I would honestly love it if new T could meet me in a place where I feel safe to keep working with him. At this point anything about H would have to be totally off limits and I am not sure that new T would be OK with that. My personal belief is that it doesn't matter what we work on healing (within my tolerance) it will all get to the same end place eventually... so if we work on the trauma I will have less stuff for H to hook into AND more confidence navigating the outside world which may get me out faster than hitting leaving head on.

The past few weeks have definitely given me new insight on where I am at with my trauma! It is weird to look around and be SO much healthier AND painfully aware on a completely new level how much work still needs to be done.

When new T was doing the somatic work and touched the spot on my body where I hold the worst of my trauma I braced. Any time I have been touched there I have a huge fight or flight reaction. I braced not knowing if I was going to fly off the table into the corner or if I was going to attack him... and nothing happened... there was no reaction... it was OK for him to be there. It is SO hard to walk away from that, from the hope that created. I have been told over and over that the best I can do is to just lock that trauma up and never ever let it out... and he created a space where it would be safe to release that trauma... it would take time but get it released. Even awesome T NEVER went near that trauma. Any time we got close to it I would start getting too uncomfortable and was not responding to the things he was offering to help me feel safe so he would back off.

I have invited him to talk to awesome T a couple of times and will put it back out there again. He thinks awesome T was just an enabler for 4 years... convincing him of where I was at when I started with awesome T is really hard. I have been reflecting a lot on the first year+ with awesome T and how many different things he tried to help me learn what safe felt like and to experience safety. He told me towards the end of our work that he never wanted to overstep my trust... looking back that was always the #1 priority with him... he would push and encourage but never, never overstep my trust.

I guess one of the things that I am learning is that with trauma and pain as bad as what I have lived with my whole life society doesn't think I should have been able to function at all. By all rights I should be dead or broken beyond any means of functioning. Even I am having a hard time believing it right now... I have a ton of memories that my family has validated, a TON they have shared or hinted at that I don't remember, and a little that I remember that is not validated but very reasonable given the other stuff...

Total side bar but not worth starting another thread for... It would be kinda neat if Awesome T and his wife (an author) would help me publish an autobiography. I used to think about it a long time ago but didn't want to upset my family... now I know, strangely enough, that my family would embrace it even though they created so much of the pain.

Fingers crossed we can work it out... and more importantly that I can recognize if we really are working it out or if I am just too scared to let go when I need to...