well....I did it......I talked to my T about it. I brought it up after a lull in the conversation. During the silence, I debated whether or not to bring it up. I don't know where I got the courage or how I found the words....I was terribly nervous. We had been talking about his general approach to therapy which I asked him about. He has 3 ways to approach therapy, and one is to focus on strengths. He said it is the strong parts of people that help the weak parts get better. So I used this concept to segue into the question by saying something like I felt like he didn't want to talk about my SI behavior, and maybe that was because he wanted to focus on more positive things.

His first response was to apologize - he said he didn't know I wanted to talk about it more. I was so relieved!!!! He said he was concerned about me and my suicidal/SI thoughts/actions. He asked me why I thought it would help to talk about it more. I told him that I feel like I am constantly fighting these suicidal thoughts and urges to hurt myself and that I am getting tired of it and I can't do it anymore and I need help coping. He agreed and asked me to tell him how I am coping right now. So that started a whole conversation about the SI and ED topics, which led into a deeper conversation about some of my issues and past experiences.

He also said some really nice things, about how much he enjoyed meeting with me, that he admired me and thinks I have a lot of courage. I'm not really good at accepting compliments but I tried not to reject what he said....I think I might have been shaking my head though. It was really nice that he said those things.

The best part is that I finally felt like he heard me and that he cares about me. I think I knew that before, but today I felt it, and it felt really really good. *big sigh of relief*


Thanks to everyone who responded with your thoughts and encouragement! I think it really helped me to be able to open up about this to T and it turned out really really well.

kt