Therapy for the first time

I went for therapy/counselling for the first time ten days ago.

I'd not been feeling good. The fact that xN hasn't been in touch at all has really hurt. I know, I know....it's a good thing...but I can't help but think that he could have apologised if he'd wanted to...the realisation that I let myself be in an abusive relationship for so long has also got to me.

The therapist was good - seemed to "get it" quite quickly and told me that it sounded like XN did have a borderline personality disorder or Asperger's (as his doctor had initially thought) but did say that, whatever label is put on it, I have to stop beating myself up about why it didn't work. She said that his relationship with his mother sounds very dysfunctional (it is) and that I could never compete with his mum, who also puts up with being treating like crap by him and yet loves him unconditionally. She said that he clearly has problems getting close to people and that it's no wonder that his new little group of friends in work (and the only friends he has) are all 10 years younger than him because they are unthreatening.

Hearing that from someone else, even though I know it deep down, has helped, because, like I said in another post today - I don't know what is normal anymore. A lot of my male friends look at porn and a lot of my friends are having affairs, so the things that XN somehow didn't seem so bad in comparison.

She also said that if I fall into another man's arms for some closeness not to beat myself up about it, at which point I recoiled in horror! I'm not like that anyway but one of the things that XN did to me was make me feel completely unattractive. It's got to the stage where I can't look at my body in a mirror and I think that if I took my clothes off in front of a guy he'd be sick. That sounds really stupid but it's the truth at the moment (I hope those feelings go). It's odd to think that because XN was always all over me and if I was that repulsive, he wouldn't have been, surely?