Not my usual session write up. Today's session was about processing through my weekend. I had several discussions with different people about a few different topics that didn't go very well. So rather than going into a long posting of ... I told you that a friend said this and a I said that, and the friend said this... and then this other friend and I talked about blah.. and I was sad... the bottom line, I pretty much ranted the entire session about my disappointments, desires, options, losses, supports in these relationships/interactions. T was great in being supportive (like any good T should). She asked me questions like what would it be like if I would have done this or that, I bet that felt good to hear that, of course you want your friend to do/be... this, yes that is scary...

One thing that came out was a significant amount of emotions in remembering how hard it was for me to choose this path and embrace the little boy inside; to let him live.

We did return to the topic of increasing my sessions to 3x a week. T told me that she is undergoing further training to be able to support the 3,4,5 x week style of therapy because she believes in it. She wanted to reassure me that she'd have teachers and supervision to help guide her. I told her my biggest fear (I was surprised that I shared it with her) is that we'd increase and that she'd decide that it was being harmful and want us to return to 2x week and I wouldn't want to do that. One of my big themes of life/therapy is having things taken away from me because someone in authority has the ability/right to do so and I have no say in the matter - other than my usually response of just walking away. She thanked me for sharing this fear with her. It's a big one for sure. At one point, she said it would be unethical for her to do something that she didn't feel was helpful for me. I liked that she phrased it this way verse it being unethical for her to do something that was harmful. She admitted that we don't always know going into something on how it will turn out, we can discuss things and keep open mind as we go through something to ensure we are staying on the helpful side of things.

One other topic discussed is my new philosophy on coping mechanisms. Given that everything we do is in response to some stimuli (mostly external) then everything we do is a coping mechanism and is done to relieve some form of "stress", then there is no good or bad, healthy or unhealthy... there is only a matter of the safety in the coping mechanism. How safe is this action in comparison to the risks and other elements in my life at the moment? I guess there is an element of effectiveness as well, though I didn't have that in my initial thoughts - maybe that is just another factor in the risks determination. She asked me one of those how do you feel or what does it do for you.. types of questions. I told her that it came from her statements of 'doing my best to keep myself in my best condition at any given moment'. I said I liked it because it removes judgment from the equation. How safe is the response I want to do because of some stimuli and is there a safer thing I could do to elevate that stress and keep myself in a better shape (overall)? I don't know what she thought of my idea. I know I like it.