((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( singlegirl ))))))))))))))))))))))))))

I don't have a lot of experience as a therapy patient, but I know that feeling of no one (including me) knowing the "real me" because of my fear of telling someone the whole truth.

When I started therapy, I started laying all of these factual things out there, with no emotion attached - "this happened to me, this happened to me, this happened to me" - and each time I would tell him something, my strongest urge was to run and never come back. But I KNOW I want to heal and I KNOW the only way out is through.

What helped me was to just force myself to go, and to talk about my desire to run, my fear of sharing my whole story and what that encompasses, my urge to still keep secrets, my difficulty in trusting him. So, we weren't talking about my story - we were talking about why it's hard to talk about it. Those discussions helped increase my trust in him so I've been able to share a little more - even *some* feelings. And when it feels like too much and I want to run (it doesn't take much - sometimes just a sentence about something) then we talk about that for as long as we need to, for as many sessions as I need, before I feel safe enough to move forward a little more.

I'm learning that it's a SLOW process. As much as I wanted to just go in there and "get it over with", it just won't work that way for me. In order to keep going, I have to talk about my feelings about talking. In a lot of ways, that IS the therapy for me.

Good luck, singlegirl... I hope you find a T that you can connect with.