Does love for T have to be transference?

Sorry if I made you feel like this at all. I didn't want to make you feel rejected, I was just sharing my expirience with love and transference in therapy. Everyone needs validation sometimes...and your feelings are very valid!

rain this is an awsome post.just havnt come up with words yet to respond but am following it

Thanks, granite. Knowing you're here is enough for me.

My T emailed back and suggested making a collage about my parts, or drawing, or of course writing. She said I can give the parts what they need, and I can start by hearing how they feel. She again said to see if I could write or draw what my "self" means to me, and that we will talk about my emails in the session.

Has anyone done that--about your "Self"?

Your posts amaze me, Rainbow. The work that you're doing amazes me. It's SO SO hard...and I am learning from your posts....I really am. I can relate to love being scary. For me, accepting love is very, very scary. Considering what I've endured, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I hope, at some point, I can address all that. At the moment, I don't feel safe enough with anyone.

Rainbow, I agree with MUE. You are very strong and brave.

When a person has an abuse or trauma history, the act of love does not "come easy" as the song says. In fact, the whole concept of love can become a very dark and frightening "THING" that looms over our heads waiting to drop at any second.

It is hard to move through this life with such a heavy weight always present. It is hard to know if what we feel is "appropriate" or will it be punished somehow? When someone else shows us they love us or care for us, what do they want from us in return? Will the love be snatched from us out of the blue for no reason we can decipher?

What I am learning and would like to offer you is this: Allow your feelings to just be what they are at the time of the experience. If you feel love for your T, allow that love to just exist. Don't over-think it. Don't try to put it into a box. And don't punish yourself for it - perhaps out of fear that if you allow the love to grow, pain will follow.
The simple fact is that emotions of feeling good don't need a label. Just allow them to be :-)

amen to what you said, wepow. Love is scary for me too....love growing up was equated with punishment, my father saying, if we didn't love you, we wouldn't do this...
I am so glad I can and do love deeply, but yet I am so afraid others don't love me, or that their love will hurt me, so I am so careful with allowing it to be seen. My own love has hurt me with its depth, so that I have been afraid of opening myself to it, embracing it.....but my children have blessed me so much in teaching me this.
It was scary to realize I did love my T....but I have found peace in just letting it be, giving myself the gift of allowing myself to love her. And that's helping me accept the love from others in my life, accepting that my H, my friends, really do love me.....I really am lovable. My T tells me, you are so loved; you are so loved by your creator. And I'm beginning to trust and rest more in that love, too.....but I still feel so scarred and broken.....but loved even tho I am scarred and broken.