I ought to have a bunch of stories, but my mind is drawing a complete blank right now. But yes, I've had similar conversations with my T. And they are hard. Sometimes my throat closes and I literally cannot get the words out. Generally what helps is sending him an email in advance, letting him know I have something hard to talk about and that there's a good chance I will try to avoid it in session, and asking him to be encouraging, and also gentle with me. Then in session, I will talk about talking about it. I might say some of what you said above, "I'm anxious about talking about it. I'm worried you'll think it's silly and that I'm being an idiot." I might say that even I think I'm being ridiculous, and that I've tried to let it go, but I just can't, that it keeps poking at me. And then, if I need him to be a particular way, I'll say that, "I'm afraid you'll be defensive, and I really need you to be gentle with me." Sometimes I will say something like, "I know this reaction is related to things in my past, but it FEELS like it's about what happened now, and I need to talk about the here and now and resolve things before I'm able to look at the past."