Today I worked on being present in my session. I think it's the first time in 7 years my T brought up the subject instead of asking me what I want to work on! It was difficult but productive for me. I started talking about my week away with my family. She commented that I was present and she could "feel" me. She asked if I could "feel" her. We never used those terms before but I knew what she meant. It was cool!

But after a couple of minutes she stopped me. I said, "I know. I spaced out while talking." She was impressed that I was aware of when I do it, and I was surprised at how often I do it. Every few minutes I told her I "went away". It was hard even when I was looking into her eyes. I told her it was scary, but then it got easier.

Through the entire session, she and I stopped to see whether I was present or not. I think I was present about half of the time. She put her feet on top of mine as a grounding technique, though I'm not sure if that helped or not.

T wants me to try having "conversations" with people during the next few weeks. I will be out-of-town with my family so will miss the next two sessions.

I asked why we never worked on this before. T said because there was always something that came up that seemed more important to me. She was aware of what I was doing, but I didn't know the extent of it, and I never referred to it as "dissociation" but T says it is.

I feel kind of strange about this. It's like I have a new diagnosis after all of these years. I know I interrupt people a lot, but that's a little different from not being present. I felt closer to my T than I have for a long time. I even told her I was worried about missing her more because of today's session. She doesn't think that will happen but I'm not so sure. Anyway, I'm glad that I have my T, and that I feel comfortable enough to work on this with her.