It's so strange that all week long I sort of look forward to meeting with L.  I was away with family for a bit so I didn't get an opportunity to see her twice last week, just the ususal once.  And even though the mini-vaca went well and I was 'present' for most of it I still missed her, but luckily it wasn't obsessive.

While driving to see L I was a bit distracted.  It was like I was on auto-pilot getting there, just going whereever the car took me.  Maybe the first sign that it was going to be a strange session was I had trouble deciding where to sit on the couch.

It's not like I have a lot to choose from; either one of the sides of the couch or the middle.  I always sit on the side furthest away from her and closest to the window (in case I want to jump!!), and never, ever the middle.  There's no protection when you sit in the middle. 

Well this time I went in and for some reason decided to test sitting on the right side (not my normal side) and then the middle.  Because of the way the room is and the placement of her chair, sitting in the middle would mean I'm sitting closer to her.  I really wanted to sit in the middle yesterday.  But as soon as she sat down it was too overwhelming for me and I instinctively got up and moved to my usual spot, furtherest away and closest to the window!

First we talked about the mini-vacation and how it went surprisingly well, and then she cut right to the chase to talk about my text last week:
  
   Me:  Sorry for the second text, but I may forget/chicken out....next week could we talk a little bit about when our sessions aren't the 'Bell Jar' how I leave feeling a little empty?  It's kind of weird, I know.
  
   L: Not weird lets tabke about that next week have a great weekend  

Unfortunately her interpretation wasn't accurate.  It made sense of course, but it wasn't what was going on in my head .  And instead of clarifying it I decided to retreat inside my head, which then of course turned into a full fledge shutdown on my part.  In thinking about it later I think the reason I shutdown is because I felt misunderstood. 

My grown-up/adult side of course thinks all I needed to do was give her feedback, but for some reason not having her validate my feelings right from the start caused me to retreat.  I think part of me quite often feels like my thoughts, emotions, and reactions to things aren't 'normal' hence the need for constant validation.

Because of my withdrawing a lot of time was wasted just trying to get me to talk again.  I was very much a child giving one-word answers.  Eventually I was able to talk around it for a while.  She said that the feelings of 'not getting filled up' were ok and we just needed to go deeper.  I responded that I didn't understand how much deeper I needed to go.  With a little bit of a raised voice I said 'We just talked about my dead fucking father!  How much deeper do I need to go to feel filled up?!  That's when she pointed out that yes we talked about my dad but I only talked about the type of person he was and how sad I was that my daughter would never get to know my dad.  She said what I lacked is talking about how I feel about him and his affect on me.  I guess I was in reporter mode?  Hmmmm, I think I do this quite often.

There's more to say....especially about the big disconnect between what I'm thinking and feeling to what actually comes out of my mouth, but life is calling me right now....