There are times when I feel so separate from T that it hurts. This can be both in-session and out. When this feeling of separateness happens in-session, I experience a manifestation in my body that ranges from a simple loss of words to match feeling to an out and out dissociation. Now, when I dissociate in-session, T gently brings me back. When it happens out-of-session, I talk to him in my head and I picture him in my mind's eye sitting in his chair and talking or just looking at me and affirming me.

When I was a little girl I was the outcast, the one who didn't fit in, the scapegoat in the family. Although I was pretty, outgoing, cute and loveable, I did not receive the nurturing that I needed to become whole. My father was a raging alcoholic and my mother was out to lunch--and working. She left us in the care of a grandmother who abused me. She fawned over my younger sisters. My siblings were trained to ignore me and ridicule me. That's the least of it. The patterns continue into adulthood. Despite their awareness of my son's breakdown this year, only my youngest sister ever calls to see how he is. The others do not acknowledge the situation.

Yesterday I called my sister to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving. I knew that if I wanted the contact I had to make the call. You would think we lived many miles apart but she's only 10 minutes away. The only other mention of the holiday came in an e-mail about 6 weeks ago. We had a wonderful conversation and we caught up on each other's lives.

However, when I woke up this morning I realized I still have a lingering sense of being on the outside looking in.

I want so much to be loved and accepted and just included. I don't want T to forget about me--to go to work or attack me in a rage. I just want to be secure in myself.