# Paul's therapy journal



## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

Review

I was in therapy from about July 1 '09 through the end of Feb '10. I stopped at that point by mutual choice with the therapist, both of us feeling like I had made some progress and both believing I was obsessing over the process and some of my issues between sessions, and that was getting counter-productive. 

During that time I feel like I developed a few new insights.

1. I have a mild OCD problem in the form of ruminating and compulsively googling for psych info.

2. I've learned to be damned near helpless. I function, but barely.

3. My emotional development was stunted at about age 12-13. We both agreed on this, and I wondered if there was a "critical period" for learning some social skills, and the therapist thought not, at least not like there is for early language development or bonding. Therapist described the teen years as an ideal, but not critical time for learning how to socialize.

4. We focused on here and now. Very small steps like getting the mail into the house everyday (yes, it's that bad). Things like little nuisance house repairs that annoy me for weeks because I won't take the half hour to fix them. I was not real invested in this and it frustrated me because it seemed pathetically "small" and remote from my bigger issues. I didn't try very hard.

5. I thought, rightly I still believe, that we didn't do enough with non here and now issues. Relevant things IMO, like core beliefs and learning self acceptance. Therapist seemed to believe that building some basic habits would lead to addressing these bigger issues. This was an area of contention.


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

When therapy ended, I told myself I'd wait 6 months and try to work on some things on my own before trying therapy again. That was early Feb. By mid April, I was feeling desperate again.

I had met with two therapists (seperately) when I started in July, and I went with therapist A. Therapist B had an approach that was at least as sound as A's, but I chose A because I found B attractive, and I thought that might make me less willing to be honest. At this point, I don't ****ing care, so I called B in mid April and I've seen her three times now.

I've had a difficult time being focused, which is always an issue. I talk plenty, but not always about priority stuff. Anyway, the third session I prepared well beforehand and brought notes, and it went better.

This therapist has a working theory that I don't do emotions in a healthy way. I feel a full range of emotion, but I stifle their expression outwardly or express them very cautiously around people, in the typically male way. I'm terribly disappointed in myself in so many ways and my choice has always seemed to be wallowing in that disappointment, anger, bitternss, envy, and resulting insecurity, or choking those feelings and acting cool. So I typically appear aloof, with occasional big time emotional outbursts that go nowhere.

She wants me eventually tell someone some of the deeper things I'm feeling, out loud and in person. Of course I suggested eating glass instead, and ground some up on the spot, but she persists in the silly notion that I ought to do the healthy thing. I think this is where I need to be, even though I'm in a panic about being here. So it goes.


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## shyshisho (Apr 19, 2009)

Sounds familiar--I think I learned to hide emotion at an early age because I felt I didn't have the strength to endure any conflict that might ensue. I'll be interested to hear if your therapist gives any tips on how to open up.


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## SilentWitness (Dec 27, 2009)

> I'm terribly disappointed in myself in so many ways and my choice has always seemed to be wallowing in that disappointment, anger, bitternss, envy, and resulting insecurity, or choking those feelings and acting cool. *So I typically appear aloof,* with occasional big time emotional outbursts that go nowhere.


I relate so much to this. I alienate people with my cool exterior, yet I'm really seething with anger underneath most of the time.

I hope therapy will help with all those repressed feelings.


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## power2theweak (Jan 2, 2009)

Paul, I just want you to know that I am rooting for you! I hope that this new therapist will be a better match for you. I do think expressing your feelings will help. But I know how scary that is. I have been able to open up to some people about some things...but only online...never face-to-face. The words just won't come out. I hope you find someone you feel really safe with and are able to open up to. I think it will be very freeing.

(((Paul)))


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

shyshisho said:


> Sounds familiar--I think I learned to hide emotion at an early age because I felt I didn't have the strength to endure any conflict that might ensue. I'll be interested to hear if your therapist gives any tips on how to open up.


The one thing she said about this, well a couple of things, were that talking to someone who will simply listem without trying to problem solve is the goal. She said that prepping someone to just listen may seem artificial, but she believes that the process of sitting with another person face to face and expressing the fear or disappointment or regret is something of a ceremony. In my case, the dread I feel at doing it is all the more reason to believe that it has power.

I haven't really gone into detail with her about anything, so I'm thinking that's on the agenda for my next visit. Golly gee. I'm going to talk to her then about how exactly one pushes past all those instincts to stay shut down, and instead opens up. I suspect her answer will be something along the lines of "how's that shutting down stuff working for ya, so far?"


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## Pam (Feb 14, 2009)

The newer therapist sounds better than the other one. Good luck with her. 
The idea of prepping a person to just listen makes sense because so many people naturally jump into the fixing mode or instantly try to be helpful rather than just listen and let you have your feelings. It shows they care about you--like they want you to feel better. But, I think part of feeling better is to feel your feelings so they can dissipate, or even go away.


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

I had another session today. I was well prepared. I had made a prioritized list of things I wanted to address. I talked about the top two, and a couple of lower priority items that related to the top two. This matters to me because I have this major sense of urgency and my thoughts are easily scattered across years and issues can get pretty disconnected. So I give myself a B+ for staying connected.

I'm getting more convinced that I seldom experience real emotions, at least not completely. I engage in some form of mental masturbation, or sometimes actual masturbation, anything to avoid really feeling something strong. She said to stay with the emotion, which sounds like a cliche, but is relevant to my style of avoidance. 

