Tom, I didn't read your post until this morning. You can do this scary therapy work. You CAN. It's clear that you recognize that the coping mechanisms that worked for you when you were younger aren't working anymore -- in part, because you don't need them.
The fact that you recognize that tells me that you can do the rest, no matter how hard and scary and shitty it is. I won't lie to you; in the middle of it, in the middle of having to process feelings that are decades old -- feelings no kid should ever have had to experience -- it really sucks. It does.
I don't say that to put you off it -- just to give you fair warning. The flip side of it is that, once you're through it (or even some of it; it's not really linear), you have this -- I don't really know how to explain it adequately -- your life is *yours* again. You aren't under the spectre of shit from the past, you aren't reacting in the present based on situations from the past -- your perspective is yours, just yours, and not filtered through distorting lenses that other people installed.
You can do this. You really, really can.
You know you can e-mail me if you ever want to talk more about this backchannel, instead of disturbing the Atkins-cats-gerunds flow of Natter, right? Please do.