Crossposting from TalkTherapy (sorry for the slightly clickbaity title):
Hi folks, if anyone wants to help me start to untangle this mess I'd be eternally grateful! Posting from a throwaway because this is obviously embarrassing as shit. Anyway, context: I'm in my late 20s (female) and my therapist is a dude old enough to literally be my dad. We've been working together for a few years now but I tend to lean more distant/avoidant so I hadn't really had any attachment stuff come up about him until recently. Now it's hitting me like a ton of bricks. I never feel anything out of the ordinary IN SESSION, no romantic or flirtatious feelings/thoughts/behaviors, and I'm not physically attracted to him. So it doesn't come up or interfere with my therapy sessions. But between sessions (especially during longer breaks) lately it's taking up more of my mental real estate than I'm comfortable with, and in really explicit ways that I'm even less comfortable with. I generally feel positively towards my T, but this is getting to the point where I've recently had dreams where he's SAing me and even trying to KILL me lol. WTF!! He's not like that at all in reality! By the way, I'm in a serious relationship and have lots of close friends and family, so I don't feel lonely or anything like that. I absolutely cannot tell my therapist about this because I'd choke on the words and melt into a puddle of shame on the spot. I MIGHT be able to choke out some seriously dialed down version of what I'm experiencing, if it would actually guarantee relief. Do I even have to tell him? I know this kind of situation gets posted here a decent amount and people talk about transference and that it has to be discussed in order to resolve and so on, but is there a way to work through this on my own instead? Has anyone dealt with similar experiences?