I started by saying I felt angry at the beginning of the break, but now I just felt nothing and I didn't want to be there. I told him I felt he put the knife in and abandoned me after his "sorry about that" comment from last session.

I started crying and said "there is so much other stuff I want to tell you about but I can't because of this. It's not fair".

T said he didn't think he was being insincere or dismissive. I said it was flippant. He said he had been sorry that his going away was bad timing. I started feeling the anger again. I told him he could have said "I'm sorry you're feeling this way" or "I'm sorry it's such bad timing" but in what universe is "sorry 'bout that" anything but dismissive? He said he might not have articulated himself well but I didn't give him chance to explain himself. I said "I never said anything". He said "yes you did, you said "great timing to make an insincere apology"". And yes I did say that. I had forgotten that, and the fact I had forgotten that took all the wind out of my sails.

T said his main reflection was that I had been talking about feeling like he was abandoning me, and this felt like an enactment of that.

Well, that got me back to the angry place. I said "This is the power imbalance right here - you have had two weeks to sit there and decide this whole thing is an enactment on my part and absolve yourself entirely". He quietly said "I haven't absolved myself". I said it reminded me of when I told T1 I felt belittled and he said "Well I didn't mean that at all, so that is projection". I said I felt like he was weaponising theory and it was all about the power dynamics. T said he didn't feel like he was weaponising theory. I said it felt more defensive than offensive.

I kept crying, and looking at the books thinking "Is this it? Is this how this is going to end?" I felt like he dug his heels in and I wanted to get up and leave.

I kept going quiet and then crying again, and he just watched my systematically get a tissue, silently cry into it, put it in my bag and get another.

He asked me what was happening. I was quiet for a while and I said "nothing I can articulate" and started crying again.

After a while I said "this feels like the part of the analogy where you cut the rope and kick me down the mountain.". He said it didn't feel that way to him. I asked him if he could characterise it in terms of the analogy. He said "not really." then he said "the rope feels shakey and I don't know why. And that's all I can say really. " He looked so, so sad. Something in my feelings towards him changed then. I told him so. I said it felt like we were together again for a moment, and I started crying again.

I said "that's the most I have cried in therapy, ever". He said "you don't have to take all your soggy tissues away with you, you know. You can put them in the bin". I said "I don't feel like I can". He said "I don't mind emptying it, it's just a little act of service. Just a tiny one" and he made the 'tiny' gesture with his thumb and forefinger and smiled a little with his eyes. I smiled a bit. He said "It's good to see you smile. I said "you too".

He said "it seems like you were the one to ask the right question... about the metaphor." I said it seemed to change things. He said "it seems like you experienced me as real, you needed to experience me as real, and that was the right question to elicit that response." He's right. I needed to see real T. And I didn't feel like I had seen it up until then. Only quiet T, and theorising T. I didn't need them.

I told him that I had composed a termination email but that my friend had said not to send it. I told him I also wanted to ghost and I fantasised about him sitting there and me not showing up, but I couldn't do it. T said that sounds really sad. He said it seems like it's about power, like I felt powerless and the only way I had to assert power was to absent myself. I said yes, and when he used theory at me I felt even more powerless. That's when I thought it was pointless. I told him about looking at the books thinking "is this how it ends?". He said that sounded really huge (or words to that effect). I said yes it felt it. I said when we work as a team I feel powerful. I think we are powerful when we work together. I said I like feeling like a team. He said "me too". Then he said we have to work as a team. We just have to, to do the work. I said it didn't feel like we had been. He said "I know. I experienced that too, and it didn't..." [he paused for a moment] "it felt horrible.".

T said "I kind of want to thank [friend] [for telling you not to send the termination email] but that wouldn't be appropriate, would it?" I said "I'll tell her you thanked her in parentheses" he smiled and nodded.

I told him I had been reading about "Emotional flashbacks" ie when your feelings belong to a traumatic earlier period and you feel them so intensely that it is as though you are there. I said I feel sure that the way I felt about "Sorry 'bout that" was so devastating because of rejection when I was young.". T said "Yes and it's also something that happened in the here and now between us". I said "I know, but the intensity of the feelings is because of the past. He nodded. I told him about the encounter group I went to (see a few posts up to see what happened). I told T I was shocked by how fragile my trust in my authentic self was. Like how quickly it crumbled. T said it didn't seem like fragility to him. That it more seemed that I could access processes that were once so deep, and now much more accessible. I said yes, actually, I didn't bow down to that critical voice, I told the people in the group what was happening. I continued to be authentic. T said yes.

We looked at each other. I said I want to say I love you, but I keep holding back because there's a voice saying "don't let him get away with all that". I said "I do though. And I can feel it now." He said "good".

I said to him that during our last rupture he had said that we should keep working on this repeating pattern, not so I get repeatedly hurt, but so that we can pay attention to it and heal the wounds that are at the root of the pain. And I said, "but we didn't do that. We brushed it under the carpet because it feels nicer to feel positive things towards each other". I said this time we need to pay attention to it. T asked how we do that. Whether it's enough just to say it for now.

I said I think the best thing about falling out is making up again. It feels so good, better than being on an even keel. So I don't want to get carried away in the reverie of making up, and forget about the rupture. I said we need to make a point of going back and examining why this keeps happening, especially around breaks. Or else it will happen again. I said I want to understand what is happening here before the next break (June). T said that sounds certain (or something) I said it is a quite specific target.

It was the end of our 90 minute session. I said I think 90 minutes was a good call. T said me too.

We stood up and hugged for a long time. He rubbed my back which he doesn't normally do. I said "I missed you".

We went to leave and had some chit chat about my kids. It was nice.

I said see you next week and left.