I don't really expect T to take on a father figure role. It's just kind of confusing to me, because my assumption is that he would NOT want to create/allow that dynamic, but I can't imagine he is unconsciously do it either. So, if he's trying to get me to go directly to God for all my needs, I would prefer that he please stop allowing that dynamic, I guess. Trying to cut it off myself while still remaining "open" was literally tearing me apart. It had me doing things with my self-abusive (and, yes suicidal) inclinations that had never happened during my previous battles with depression, where I was able to just consciously choose to disallow any meaning to those thoughts. But to have that missing piece thrown in your face every week and feel you have to beat your neediness into submission can do some crazy stuff to your mind, I guess. I am sincerely hoping I'm through the other side of that tunnel, because it was all I could do to just not let my kid be exposed. As you can imagine, a lot of empathy and anger about being like my crazy mom.
Anyway, not really wanting to get into that, because revealing it makes me want to punish it and then I'm trapped in a cycle.I would not say I always express myself this way in person, but often (unless I am "blanked" by anxiety and can't talk at all). If the concept is something I can intellectualize, yes I usually will. If I have thought through and especially if it's something I have written about, I am able to completely dissociate all aspects of feelings when communicating my thoughts or even how I did feel at the time I was processing. And if I can't do that, anxiety automatically does it for me. Sometimes even the most painful things will seem more interesting or amusing than anything else. Basically, think of it in terms of my models: I had a mother who seemed certifiably crazy, very emotional and expressive of her feelings in harmful ways and a father who was detached and analytical to a fault sometimes. He was the safer of the two to emulate. I try not to have same dynamic with my own loved ones, so I guess I kind of switch into Caregiver to relate to people, but the only emotional interaction I can really manage is to give nurture and empathize, not receive or experience my own feelings. It gets to the point where it almost feels I have no identity of my own, like a psychic chameleon, always playing the expected role. T sometimes asks me to go "stream of consciousness" with him verbally, which he assumes I do with my journal. He does not seem to understand that even when writing, it is a drawn out process and it takes a lot of digging to get to a feeling space. I wonder if it is as frustrating to him as it is to me that I cannot talk.
That said, the statement I want to communicate to T was about as unintellectual as I get. Especially the part where I make a request (please be careful), which makes me cringe and have an anxiety attack to just think of saying. Asking directly (as opposed to refusing to need or hinting and hoping) for anything is a nearly impossible level of vulnerability. I pretty much only do it with my husband and because he operates almost completely without reading cues, so I must ask for everything directly. I'm sure you can see how all this will also be a barrier to connecting (T likes to call it abiding) with God...because no one can approach the cross without carrying their brokenness there, without seeking or needing (healing, instruction, forgiveness, the way) and no one has ever succeeded in coming to it with the sort of preparedness and pure motivation I keep aspiring to. My grandmother (again, major caregiver) was a JW, so a lot of that probably comes from there.