How would you feel if your T assumed?

Maybe this offers you the opportunity to explore how you can tolerate someone not being 100% transparent. She is withholding something from you (albeit with your best interest in mind) and in so doing she is implicitly, and possibly unconsciously, demonstrating that she is separate from you. She is not completely accessible to you. I imagine that opens up some attachment wound for you.

As I read your posts, I was reminded of my unpleasant but persistent desire to control my therapist. Expecting complete honesty, and being threatened by anything less than that, feels like a need to control aspects of the relationship. A kind of panic. I say this without any judgement. The threat of dishonesty (or even the perception of such a threat) is very hard to navigate when trust is paramount.

Just as a side comment, it doesn't even matter if you aren't trying hard, Scarlet! Sometimes I put in zero effort to my responses and reactions! This stuff is really hard and it's fine to not put in your best effort all the time. We are imperfect creatures. In my therapy, I let out the foul little creature who resides in my dark heart ... and my therapist loves me (of a kind) despite this. You don't need to be best girl.

First, I hope your phone call goes well!

Are you partly struggling with the fact that she doesn't have an answer yet? This is a completely different situation. But it makes me think of a few years ago, when, at the end of a session, I had said something to Dr. T about his wanting to say "I care about you." And he said he was willing to say "I care about your well-being," but not so sure about saying that. And I called him (the only time I did that, actually--always email or text) and left this weepy voicemail about wanting him to say "I care about you."

He texted in reply, saying he wasn't so sure why those specific words were so important to me. He offered me an earlier session, including one the next day, but said he wasn't sure if he'd have enough time to think about it before that. I think I ended up taking that session anyway. But it bothered me that he had to put so much thought into it--like, in my mind, either he cared about *me* vs. just my well-being, or he didn't. And if he had to think about it, it suggested that he didn't care about me (he wanted to choose his words carefully). Things are very different with him now--I still don't think he would say those actual words, but he's explained why--personal vs. professional life and also not related to the amount of care--and I get it and accept it.

But anyway, that was a long story just to say that I understand how it can be difficult if someone is unsure how to answer something and needs to think about it. In this case, I think L is just trying to be really careful and not just say the first thing that comes to her mind, because she knows how important this is for you (as opposed to how Dr. T was at the time, which was more along the lines of holding boundaries).