T yesterday. He told me to go sit, he'd be back in a minute. He returned with a mug of coffee. I said, "I figured," and he replied, "At least I'm predictable, I guess!" He asked how I've been feeling. I said his e-mail reply Thursday helped and thanked him. And that I was pretty nervous about today's session. T: "Why are you nervous?" Me: "Because I figured we'd be talking more about trauma again."

T: "I'd like you to take me through what you've been feeling since last session." Me: "OK, I guess it started with me getting in the car and having that insight." T: "About how you don't deserve to suffer if you caused other people pain?" Me: "Yes." T: "Why do you think it affected you so much, to realize that?" Me: "I don't know...I guess maybe because it seems to tie into other things. Like I posted some about my session on PC, and one poster just pulled out one line, 'I don't deserve to suffer.' And I think that's a big part of it, like how, what we've discussed before, where I'll compare myself to others who have gone through worse things and think I don't deserve to suffer as much as they did."

Stuff about how that refers to both mental and physical things. Me: "I think that's why I tend to give a lot of reasons for, say, why I don't want to do something, because having a headache alone may not seem like enough." T: "You do have a tendency to overexplain." Me: "I know, and it's something that really annoys H, but it's hard not to do it." T: "It doesn't annoy me." Me: "I didn't say I was afraid it did." T: "I know, I was just clarifying that it doesn't bother me. But it seems to take so much energy and isn't necessary with me." Me: "Yeah, in e-mails I used to start them more with 'Sorry to bother you again, but...' And I'm trying not to do that now." T: "I appreciate that. Because then it just takes more time to read, and it's not at all necessary. Just start in with what you want to say." Me: "It's what I've been trying to do." T: "I know."

Me: "Actually, part of why I'm so stressed about today's session is that, no matter what happens, I feel like I shouldn't e-mail you after because I did after last session. And you'd said if I started e-mailing you after every session, we'd have to talk about it. Even though before that I hadn't e-mailed for maybe 2 weeks--whenever you were going out of town." T: "LT, what have I told you about this?" Me: "That you'd give me a warning if it was approaching too much." T: "And that's exactly what I'd do."

Me [starting to cry]: "But I don't even want to get to the point of the warning, because then I'll feel I've done something wrong, like, maybe not rejection, but like I've been bad, that I'm too much. And then I worry you'll start charging me for two-line e-mails." T: "I would never do that." Me: "OK, I just worry because of what happened with ex-T and ex-MC. And you'd said one way of dealing with it was to charge a client for all e-mails." T: "LT, you're not even close to the level where I'd give a warning." Me: "I'm not? Really? OK, that helps to hear that." T: "No, you're not. You can always ask me about that, and I promise to be a straight shooter with you." Me: "OK, thanks." T: "Would it help you to let you know what a conversation would look like if it got to that point? Because we can have it now if it would make you feel better." Me: "No...I think it's better just to wait. Just knowing that I'm not even close to that point helps."

Back to my not feeling like I deserve to suffer. I said how my anxiety and other issues probably caused so much stress for H, that he probably hates having to deal with me. T said that in all marriages/romantic partnerships, each partner spends time picking up the other's trash behind them. At first, I thought he meant literal trash, but then realized he meant figuratively. He said I haven't given him that great of a sense of H, but he surely does things that I have to deal with as well. Me: "Yeah, I guess so. I just feel like mine is more...annoying."

T: "If you were to write down what H thought of you, like 3-5 paragraphs, how accurate do you think it would be?" Me: "Probably not very accurate. Then again, H tends to be more fleeting in his feelings, so might depend on if it was right after a fight or something." T: "OK, maybe he was a bad example."

Me: "Maybe with friends?" T: "Yes, let's say with a friend." Me: "Well, maybe I wouldn't want to know, since they'd likely mention annoying stuff I do." T: "But they're still your friends anyway, right?" Me: "True...But I wonder about people I'm not really friends with anymore, like one who used to invite us to all her parties, but hasn't in a year." T: "I'm guessing you start thinking back over everything you may have done, like, 'Oh no, maybe I ate too much guacamole at that party!'" Me: "I do like guacamole!" T: "I hope you don't start suddenly limiting yourself in guacamole since I said that!" Me: "Yeah, I'll even stop asking for extra at [this one restaurant], even though I'm pretty sure they charge me for it!" We both laughed.

T asked more about stuff I put up with from H, and I mentioned how for months after his friend died about 5 years ago, T: "But were you trying to be understanding of it because of his loss?" Me: "Yeah, I let it go on for a long time because of that." T: "That's an example of picking up his trash then. You made allowances for him." Me: "Oh, OK, I get it. That is what eventually led me to insist on marriage counseling."

I said how H still yells at me sometimes, but I often wonder if I'm just being oversensitive. T said how he thinks yelling is never OK. That led to the topic of how ex-MC tended to normalize so much of what H did, including any expressions of anger. Me: "Yeah..." T: "I wish I had a transcript of that session. I just can't figure out how ex-MC thought sharing that was at all therapeutic." Me: "Well, he shared a lot of non-therapeutic things..."

I said that I still felt I was more of a burden to H because of the anxiety. T: "This might seem rude, but, you almost want to say to him, if it's difficult for him to deal with from the outside, then imagine what it must be like living with it on the inside all the time. It might be challenging for him, but it's even worse for you." Me: "Yeah, and it's not like I choose to be this way. Why would I?" T: "So if you can just get him to see that. But first, you have to believe it yourself." Me: "Yeah...That kind of ties back into what we were discussing at the beginning." T: "Exactly, I'm trying to tie it all together."

Me: "I know we only have a couple minutes left. But there is something from last session that I keep thinking about. It involves the sexual encounter from college." T: "You'll have to help me, I can't think of what you mean right now." Me: [Thinking, WTF, you don't remember??? I know you say you have a bad memory, but...]: "The one where I wasn't sure how to interpret what happened?" T: "People can deal with the same event in very different ways. And I didn't want to influence how you felt about it until you told me. Because I'm still not clear on how you feel about it." Me: "I'm still not clear on how I feel about it either." T: "Exactly. And we may not be done discussing this, there may be more processing to do." Me: "Yeah, there probably is. With this and other things we've discussed."

Confirmed Thursday, scheduled for both next Monday and next Thursday. He reminded me that the Thursday/Friday after that is when he'll be away, and I said I'd likely be OK with just the one session that week, but we could discuss next week. Paid, shook hands as he said, "Have a good next few days." Me: "You, too."