Not in therapy, but in real life, once felt the underlying rejection feelings which my last T's behavior reenacted, and I was lucky enough to process them over the last 3 years, on here among other things, then a whole complex of disappointment and anger and longing has become more conscious. More "me", rather than split off, numbed out, and/or compartmentalized or whatever.

Having the cognitive interpretation of dissociated states and trauma has helped me tolerate the feelings, whether that interpretation is "real" or the only psychological interpretation that might help or not. It has helped me feel there may be some sense to the whole thing -- and then that has helped me tolerate and process the stuff.

So that, now, I hate my aunts, and I love them. I didn't know I hated them, before, that would have been a no-no. I think they can be awful, haughty b**s (as they learned in their culture and they are not alone in that). It would have been "bad" of me to think that before, worthy of their rejection and that of the society/culture generally. And to see myself as a haughty b**h sometimes, too? That would be awful, too. And. . .my aunts are people who have value in other ways and I love them. I may very well not see them again, in this life -- it's complicated, they're complicated, I'm complicated, and I love them.

That is how things have changed for me. Took time. "I", the ego, the intellect, couldn't make it happen and didn't understand how it could happen, because it hadn't happened yet, so the intellect couldn't see what happened until it had.