I don't think I could have stayed in therapy if the things that a T did bothered me so much I could not bring it up and discuss them. This is really true for me in my former marriage and in all the significant relationships in my life. Nine years later with this T, it's not just what bugs me but what I find curious, as in why do or say X?

I've learned a few things over the years, the most recent one is where he started saying something before he told a story, like "I'm sure you've heard all my stories by now" and then he'd tell me something I hadn't heard before. I said I thought this was a message that I'd been in therapy too long and he had nothing else to offer me (my interpretation). He said, and it was a little sad, that he didn't have the same kind of relationship to his own memory (which is a curious way to put you feel your memory isn't as good as it used to be, but it felt more accurate), so he wanted to preface his story with the point that I may have heard him tell me before. Bottom line: it was about him, not about me. And the things that have often caused me pain with people have been the way I took what they said, not what they actually said. My interpretations about what other people said, rather than what they meant, have kicked me in the @ss my entire life. I'm finally beginning to question them and tell myself a new story about who I am and what I mean to people, it is finally dawning on me that I am important to people, people like being with me and talking to me, and I am well loved. I am done with my old stories. Nobody gets to make me feel anything.

I am also done with being a chicken about bringing up things that I wonder about. If something T or someone else says or does bothers me, I try to respond rather than react and just ask about it. Usually I say I was wondering about this or was making a funny or likely incorrect interpretation about this . . . goofy me thought this was what you meant, did you?