There were some dumb things that happened at work before my session, so I talked about that a bit. That turned into a conversation about my negative self talk. V is squarely in the "say nice things about yourself and you'll be less negative" camp. Gag. So I was moaning about how it doesn't work, and she said, "well, how often have you done it? If you wanted to learn to play the guitar, practiced once, then never picked it up again, would you be any good at it?"

So the guitar analogy wasn't the best. Those of you familiar with my story will know why. Once she said that, I started to sob, and couldn't really talk for a few minutes. Eventually I mumbled out a sorry as I tried to compose myself. "What are you thinking?"

I shook my head. "I don't want to talk about it." And then I started to cry again.

"What can I do to help?" Which is an asinine question. How do they expect you to answer that question? I said nothing and finally composed myself.

I explained the guitar connection to her and she sat quietly as I explained it. "Hmm. Who said that to you?"

I told her it was RoboT. "Oh, wow. Okay. That was probably incredibly impactful to you then."

I agreed, said it was hard because of the transference involved. She asked if I had explored the transferential feelings at all. Where they came from. I said kind of. Sometimes I think of him as the idealized self. Sometimes I think of him as the father figure that I strived to please.

She asked if the latter part mimicked the relationship with my father. Yes, absolutely.

That came back to the negative self talk. How Eric Clapton was just one in a line of fallible truths I've adopted. That I have to adopt a more positive outlook in order to be happy. That I can't continue to rely on others for my happiness.

"And I know that's going to be incredibly hard for you to do. And you'll make progress and then maybe stall for a little bit. But you can get better. So I'll be there to remind you to be kind to yourself, even if you're not progressing like you think you should."

"And you won't get annoyed?"

"No, because I know growth isn't linear."

And that was the end. Confirmed my next appointment and walked out.