the session

Today i had my therapy session with the doctor who is going to assess my need for therapy and submit a report on the basis of which it will be decided what sort of therapy is advisable.

It's been something of a surreal experience meeting somebody for one hour who i'm never going to see again, discuss very intimate aspects of my personality, than come out into the streets to find out the chaos following the terrorist attacks.

The session itself was quite good, but of course you can't go into too much depth when you see somebody only one time for about 1 hour. So we've dealt with a number of issues. I've tried to present myself in the best way i could but she got a sense that there was something we had missed, some dark area that we didn't go into. She's had some interesting insights that will give me food for thought.

Of course i have discussed my desire for an unequal relationship and all the contradictions that tend to go with it. i've also talked about the sadness that i can't shake off with regards to L and she worded it in a way that surprised me. She said i felt i had failed him and i wondered if that was the case. I mean my feeling, not whether i have actually failed him. i have always perceived it as being found to be inadequate and not good enough, somewhat lacking in any value - a judgement that's more related to my essence - whereas her way of expressing it put the fault onto an action, something i've done rather than something i am. I have to stop to consider all the implications of this.

I was also stunned by something else she said. She talked about my desire to "annihilate" myself. Her choice of words reminded me of the time when i was in therapy as a 13-14 year old coming to terms with being gay and discussing a crush i had on a boy who went to my school. The things i used to tell my then therapist about this boy contained nothing of my sub/dom interests (although i did mention them one or two times) and yet she would always repeat this to me, that i was trying to annihilate myself in relation to this guy. And i have to say as a 13 year old, this really didn't mean much to me, i couldn't feel this word, what it meant. And i can't fully grasp it today. I, of course, understand it but there's something that is missing. Is this then my true self? Is this something that comes out about me in every relationship i seek even when it feels (as it did with this school crush) so innocent and pure? And if so, do i do that with F as well? I pointed out to the therapist how her choice of words had surprised me and brought all of this up and she added "This is not a word i use often" which preempted my growing concern that this was merely therapist-talk.

I also found it curious that she asked me if my sub/dom interest was something i wanted to keep or lose, which made it sound very much like a game show where you go on a trip and you're only allowed to take with you a specific number of items. I didn't know what to say. This is very much me. I imagine that if i, through therapy, came to be enlightened and stopped having these desires, it wouldn't be a problem to lose them because they simply wouldn't be there anymore. I don't feel it's up to me to decide. Not at this stage anyway.