In session today, I felt behind museum glass or separated from my T. This has been going on since the holidays, whereas before that we felt like a tight team with a very solid rapport. I'm not sure if I had previously romanticized therapy and my T, and now have a more realistic view of the relationship or if there is an unrepaired rupture.

We talked about being grounded in the present as a sign of mental health, and how trauma gives a sense of a never-ending story in which time never really passes from taboo or terrifying events. He gave me a really touching metaphor from the lion/witch/ wardrobe. I lost a baby and he dotes on his two young kids; there is a constant tension or awareness of that discrepancy in our talks. He often gives me a Harry Potter or a children's book image, and then searches if there is pain that stems from his reading these things to kids. I find it very human- and it's like one planet signaling to another - it is poignant. I am good with it in metaphor, but I do get out of attunment when he talks about the challenges of co parenting well etc- I find it insensitive I guess.

Part of the problem is this is the first time I have committed myself to talking about what my T calls "extreme" childhood trauma. He finds it fascinating the dissociative devices I used( unconsciously) to be high functioning and just to "overlook" the facts of my own early life story. Truthfully, I did kind of regard it as if it happened to someone else, and couldn't affect me so long as I worked hard and performed well, and I also did well in relationships of all kinds- a strength.

However, now that we have stripped away defenses, faced difficult truths, did prolonged exposure to some specific memories etc, it is like wounds that had been bandaged for decades suddenly reopened.

There are times I feel so angry he sends me back to city streets in tears, and there are times I feel pushed too hard to also fulfill my responsibilities in real life. What is new though, is the holidays really highlighted how much this is a job for him, and while I am a challenging case and kind of street cred for my T, he doesn't have real skin in the game person to person. That IS appropriate, it just doesn't feel very good.

I have this feeling like before breaking up with someone in real life- like a failure of feeling or a central apathy in which my capacity for caring about the relationship is dwindling, but I don't want that to happen. It's weird.