as a child nearly often enough.

I hope you are going to have a good day. Your feelings are natural. We are good...."

Her reply about the "child" made me cry because she is right about all of that. She is a good T.

The part I take exception to is the emboldened part. It's probably just a semantics issue....she seems to say she can set her boundaries for us..but I only set the boundary for myself. I think I can set boundaries for her, too!

If she was sitting in session throwing paper wads at me (using a silly example) I would probably ask her to stop. If she was trying to do something inappropriate to me, I would tell her to stop. Isn't that me...setting a boundary for her?

Maybe I will be thinking more clearly tomorrow.
She is a good T and I believe her when she says she will never intentionally hurt me. But I can not trust and just leave all that up to her. In the past, I have trusted therapists to make ethical decisions in our relationships...and those relationships hurt me very badly.

Thank you for reading this far.