When I began the session sitting on the floor with my back to the wall and hugging my knees he asked if this was going to be a regular thing now (this was like the fourth time). The first couple times he didn't seem to really understand it, thinking I didn't think I was worth sitting in the chair or something? Like that I was denying myself the comfort of the chair. It's not even a comfortable chair. I told him it made me feel safe and he asked from what. But this time he asked if it was because I could hug my knees and I said yes. I told him I used to do it when I was a kid alone in my room at night when I was sad, and that it was a "self soothing" thing (he's been trying to get me to do self soothing stuff). He seemed to kind of accept it and "get it" a bit more.

He said he wanted to bring up the disclosure he'd made at the end of the last session about his daughter, and that afterwords he'd realized that that might have been a mistake and he wanted to apologize because he knew how important boundaries were to me, especially because of therapists in the past telling me way too much. I told him I'd noted it as unusual, but that it hadn't bothered me. I said it would bother me if it was all the time, but that it wasn't the type of disclosure that would really bother me. It wasn't about him/his feelings or something that made me feel like I needed to protect him or whatever. That with him I didn't worry about needing to protect him because I was able to trust him to be responsible for and handle his own s**t.

Part of me was bothered by him apologizing because it had felt kind of nice that after 9 months of working together he'd trusted me with a tiny piece of information about his personal life, and now he was saying that that was a mistake. But I also appreciated that the apology meant that the boundaries he has about these kinds of things are for my sake, not because he is completely detached or I'm not important/good enough to be "allowed" to have looser boundaries or that it's some kind of punishment (?) or response to my attachment because my attachment is bad and wrong and not allowed.

I made some reference to remembering stuff and what happened and all that. He asked what I meant by "it" or something. I don't remember how exactly he phrased it, but it seemed like he thought I might mean

I clarified that I just meant like specifics of what my father did rather than just the vague undefined "I know he was a jerk to me and emotionally/verbally abusive, but I can't really explain how because I don't remember specifics" thing. Like that I'd forgotten that a lot of our arguments were when he'd accuse me of something I didn't do and punish me until I "admitted" to it, and if I didn't then I got in even more trouble for "disrespect" and "disobedience." I also forgot about him getting drunk at night and being really really strict about "lights off" and how much trouble I'd get in if I had my light on or got out of bed after 9pm. Stuff like that.

We talked about the intense emotional reactions I'd originally had to remembering stuff. I said it didn't make sense. There was disgust with myself and I felt really strong anger/frustration that wasn't really directed at anything in particular and I wanted to scream and punch things and I felt dirty and wrong and gross and like no one should be able to bear to look at me and I wanted to claw all my own skin off.
He said something like that that must have been really painful to feel that way. He seemed to genuinely think so/care. I kind of shrugged it off, and he pointed out my pattern of tending to discount and minimize my own distress.
I told him that after those super intense reactions now for like the past week I've just felt emotionally detached from all of it again, and I didn't know what that meant. Does it mean it wasn't really a big deal? He didn't really give me an answer on that.

We talked about how when I'd been younger I hadn't hated myself. SH was "self soothing," not about punishing myself. It made me feel better. He said something like that I must have been in a lot of pain for that to be something to make myself feel better.

I brought up the idea of taking SH off the table. He'd asked me last time if I was ready to do so. I told him I wasn't. I couldn't really explain why. I said that it would feel "alone" but I couldn't explain what that meant. I said that when he'd terminate to get me to go do DBT it had felt like being sent off to be fixed before he'd be willing to put up with me, like sending a disobedient kid off to boarding school to get someone else to train them to be obedient. That it made me feel like I wasn't good enough. He reminded me that he'd done it because he didn't have the background to help me with DBT type stuff that he thought I needed and pointed out that those skills had been helpful for me, all of which I already knew. And he said something about self compassion, blah blah blah.