[IndestructibleGirl]

I was more vulnerable than I ever have been before. I could make sense when I talked, but I wasn't saying anything complicated, or I couldn't narrate anything. For the most part my thoughts kind of floated away, and I was left with feelings, which were uncomfortable. Thoughts came back in fits and starts, and my therapist would point out when I was intellectuallizing, but they felt really weak thoughts. I was preoccupied with feeling the discomfort. I couldn't do proper joined up rational thinking, or wasn't fighting so hard to make myself do it. Every time I looked away and disconnected from her, she would point it out, and I'd drag myself back as much as I could.

That all sounds a bit horrible, but the mad thing was, it was ok. I didn't feel venomous towards myself for feeling vulnerable. I didn't feel fat and disgusting for feeling vulnerable. I didn't feel undeserving, like I had brought whatever it was on myself, like I should be cast out and left to die. I just felt like a normal everyday person, who happened to be feeling vulnerable. No big deal. No big shame. No consequences.

Bizarrely, I also felt like I sort of shrank. I felt like I was about twelve years old. Not cognitively, at all. But physically. Before I got sick with my chronic illness. And also before I started to get extremely dissatisfied with my body, that eventually led to an eating disorder.

What is this? Not regression, because I didn't mentally feel like I was twelve. Though I did feel maybe like a teenager? I don't know, I'm fairly confused. It almost felt like my emotional maturity of about fifteen got revealed, the sham layers of posturing were stripped back.

And where did my words go?! Why could I not talk as normal? The currency of therapy is words, but something else was going on. Again, I don't fully understand.

My therapist was very sensitively attuned, and seemed to know when to push a bit and when to ease up, she told me she loves me but would point out the bullsh#t. Then she pulled her chair right over beside me and we connected by taking the ends of the scarf again, and she was very close and I felt at ease with the shots of discomfort which ebbed and flowed. I know that makes no sense, but that's what it was like - being comfortable with my discomfort when it arose.

I'd said in a text that a couple of nights ago I just wanted to curl up against her, and she made it pretty clear that that's ok if I want it, that comforting touch is ok, but I didn't want that this evening. I was content with her sitting close by and with the scarf thing I think a part of me almost feels like I need to 'save' comforting touch for when I finally do break down and cry buckets, in the same way you save prescription painkillers for severe pain rather than taking them willy nilly, in case they lose their potency. But maybe that makes no sense, because I know I already have the severe pain already, I just can't quite let it go.

She wrapped her scarf around me when we had our break, and that was great, because last week when I was really stressed in Europe with work I texted her to say I was metaphorically wrapping all the good things she gives me around me like a cloak to strengthen my resolve. So again, a vivid and visceral memory to take with me.

It was incredibly intense and I am exhausted. I actually felt spacey and light-headed for most of this evening. But I feel nice. I feel human. Another installment of feeling sure and confident (in this moment) that I can cope with everything, even though I often feel like I can't. Hopefully all the installments will one day join up and I will more or less feel I can cope all the time

[CantExplain]

Could it be something like dissociation? Although your T would probably have noticed that. Perhaps she did notice but decided not to mention it yet?

[Anne2.0]

What resonates with me is a sense of having an intense awareness of the feelings (vulnerability, young) and staying with them rather than pushing them away-- yet having enough healthy distance to be able to realize you are in that place.

For me there is a big difference between feeling so intensely that it's like I've fallen through a trap door into a black hole, and seeing myself back in that place, aware that is how I'm feeling. A sense of being there and yet observing myself at the same time.

Or maybe I see that because it's what I was discussing in T yesterday. And it feels to me like that is where I do all my best healing.

[HazelGirl]

I think it was maybe just another layer of vulnerability. Maybe a revealing of your true emotional self?