I wasn't suggesting that YOU were looking for anything.

I find it hard to be vulnerable in front of anyone, that's part of the reason why I'm in therapy. So you may be perfectly able to go and get your closeness from a friend, but I struggle with that. I always put on a face and turn everything into a joke. Sarcasm is my armour.

What I am learning in therapy is that when I turn my pain into a joke, it allows me to bully myself about it without really thinking about the damage I am doing to myself. My therapist is the first person who has ever been able to identify that, and as a result she treats me in a way that makes me feel like maybe it is safe to be vulnerable with her, even if just for a little while. Change happens slowly.

It's not that my friends don't care about me, or that I don't feel like I can be myself around them - I have great friends. But they don't see my pain the way my therapist does, because they aren't trained to do that, and it is easier to keep that distance from someone if you can "fool" them a little bit. I can't fool my therapist, she sees right through me, and it feels unbearably close, and yet it makes her that one person I actually want to be close to. I think about it all the time, but I am too afraid to ask for it, and she knows that.

And what does it all mean? That I'm human. That my therapist is human. That's what it means.

If you don't want other people to weigh in with their own thoughts, feelings and experiences, why even post? And I don't mean that as a criticism so much as a genuine question. What's the point?