It started with me bringing in the stuff I'd written trying to acknowledge that some of the stuff I experienced was difficult. I admitted to more of how difficult it had been than I had before. I always feel like I'm being melodramatic or showing how weak I am if I acknowledge that stuff.

Before I read it I asked him to promise he wouldn't think it was stupid and he did.

I mostly used statements like "that was probably pretty stressful for me" or "it's understandable that I felt upset" or "that was probably a difficult situation for a child."

I told him about the corner in my room where I sat on the floor curled up in a ball at night. I didn't have to point out that that's how I've been sitting during our sessions ever since we started talking about this stuff a few months ago.

I told him more about the "parental alienation syndrome" court argument. He wants me to believe that my feelings are valid because I feel them and not believe that I'm not allowed to feel hurt because things weren't "bad enough." I pointed out that that was basically the message I'd been given. My dread at having to be around my father, my pain, my anger, the fact that I said my father's rage felt like I was constantly under attack... None of that was enough. My emotions were just evidence that I was being irrational and had been brainwashed by my mother because I couldn't prove that things were bad enough to justify my feelings. He didn't hit me. Therefore, my hurt and anger and fear were all something that was wrong with me and something to be fixed. I wasn't supposed to feel those things. Those weren't my rules, they were the rules imposed upon me.
He said that was then, but now I got to make my own rules and change that.

At some point he said he couldn't imagine how difficult that must have been for me. I told him I knew he wasn't mocking me, but it felt like he was mocking me. He thanked me for telling him that and assured me that he wasn't mocking me at all.

When I was done reading everything he said that he couldn't imagine that I'd be that composed if it was someone else in the room talking about having had these experiences. I asked what he meant. He thinks I'm not letting myself really feel this stuff. That the way I was talking about it didn't match how horrible the stuff I was describing was.
I said I had to. I'd just been trying to make it through. I couldn't afford to let myself feel everything. He said that was then, but I was still doing that now.

At some other point when I said I felt like I was overreacting he said I was underreacting, not overreacting. There were multiple times he made the point that he thought that I wasn't acknowledging/feeling how bad it was, that it warranted a much stronger emotional reaction.

I asked him if he thought I'd been weak. He said no. I asked if he thought I'd been bad, in a moral sense. He asked for what and I said for not being stronger. He sounded kind of sad when he said no, he didn't think I should have been stronger.

I admitted that sharing this felt dangerous. That I was still scared that he'd side with my father. He said he didn't, and he hoped he'd never said anything that would make me think that he would. I said he hadn't, but I'd learned to expect it. That everyone else had.
I asked if he thought the courts made the wrong decision and shouldn't have made me go to my father's house. He said yes, that's what he believed.

I told him about my escalating dread every time I had to go to my father's house, but nothing I felt was ever enough. It didn't matter. I still had to go back every week. When the courts finally allowed me less visitation and my father started directing it at my brother instead and being nice when I was there because I would leave if he acted that way towards me, my brother would beg me to be there more because "dad was nice when I was there." I couldn't bring myself to do it though. I told my T that I knew it was irrational and I didn't have any reason for it, but I just couldn't make myself do it. T reacted to me saying I had no reason and very emphatically said I did, and I explained that I meant that there was no longer a reason because my father was fine when I was there. T said it was like PTSD, that being there brought all the memories back. I said it didn't bring back memories, part of the problem was my inability to remember specifics, it just brought back all the feelings. I said it was like it had been relentless for so many years and I couldn't escape it and once I finally got a break from that I couldn't bring myself to go back again any more than I had to. T was empathetic about this. He didn't think I was being weak.
He pointed out that I'd started using SH to deal with those feelings, and now when I was triggered and started feeling things I used SH to stop feeling them.

He described what I'd experienced as horrible again and I asked if he really thought it was horrible. He was pretty emphatic that, yes, he did think that. He referenced my frequent assertion that it "wasn't that bad" and said, yes, it was, it was awful. He said a few more things that I wish I could remember, but it basically amounted to him saying it was truly bad. He kind of sounded upset about it.
I said my father never hit me. He said we both knew emotional abuse was abuse and could do damage even if it wasn't in the form of visible bruises and injuries.

My memory of the order of events and the wording from this session is pretty scrambled. I was pretty emotional. I teared up several times and even actually cried a little towards the end when he was telling me that it really was horrible and said things about how he can't imagine how hard all of it had been for me and stuff.

After I left I started to worry that maybe I'd exaggerated how bad it was or somehow misled or manipulated him into thinking it was worse than it was.
His reactions and intensity about the whole thing seem way out of proportion. He seemed to feel really strongly about all of this. It's like he was talking about it like it was some upsettingly horrible childhood, but it wasn't really that bad. It wasn't great, and some parts of it sucked, but it wasn't that bad.