Hi Fernwehxx-- I relate a lot to what I feel in what you've written and have been giving this a lot of thought lately during what feels like a kind of impasse between my T and me. I am compulsively attentive to boundaries with my T . (She invites me to be in touch between sessions and I never am, I am careful not to raise my voice in session even when I'm expressing very powerful stuff, I get nervous when we're in close physical proximity when passing in her hallway). I've felt this to be a need to be "respectful" and "not threatening" but I think I've been protecting myself against how needy and vulnerable bumping up against a boundary would demonstrate me to be. And how humiliating it would be for me to ever be told that I'm overstepping. Basically, I've thought that I'm adhering so closely to boundaries out of respect my T but I think I'm doing it for me. What you wrote about never having "dared to be this open" is I think what made me connect what you wrote to the way I've been thinking about things. But big disclaimer--this of course is my experience and I'm not trying to "interpret" yours.

Very interesting what you are both writing. I think for about a year I was like that too.. i would not dare to ask for an outside contact and only send maybe 4 short txts in a year if it wasn't abour rescheduling. I didn't want to be needy, didn't realise I could ever have any outside contact etc. Therapy without emails have been a completly different experience, almost incomplete as I still had so much stuck in me.
Then I was about to move abroad and was so worried we would have to terminate sessions and I wasn't even comfortable talking about how much the sessions ment to me and I felt like I have not said so much of what I wanted so the first email was written in fear of not being able to ever express it. Then t suggested we could easily talk over skype and its been like that for 2 years now!
I do think that the healthy bounderies have only been overstepped very recently as I seem to just flow with emails. What bothers me is she has not commented on anything and I do mention the overstepping of bounderies in emails a lot and asked her a lot in writing to tell me that I have overdone it but she never does. I worry she doesn't say anything because I also stress a lot how much those emails mean to me.

There's a lot to what everyone's written and I've gotta say, it's great to be able to talk about this stuff here with all you friendly strangers One thing I'm taking away from this is that I'm determined to tell my T just what I said here. In reading other people's accounts of their reluctance to even chance breaching a barrier I can't help but want to tell you all, "No, this is exactly the juicy stuff you should be talking about--this is what therapy is all about. Far from getting freaked, your therapist will probably be thrilled!!" So I'm determined to talk about this next session. I'll also tell her that I was inspired to do so here, and I throw that in because I've hesitated to tell her that I seek company in online forums. (Not sure why, but I'm thinking it's maybe because it would likely introduce questions of what I'm seeking in between sessions, and seems like it would likely bring us right around to this stuff about boundaries and wish for more closeness that I've been avoiding talking about.)