Aaaaargh. Now I'm trying to figure out where I was before I shut down and went into work mode, because tomorrow is therapy, and I need to know where I am. Two weeks is way too long. It's hard to remember, let alone to start feeling something again. I think T said last time that most people carry on a conversation, and when they return for another session they pick up where they left off and continue the conversation. I'm pretty foggy about what the conversation was about.

I can remember a little of it. I remember what I cried about two weeks ago. That's at least something, right? I cried because T said that I can't replace my family - I will never have the parents and siblings that I wanted. I keep trying to adopt people to fill those roles, and it will never work. We don't share the history of growing up together, and we never will. My family is never going to be what I wanted them to be. Even cousins and relatives that I either lost when my family moved away from them when I was 11, or relatives I didn't know I had until I grew up are not going to replace my family. I have a cousin who lives about 5 miles up the highway from where I am now, and I haven't called her, and I have been here almost a year now. I have a great-uncle who lives somewhere in the same area where I am. Contacting these people will not solve anything. They will not be my sister or my grandfather, and I would have unrealistic expectations of them and would reject them for not being what I want them to be, or I would be jealous because I think that they had the relationships that I wanted. It won't work. T said not to contact them. I don't have a relationship with them. My family might come here, to my cousin who lives just North of me's place, for a family reunion next summer. At least they are talking about it. They haven't ever followed through with anything like that before, so maybe it's an empty promise. How can I not get involved with that? But if I do get involved, how damaged would I be when they don't come? My father didn't even come to my wedding, and my mother would not have come to that if her parents hadn't dragged her along. My grandparents are gone now. What is left?

When T said that I will never have the family that I wanted, I tried to change the subject. I would have avoided feeling anything. T told me that I changed the subject and asked if I was going to respond to that. Tears started leaking out and kept coming slowly for the rest of the session. In three years, that was the first time that I cried in front of her.

Sky, please tell me how to recognize safe people IRL? There are a few that I think are safe, but I don't know how long they will stay around. Nobody ever stays in my life. If they don't disappear, I do. There are others that I thought were safe, and then they hurt me, and I closed myself off from them. I don't show it when I am hurt. I just shut down. Sometimes it takes me a while to realize that I am hurt, and sometimes I get hurt over and over before I even realize it, and sometimes they think I must be pretending to be hurt, because I didn't say anything before. Or is it me who thinks I must be pretending? Either way, I don't know if I can be vulnerable again. I'm tired of being hurt. But I'm tired of being alone too, even when I'm not really alone. I'm a porcupine. I don't let anyone get too close. I can risk more online because there is still enough distance to be safe.

((((((((((((( hugs ))))))))))))))))))

Thanks for reading, and for sympathizing, and for listening and giving me advice.

Love,
Rap