Update: Brought it up partway through yesterday's session. The only time I cried that session was while starting to talk about this...I mentioned how sometimes I knew I had some negative maternal transference for T, and she said we'd talked about that a bit before. I said I knew that. But that recently, it felt like we were almost reenacting something with my mom. And it was hard for me.

I said that when she said that she "didn't want to know" about the length of MC's phone call to me, that it bothered me and seemed like something my mom would say. At first she said she didn't say that, how I had just said, "I won't tell you how long it was." I said that yes, I did say that, but then she said, "I don't want to know!" And she was like, "Oh, right."

I said that and how she's sometimes critical of how MC interacts with me (contact outside of session) made me think of how my mom was about some stuff when I was younger, like with male authority figures and some other people too. Like, she'd question why an older male coworker (who was openly gay) from my summer job would want to hang out with someone my age (I was 17, he was 30). (Incidentally, she also questioned why a 25-year-old female coworker would want to hang out with someone my age.) Um, maybe because I'm good company? And she'd say how my feelings of caring toward certain people were inappropriate. Along with my feeling cared for by them.

This is where I got particularly weepy--I said to T that I felt like some of what MC did (phone calls, responding to my e-mails, etc.) made me feel like he genuinely cared about me. So when T would say it was inappropriate...it almost felt like her saying that his caring for me was inappropriate. Like someone shouldn't be caring for me, and if they did, there was something wrong about it. Which made me think of my mom and stuff from when I was a teen/young adult.

T responded that she didn't think that, about the caring. And that she felt my relationship with MC is between me and him and that she found details like phone call length to be irrelevant. (Is it becoming more clear why I have trouble working on the transference for MC with her? Because I tend to have a need to talk about everything...)

At that point, it was near end of session, so I said maybe I needed to think more about stuff she said/did that made me think of my mom. And how that might be good stuff to explore in future sessions. Because obviously, it's still affecting me. She agreed with that and about exploring it more in the future.

Had some more thoughts on the way home, so sent her the following rather long e-mail (to which she responded):
"Hi, T. Thanks for today's session. I wanted to explain a bit more about the one topic. As you know, sometimes I just have this need to share something. I'm not always sure why. So when you say you don't want to know something or that you don't think it's relevant (as you said today), then I feel like I'm not supposed to talk about it. And then I wonder if I should be avoiding the topic in general. Like, for example, if you don't want to know the length of the call--does that mean you don't want to know the content either? (I have mentioned some of the content, but there's certainly more I could have shared.)

I guess one topic would be why I feel the need to share certain things with you or with anyone. But I think come of that comes from all the secret-keeping and avoiding of emotions in my family and how that doesn't work so well for me. There were many things I wanted to discuss as a child and felt like I couldn't--or if I did, I got shut down, like mental illness-related things, authority figure stuff, etc. So you saying you don't want to hear something takes me back to my mom.

Going back to the original topic, maybe I need to figure out *why* the length of a phone call matters to me. Does that somehow connect to something in my past? For example, did my mom put it in my head that the amount of time someone spends with me (in person, on the phone...guess e-mail/text wasn't really a thing then!) showed how much they cared? I know she put lots of emphasis on me calling friends regularly, getting back to them quickly if they called me, etc.

Hm...come to think of it, I often pay attention to how long I'm out with friends. Like, "Oh, J said she had to go after only x amount of time, maybe that meant I was boring her." or "Wow, I hung out with A and D for 3 hours, they must really like spending time with me!"

Maybe because I have insecure attachment, it's like I need some sort of proof that someone cares, that they will be there for me. And time spent talking to me, responses to e-mails, etc. (whether MC, friends, etc.) are concrete examples for me.

Words are probably even more important to me. Like in a recent e-mail (in response to my saying I now understand why he wasn't going to tell us about his wife and how I wasn't sure if it was OK to bring up certain things in session--in this case, the mammogram and my fears surrounding it), MC said the following: "It is always ok for you to bring something up in session. If it is affecting you, then it is important and genuine and therefore ok to bring up. Bringing something up will not lead to me, T or H leaving you." When I'd sent the e-mail, I hadn't consciously realized the abandonment fear was there and I hadn't explicitly mentioned it. But my reaction to reading his e-mail made me realize that it was.

OK, I ended up realizing some of that while typing, so this e-mail ended up longer than I'd intended. I'll stop now. But there's definitely some fodder for future sessions.

Thanks for reading,

LT"
T responded:
"What may be helpful to you is to validate some of the assumptions you tend to make about how others are interpreting words, situations, thoughts and feelings. For example, when you called about the length of the conversation with MC, it was my intention to alleviate your worry,not to say I wasn't interested and that the subject was taboo. MC is correct when he says it is always ok to bring up things that are affecting you. As I think about it, you did that in therapy today and it lead to productive thoughts on both of our parts so thanks. Have a good week, T"