I totally get the safety piece especially in-person. When I do phone calls or telehealth sessions with L, it's hard for me to get to the deep things because I don't consider my room a private place. My husband or dad could be listening in. My husband has heard me crying a few times and gets really worried and thinks something is wrong and wants to fix it. My patio isn't private because the neighbors could hear.

The 'withness' includes being in L's safe space we created together. It includes touch, proximity, emotional presence, safety of her being able to help me contain everything, safety from others and myself, getting to see her reactions and expressions, feeling her care and love and gentleness, etc.

I've never done EMDR, so I don't know exactly how it works. DBT you can do on your own. You don't need to memorize the words. I never could. But the concepts were helpful. Like opposite reaction is what you're doing by going to Tuesday's session. I use that skill a lot because I sometimes experience an extreme push/pull with L. Clinging to her won't help nor would pushing her away. So for me, I try to just hold the both/and. Or another concept is window of tolerance. This concept has helped me identify where I'm at emotionally and how to help me get back into my window so I can keep processing. You don't need to find a therapist who specifically does DBT to learn DBT. Neither my last T or L is predominantly DBT. They do utilize it though.

DBT is just one set of skills. I'm just thinking that skills might be more useful to you at this stage?

I get living in a small town. I have to drive an hour and 15mins to get to L. That's my fault because we moved out of the city because it got too expensive for us.