Caveat: I don't know if I'm unusual in journaling so much to my therapist. I don't have email access.

I type and bring in really, really long journals to my T.

At first it was short, like one page which I'd hand her to read or read out myself.

Then they got longer as my trust grew because I turned it into a journal to write about stuff and process things in between sessions. It's lesser now, around 10 - 50 pages double sided pages per fortnight but it could hit 80 double sided pages if it was one month between sessions or I'm having a lot of intrusive memories... I know it's still a lot so I'm trying to cut it down further.

I feel intense panic and pain when I forget to hand them over or tell myself not to print them out to give to her. There was a time when she said she might not read them and questioned my intense need to give them to her and I burst into hysterical crying... It's like...my way of being as open and vulnerable as possible despite lots of mistrust and fear of judgment and fear of rejection because I'm so closed off and hard to open up in actual sessions.

T reads them at her own pace and I try to bring up what I've written. I know some people's T comments on their journals, but mine are way too long for that. Somehow I "need" to know she reads them, however slowly or briefly. I just need to know she reads these vulnerable and intensely private offerings from me and doesn't just shove them my file.

She'll briefly mention themes I'm processing through the journal or instances of abuse I documented there since my memory is like Swiss Cheese. For example recently she remarked I "know a lot about narcissism" and some time back, she reminded me of several incidents of abuse I'd clean forgot about because I was defending my abusers and saying "it wasn't that bad, just some mild X and Y."

I still read out much short chunks (a sentence or up to half a page) like when I want to articulate something difficult, or express my thoughts and emotions about a rupture. She wants me to be more spontaneous and try to say difficult things without resorting to the words I've spent a long time crafting. But recognizes I use words to capture how I feel before I forget (emotional amnesia lol) like a snapshot and to articulate complex things more clearly.