I hope I'm not too late for this episode of Dr T-gate!

Not picking on you, LT, but it's so much easier for me to do your life than my own, and I see so many similarities I can't help myself.

Take it or leave it, but what I see is--yes--overreaction, but as something to understand, not blame. Take away the names and specific actions and I see you thrown into a tailspin when someone who matters to you puts someone else before you, and when someone doesn't say or do exactly the right thing to make you feel less anxious/ashamed/out of control/fill in the blank. Of course these are all things from your early years. That's how this works. What therapy can do is help you refocus your control internally instead of trying to force it externally on people around you.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought you wanted to know what he thinks as he thinks it. On the upside, he's said some kind things too--probably more than bumbly things. He could be helping you identify ways to move out of that intense anxiety and discomfort and back into your own skin where you're in control of your own internal experience regardless of what other nutty people are getting up to, but he doesn't seem to work that way and you are determined to keep at it with him. Some of this reminds me of the joke about the guy with a banana in his ear who can't hear people telling him to take the banana out. He finally yells, "I can't hear you! I have a banana in my ear!"

btw, when you go back to Dr T and tell him that people here don't like him, isn't that because you've only given us a certain take on him that leads us to that conclusion? Are we your proxy for expressing feelings you're afraid to tell him directly because you know it's a pattern of yours to pick everything apart as a way to [fill in the blank-- avoid responsibility/control feelings/reduce anxiety]?

One way to regain your agency is to get the focus back on your feelings and actions you can take. I mean, you've noted that your sessions are about him a lot of the time, as if it's his idea, but isn't that because you put the interrogation lamp on him? I have been known to do this too. And I'm really good at it, so I know the play. You can change that in a flash if you're up for it. I see a therapist who irritates the crap out of me quite a bit, but I just get things back to why I'm there--which has nothing at all to do with her. I would love to blame her, but I kind of have a multi decade history of problems she didn't instigate. When I feel like bringing my irritation of her into my sessions, we work on it thematically--or did. I'm finally winding down and getting out.

We fix things for ourselves when we're ready. Until then, everyone else can still see the banana in our ear.

I'm just guessing at all of this, of course. Take what fits and leave the rest.

Thanks for sharing your struggles with everyone here. That takes guts and shows just how distressed you are. I really hope you find that self security. Pulling for you!