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One more thing: It takes many years, and layers of process, to become licensed as a therapist. Many people don't go at it full-time, because it's so emotionally intense. Pre-licensure pay is quite poor. Licensed therapists can make a good living in private practice, but that also requires building and maintaining a business. It's a slow way to get gainful employment, especially when student loans have to be paid back.

all the words that have caused me emotional harm are allowed on this forum already. 

I'm a big curser in general, but I haven't done so here, because I intuited the expectation (funny/not funny/symptomatic). I did, however, use "effing" recently, and wondered if I was violating the rules.

Me too. I'm in a steady state of panic right now. I'm at work right now too. Called my T at lunch, just to hear his voicemail. All I want to do is go home and sleep. Agony.

Twinkletoes, thank you. It is good to know that I'm not alone. Parts of me wants to believe that I'm uniquely tormented (the parts that were never seen or affirmed, and are silently screaming to be noticed), but it is comforting to hear that someone else gets it, and isn't confused by my description. My husband is wonderful, but he really can't relate, and my circle of friends is very small right now.

Everything I've ever wanted to be was about fixing things for someone else (wow that's a new insight).

You may have hit the nail on the head there. People with PD parents learn to mirror or die. We learn empathy as a survival skill. We often seek relationships wherein our own emotions don't matter, so that we aren't required to feel them (survival defense), and wherein we are habitually mirroring and affirming the emotions of another (making us feel "safe"). These are defenses which can be transformed into gifts, but it sounds like you are still struggling to identify and express your own needs, desires, and wishes. I'm with you there.

LucyHenry, you asked a vulnerable question. How are you doing with all this feedback?

I'm in agreement with Radical. I too value the stability and unflappable character of my therapist. He is mature and able to hold my pain in a way that makes me feel safe and accepted, even when I'm terrified, even when I accuse him of not caring, even when I beg him to tell me what to think and feel. He is not afraid. He does not get scared off from my pain or my process or my less attractive parts. He knows the way out of this dark cavern that I've fallen into, because he's been through it before. And, he's not simply leading me by the hand, he's keeping me safe while I discover the way. He's not in a hurry, because he knows he is safe. I need that, desperately. I can't be stuck down here with someone who's just as scared and lost as me.

Grad school is fertile ground for personal growth, but it is also a minefield, full of opportunities and motivations to mask, dissociate through work, and seek to fill the void with affirmations or disapprovals or false intimacies. And talk about fueling the inner critic! Most therapists come to the profession because of their own history of pain, and many have at least 1 PD parent (there is research on this). You would not be alone in pursuing the profession, and you may be uniquely gifted for the work. BUT, therapists who have not done their own work, inside and out, are dangerous to their patients/clients. They don't know what they don't know.

Everything in good time

I could have written your post. I feel like everything is happening inside me, all at the same time, all the time, and I can't stop it. No wonder I dissociated! This is effing awful. There probably is more, and that thought is terrifying. I feel desperate, don't want to go to work, can't focus. I keep defaulting to fantasy, but my fantasies all involve being at my therapy appointment. How long will this last? I'm in agony, and I think I'm wearing my loved ones out.

I have recently come to a place in my recovery where I have lost much of my ability to dissociate from my emotions, but I don't yet have much ability to contain myself or self-soothe/regulate. I feel raw and overwhelmed and hyperaware of my emotional pain most of the day, every day, waking and sleeping, for about two months now. I just joined this group, and am comforted by discovering so many similarities with others. I feel validated. This experience is real and specific and has an identifiable cause. That's helping immensely. But, I'm worried that reading the forum might also be triggering me more than I can handle, and may keep me stuck in this uncontained emotional hurricane. I would love feedback from others.

Seriously! Listen to Tame Impala lyrics sometime.

I haven't gotten into Tame Impala, but a good friend gave the same recommendation, for the same reasons! I'm really into Amanda Palmer lately. Her piercing, funny, personal lyrics and punk style hit the spot for me (Runs in the Family is sometimes on repeat in my car. Some of her stuff is quite intense and not typically suitable for calming down). I also LOVE John Grant. I've been listening non-stop to his Pale Green Ghosts album for weeks lately--candid, personal, and painfully funny lyrics matched with luscious techno music. I put it in my ears when I need help with containment. (I'm the middle-aged woman shopping WalMart with earbuds permanently attached)