Just had a lovely session with my T.


I screenshotted some of my thread and emailed it to him a couple of days ago. He said he read through it. I said thank you and he said "No, thank you. It felt like a privilege.".

We talked about what we had said and what I had gotten from it. I spoke about feeling like it was easier to look at his stuff than my own, and my quickness to want to walk away.

We linked it to other times I have cut people off rather than accept them as flawed. We linked that to my frustration and hurt at the behaviour of my mother when I was young, and the fact she didn't recognise or understand that I needed her to behave like an adult and how that anger 'bounced' and landed back on me (so I directed it to myself).


T said that reading through the thread he became more in touch (but doesn't totally have worked out) what is happening for him in this dynamic. He said that he gets a particular anxiety which causes him to withdraw, and that anxiety is about hurting me, and then the withdrawing ends up hurting me. He said it's not exactly the same, but similar enough to the way I withdraw to resonate. I said "Yes, and then we end up in a kind of dance of withdrawal and closeness" he said yes.


He said he's still trying to figure this stuff out after 40 years as a therapist. I said "Your willingness to engage with it is one of the things I find most inspirational about you.". He looked at me for a moment and shuffled in his seat and said "It doesn't feel that inspirational from where I'm sitting, but thank you.".

I said that I have a little plaque with a quote from Michelangelo when he was 87 years old which reads "I am still learning". T smiled and said "I'm a big Michelangelo fan! Someone told me yesterday that there's an exhibition of his drawings coming to the Royal Academy". I like when I get a little snippet of his non-therapist self.


We stood up to hug, and , for about the third time in a row, I hugged him without asking first (I had originally said I want to verbally ask first). He said Mmm as we hugged and said "You didn't ask, at least verbally". I said "yeah, we'll talk about that another time". He said "It wasn't a criticism, just an observation. I said I know.


As I left I saw a flash of a bird swoop under a little gap near his garage. I said "Was that a swift?" he said "No, a swallow. They're on their second family this year." I smiled and said "Aw that's lovely." and I left.