One time my uni therapist tried to lecture me about my sleep cycle. She knows this is one lecture I have heard from my parents so many times there is no way of counting them, and she knows it upsets me when they do it, so I got very upset with her. She agreed with me that I don't need that criticism from her in addition to my parents, and she doesn't do it anymore.

A couple of weeks later, she crossed a boundary I didn't even know I had. I didn't know I needed to have it, because I would never have thought it would be an issue. She said "I love you", just before Christmas, and I had a total meltdown. I tried to quit twice. It was just too much for me, and I couldn't comprehend it. She admitted to me after the Christmas break that it was something that just slipped out in the moment; we hugged for the first time after a difficult session, which was something she had been wanting to do for a while, but I wouldn't let her because of my fear of intimacy. She said it was "a moment of love".

We have been able to work through it, and I have come to terms with it. Sort of.