however, if i knew precisely what stops me from crying, i wouldn't need the therapy. 
Fair point.
i suspect it's combination of things: the fact that i had emotional overload a few years back, and shut down; the fact that i have no-one to talk to, face-to-face in real life; the fact that my great therapist stopped practising two years ago (which is when the eczema started getting really bad); the fact that i rarely interact with anyone i really trust. etc., etc. if i knew for sure, as i said, i'd be on the case like a shot.
Well, I'm trying to dowse in a desert here, but if I had to take a stab (how's that for mixed metaphors? *cringe* ), I'd say reinforce yourself to operate among the untrustworthy and then start playing with hurt. But you already do that, so there must be some reason it's not working fast enough. If it were me, it would be thinking I wasn't allowed; don't know what it is on your end.
good thinking, all of it. i think one of the difficulties is that i'm
too good at reinforcing myself, as it were, and so it's so much easier for me to shut off the nasty emotional stuff, rather than expressing it. it's almost automatic for me to put a lid on difficult emotions, and i need to learn how not to do that. trouble is, my intellectual side is far more developed than my emotional side, amazingly enough.
i can do it, with support, but i need someone else there, as i'm crap at externalising stuff - i spend most of my time on my own, and so even speaking out loud isn't something i do every day.
and yet i'm so good at doing this for other people. bloody ridiculous, but then it's so common that physicians
can't heal themselves, and all that. i need a "me".
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