This was her 1st reply.

can see that it can feel like I’m pushing you away, but I do need to know why you ask in order to be as sure as possible that my answer won’t hurt you in any way. There isn’t a right or wrong question, but sometimes the answer can be right or wrong, or at the wrong time. And then it isn’t helpful. Your fantasy was that my childhood must have been fine. When you found out it wasn’t, that made you compare and question yourself. Is that useful? I’m not sure.

In the moment, I didn’t know why I laughed. Thinking about it now, I could say it was me “acting in” - that I did it because you expected it. Not that I set out to do it - you usually catch me unawares with these things. We can use that to deepen our understanding, but of course it would have been better if I’d caught what was happening and talked about it rather than acting it out.