I am in a somewhat similar place. A while back my T accidentally showed me a picture of him holding his grandbaby. He saw the immediate panic and asked what happened. I explained that seeing him, a man, holding an infant made him seem bad to me. He was shocked. “Haven’t you ever seen a man holding a baby?” “NO!”. Honestly he didn’t even know where to start and I was clearly triggered so we did grounding work. Later that week H and I went to dinner... all of a sudden I was surrounded by men carrying babies! I had literally never seen it before because, for me, it was such a trigger. I went through event photos I had taken (I have done event photography in the past) and sure enough there are pictures with men holding babies (never as the focus but you would expect to have seen them).

I am 42 and T is, well, old enough to be my dad. Pre pandemic T started holding me if I wanted to be held during sessions. Sometimes it was fully adult me, sometimes it was younger aspects of me. Some sessions it was because I was scared or upset and sometimes I just wanted the attention. T was OK with my having a reason and even better when I did not have a reason. I have not had romantic thoughts about this T. We both agree it was one of the most beneficial interventions for me and we both look forward to when it can happen again.

I came from a family where the only touch was bad touch so my experiences with touching and being touched have always been very limited.