I went in thinking I needed to be angry with him for saying "do you want to do an hour next week?" as I was leaving (we have been doing 90 minutes) and I told him I didnt like the way he handled it, that if he wanted to go back to an hour he needed to tell me, and do it in session, properly. He said he only said that because he thought I had said I wanted to go to an hour when the kids get off school. I said no, it is the opposite, I want 90 minutes BECAUSE the kids are off school and I dont have time for two sessions. He was like "Oh! I misunderstood!" and I wasn't angry anymore. He said I could still be angry - he handled it badly, but I was just like "I'm not though!". He said it dissipated curiously quickly.

I told him I was feeling better than last week, and that last session had helped, because he let me be despairing. He did the usual therapisty thing of telling me it wasn't him that should take the credit, it's me.

I talked about something that I am doing at work which means I'm getting a lot of flak. He said that I am resilient, because I have a strong sense of who I am, and even of I wobble, I return to it, my sense of self is solid, so I am a good person to be doing this, but that doesnt negate my vulnerability. I said I am sad that some people don't like me because of what I am doing (especially people who I like and respect) but I know what I am doing is right and I said confidently "and actually, I like myself.".

T asked what it was like to say that. I said it makes me feel secure, like I have my own back. I don't think I would have said that before. T said no, I wouldn't have said it 4 years ago. I said I think he likes that I said it. He said yes, he likes that I said it and that I really believe it. I said that therapy has helped me like myself, empathise with myself and even with my past self, my teenage part that I hated so much for so long. I can see why I behaved the way I did as a teenager now. I understand why I was how I was.

I started to talk about my deceased ex (which I have been doing a lot lately - I was with him aged 16-18) and how much I feared him when he was alive, and how his death had allowed me to grieve all the good parts, years and years after I last saw him. I said how upset I was about his death is in sharp contrast to my mother. I came to therapy to grieve her death but years later and I never have. I said that the more I have talked about my childhood in therapy, the more she has become a symbol of everything that was wrong with it and less I see her as a whole person.

Then I realised something- my self acceptance is in reverse correlation to my acceptance of my mother. The more therapy has taught me to accept myself, the less I have been able to accept her. And so... I think the self hatred I have always felt growing up and onto adulthood was a necessary defence so I could think of my mother as acceptable. Because your mother being unacceptable is an existential threat as a child. It was safer to not accept myself than to not accept my mother. Wow! That's the biggest lightbulb moment in literally years!

So now I need to figure out how I can view her acceptability as independent of my own acceptability. That has been the barrier to grieving and that's what I need to work on. That felt huge.

So that pretty much took the whole 90 minutes. He squeezed me tight and we said see you next week.