hey. i'm actually... not hurting too bad. not anymore. part of what was hard was that a session or two before he went away i started emotionally withdrawing from him. i mean that in the sense that i didn't want to talk about my mother or my father and i didn't want to feel any of those old hurts and pains from the past. i needed to be telling him about my work and the good things going on in my life. needed to refocus on the things that are important to me now so that when he went away i could keep up with my focus on that and not fall apart.

and then in the last session we had he was trying to call me on avoiding and dissociating from that stuff. and i fended him off, of course. and tried to explain why i was doing that. and he didn't understand.

and this session i needed to tell him about the work i got done while he was away. i needed to persuade him (persuade me, really) that i coped alright while he was gone. needed to take some time to reconnect at my own pace.

i fell apart for a day or two or four when he went. i surely did. but i managed to pull myself together and soldier on. i know that i need to work on this stuff, but i need to set the pace. i need him to accept that sometimes i can talk about it and feel it, but that sometimes i need to focus on where i am functional and feel pride and acomplishment and good about that. its just what i need to do.

and i think he gets that now.

i'm sure it will get better over time. but slowly slowly gently does it...