First, how amazing and warm and fuzzy was your post, OP! Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

For me, I really felt understood from my T after discussing family trauma. My parents always treated me second, blamed me for ruining the family, and now I am not invited to holidays (I’m currently estranged due to dating preferences). After I met with my T I explained how triggered I felt because we are approaching the holidays. I then broke down, and stated how lucky I am to have friends who really love and know me, invite me to their holidays, and are so accepting when learning my story (it’s heavy). My T responded, after acknowledging how great it is to have validating friends, that she is also a person who is in my corner, cares about me, and hopes I truly know and believe that. Her face was so empathetic and compassionate that it almost hurt.

I really do believe that my T feels that way about me, and the beauty of it all is that I know it by her actions. She has shown me, throughout the entire time I’ve known her, how trustworthy, validating, and amazing she is; and yet it felt so incredibly genuine and wonderful to hear her tell me it out loud. She accepts me with such care and understanding that I feel so seen. I feel so fortunate we met, especially after reading some of the awful experiences with some T’s on Reddit. I used to think that the therapeutic relationship was fake, but with the right T that relationship is everything.