So I went to session today looking forward to see my T, with my mind (largely) made up that I would try to discuss attachment and do my best to accept his care. Well...

We get into session and start discussing the email that I sent him last week (against The Rules). It was all going very well until he asked me why I had broken the boundary. I explained (quite painfully) that I was in a highly agitated state at the time and needed to connect with him. He answered that we needed to come up with a better way for me to connect that doesn't violate The Rules. He explained what I could do next time. It was all perfectly rational and reasonable and...devastating to me in my raw state.

I tried to move forward and discuss the emotional abandonment I experienced in childhood, but I could feel my internal walls going up. I felt like I had become the victim of a cruel joke, thinking that my T would meet certain needs and then realizing that he won't. He's never going to let me email him, or hold my hand, or call to ask how I'm doing, or any of that stuff. A deep grief washed over me until I could barely speak.

T saw how checked out I was becoming and tried to re-ground me. He said he understood me and my needs and how badly my early abandonment had affected me. He said I was reverting to my early practice of dealing with these issues on my own (because I had no other choice), but that I was in a different situation now and didn't have to do that.

He asked me, "What do you see when you look into my eyes?"

I answered (hesitantly), "I see that you care about me." And it was true.

But I really wanted to answer, "When I look in your eyes, I see everything that you promise but will not give me. I see everything I cannot have." I felt so raw, it was hard to sit through the rest of the session. I almost asked him to end it early.

He kept trying to get through my wall. And though I did feel a bit more grounded before I left, I refused to open up an inch more. I finally said, "You're working awfully hard to reach me, knowing I have shut you out."

I don't know if I can open this door to him. It's too freaking painful. I can't stand going all-in, becoming attached, when the extent of his care seems like crumbs to a starving child. I'm starting to think that no one will reach me in this place, that I'll always feel alone on the inside.