Oh, what a wretched childhood, Alexandra. I had a lot of that too. My mother didn't let me plan my wedding and I was only 39 :-) She bought my wedding gown without me there; my stepsister bought all my bridesmaids dresses.

My girlfriend (one of my bridesmaids) was in the bakery business and wanted to take me to buy the cake for my gift from her from the woman who would make it, a real, genuine, wedding cake baker and she almost didn't let us do that; my girlfriend and I amused ourselves by looking at the different/bizarre cakes and imagining my stepmother's horror :-) Purple icing? She wouldn't even let me get a chocolate top layer, the one you save for the 1st year anniversary (my husband loves chocolate).

Since I was so old, I was thinking of not changing my name because all my credit cards, etc. were in my name and I mentioned that to her and her response was a shocked, "I've never heard of such a thing!" and I did the math on how much longer she'd be living versus how much I really cared if I changed my name or not and decided to change my name.

I was thinking about the clothes thing the other day; my mother made mine and they weren't particularly stylish? Not good for high school. I can't imagine though, the shame of not having any to wear and being so constrained in choice.

Why didn't you feel you could tell your T about "being dressed"? Don't you think he'll believe you? That's one thing that kind of has to be different with a male T and female client I think. Clothes are a bit different issue for us. It's like you were your mother's doll or something? Bad doll at that because you made it so difficult for her. What a difficult, ugly situation and task you have getting out from under that mess.

I remember when my T predicted things would be better for me after my stepmother died (which she did within a year or two). It was right after I was telling her how I'd have my mother over visiting from the assisted living facility and she'd be in the living room and I'd be going to the bathroom and she'd call me and I'd actually stop what I was doing and rush to go see what she wanted. My T was not thrilled with that response in me.