Hi everyone,

I wasn't sure exactly where to post this topic, because I know that there are other parts of the forum that more specifically take into consideration gender identity issues and "romantic feelings toward my therapist," respectively. However, I think that at this point, my main topic is just how to talk to your therapist about difficult stuff, so I think that can just stay here. (I do understand if for some reason this topic needs to be moved, though.)

I found this forum a few weeks ago, when I was reading half the internet on therapist crushes & transference. And yes, I have a crush on my therapist. I'll call her "Cat" because she reminds me of one. She's elegant, sophisticated, and sassy all at once. I've seen and met with a number of therapists in the past (and my last therapist was truly wonderful), but I've definitely never had these kinds of feelings before. I guess I never had a therapist quite like this one. She's young and pretty (scratch that, beautiful), bold, funny (sometimes rather sarcastically), kind, and caring. Reading over the forums inspired me to finally tell her about my crush (just for processing/honesty purposes), and she handled the situation very thoughtfully and professionally. I'm really glad that I told her because I was anxious about it for a few weeks! So a big thank you to all of you who wrote about your experiences and asked questions.

Now I could use some help with a couple of other things (preferably before this Tuesday).

1) I get stressed when it comes to conflict or situations that I perceive as "conflict." I usually feel more comfortable resolving issues with guys than with girls. I tend to be more awkward with and/or scared of girls. One thing that I appreciate so much about Cat is that I feel like she has really given me a safe place to talk things through and I think she demonstrates a good model of how to constructively work through differences and misunderstandings in a healthy way. Like if I disagree with her on something, get frustrated/get my feelings hurt, or want to voice any sort of concerns, I actually have been able to and she has always been calm and open to the discussions.

I feel like this is a big deal for me because there were therapists in the past that I would not have been able to speak up to. (Sometimes the therapists would get very defensive and I would feel attacked, or other times the therapists and I just weren't the best match. Or I just plain didn't feel comfortable enough to tell them how I felt.) So there are a couple recent things that I want to bring up with Cat, but I feel worried that maybe at some point I will be trying her patience, or she will feel like I am picking on her, or that I just want to fight with her. (I think that's another issue, that for some reason I see this as "fighting." One of my friends says that I should just see it as giving feedback.) Do you ever worry that you're being "too difficult" with your therapist? What do you do?

(I was trying to talk to my mom about this, and I felt like she was saying that maybe I should just let some stuff go, because obviously Cat has to be able to express herself and tell me things even if I don't want to hear them/she should be able to say what she wants. And it's not that I don't want Cat to say whatever she wants to say, I just want to be able to sometimes talk about my resulting feelings and process them. Maybe I'm excited that I have this nice person that has thus far responded very graciously and effectively, and I would like to continue feeling like she will work through things with me and not give up on me. It might sound silly, but it makes me really happy that she lets me talk about these things. But a little part of me is worried that I'm becoming too fussy and unfair.)

2) I'm genderqueer. Basically, I don't really identify as completely a girl or a boy, and I'm most comfortable with gender neutral language and "they/them" pronouns in regards to myself. I've talked to Cat about this because, since dealing with my pronouns in the rest of the world is a little complicated right now, I was hoping that therapy could at least be a safe place for me where I didn't have to worry about it.

Cat wants me to be comfortable and I know she cares. She has made an effort to use more gender neutral language. That being said, she--like most people--doesn't notice when she uses the wrong pronouns. There was one session where I talked to her about it, and she was very nice and receptive and she asked if I could please remind her exactly what it was that she had said in the previous session (I wasn't brave enough to bring it up at the time). Now there's been a couple more sessions since then where she's referred to me with the wrong pronouns (without realizing it), and I'm feeling anxious about trying to bring it up again. It's important to me, but I know a lot of people would probably think that I'm asking too much. And I don't want to be too pushy. Have any of you had a similar situation with your therapist and if so, how did you handle it? Any ideas about what I should do?

Thank you so very much for reading this.