I get real intellectually active when I start to feel emotions like fear or shame or sadness. I think about what I'm feeling, incessantly and under the guise of researching some solution. This interferes with feeling it. There's a time for thinking about why I was sad or afraid or ashamed. There's a time for considering whether I could have behaved differently and gotten a better emotional result. But that comes later.

First, I need to do nothing except name what I'm feeling if I can. But I'm not to waste any significant energy splitting hairs between fear and shame, for example. Settle on "hurting".

Name it and then just be with it without passing any judgements on what I'm feeling or what it means. Don't deny or minimize what I'm feeling. Don't give into the temptation to justify the feeling. Don't think of solutions. Don't do anything except feel. 

If I don't do any of these distracting things, the emotion will be there, undiluted. And I'll recognize it and feel it.

I said I don't wanna. Half seriously. She said that I know better, that I explained how I avoid feeling things, and seperate from that conversation I complained about how nothing emotional seems to ever get resolved. Probably a connection there. 

So I'm going to feel stuff and not fight it. I believe that will help. I hope it will. 

It's been a while since I believed in anything or had any hope. And now I'm feeling something, so I have to go.


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## Bon (Dec 24, 2005)

Atticus said:


> I had another session today. I was well prepared. I had made a prioritized list of things I wanted to address. I talked about the top two, and a couple of lower priority items that related to the top two. This matters to me because I have this major sense of urgency and my thoughts are easily scattered across years and issues can get pretty disconnected. So I give myself a B+ for staying connected.
> 
> I'm getting more convinced that I seldom experience real emotions, at least not completely. I engage in some form of mental masturbation, or sometimes actual masturbation, anything to avoid really feeling something strong. She said to stay with the emotion, which sounds like a cliche, but is relevant to my style of avoidance.
> 
> ...


You owe me some money sweetie;-))))

I'm so happy that your making progress, in time you will stop shutting yourself off from the world;-) at least you'll have time to ponder what Paul is REALLY about;-) what he REALLY needs, not shutting down in order to make someone else happy or take the path of least resistance;-)


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## egghead (Apr 12, 2010)

I hope you post more about your therapy and positive attempts you are trying to make in your life, its very uplifting and gives others hope.


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

I've had a couple of appointments since I last posted here. In general, the therapy is going well. My approach with this second therapist is different than it was with the first. I was honest with the first, but a bit cautious, which in a theraputic setting is actually kind of dishonest, isn't it? 

I'm not throwing caution to the wind with the curretn therapist, but I've gotten into soem more personal and very troubling issues. With the first therapist I'd say things that were a bit cryptic, like "I feel like I have the emotional development of a 14 yr old". That's statement is factual regarding my feeling, but it's sort of an emotional proxy for something more true like, "I think I'm ugly and stupid and boring and I'm afraid everyone will hate me". That describes how many 14 yr olds think and feel, and as embarrassing as it is to admit, it describes how I sometimes think and feel. Someone might surmise that it's what I meant by my non specific 14 yr old comment, but they might not. Saying it with no ambiguity is so much clearer and real. Authentic. And it makes me sad.

Between therapy sessions I've been writing. About me and what works in my life, and what doesn't. It's about 7000 words now, and I'm not sure what purpose it will serve, but it may not have to serve a purpose beyond the process of writing it. I'll see. 

One of the things I've written about is finding some way to grieve for my past. I've talked about this here on SAS. Everyone my age looks at his or her life and asks the horrible but inescapable, what if? question. As I come to grips with how irrational some of my fears really are, I find that current realization has scary implications for my past. It's one thing to say, "it's silly of me to worry what this person thinks". That can be sort of liberating for that current moment. Looking backward, though, this momentary lightness seems to come at the price of weighing down my past.


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

Had to run for a minute. What follows is something I talked about last session, and what I've done since talking about it.

I've always wanted to be a writer. My dream is to write literary fiction that sells. That combination of surface style and thematic depth. 

That's a dream, a fantasy, and not something I expect to see happen. I'm not sure I can write what I want to, and I realize that great books sometimes never get published, so writing one is only half the task.

Then there's selling the book. The primary reason I haven't seriously attempted to write a novel is that I can't imagine myself being part of marketing it. My love for words and ideas goes limp when I imagine a book signing and the lose-lose that would be; me hoping that no one shows up and mortified if they don't, and perhaps more mortified if they do show up and watch me in the fish bowl. Especially if the book is actually good and that sets up expectations that the man behind it is something or someone that I am not.

That little admission sort of symbolizes what I've done, or not done, with my life. I've stayed safe, kept a low profile, and died a little bit every day for that safe non-feeling. 

Since then I've wondered what I can do, if anything, to forgive myself for the high irony of bleeding myself half to death because I was afraid I might get cut out there is the real world. About all I can do is imagine my 22 yr old self on a good day, a hopeful day, asking me what the next 30 years will be like.

"Sit down son, we need to talk."


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## leonardess (Jun 30, 2009)

I think finding a way to mourn for a lost past is important. I worked some of it out by doing a lot of writing, as you are doing now. I found it difficult to simply say "worrying about what that person thinks of me", without working on letting go of some things from the past first.

Simultaneously, I also worked on seeing a future for myself, one that I could be happy with, that felt like it held some promise and contentment. the more i did this, the more I looked forward. the more I was able to look forward, the less I looked back. It isn't perfect, sometimes I still think "what if", but I'm certain it's not obsessive, it's a normal amount that anyone might ask themselves from time to time, at certain critical points in their lives.

I agree completely, admitting what is the real issue, or what you think is the real issue, or at least stating plainly and nakedly what's really bothering you is painful. but unfortunately it's what must be done. and the more painful it is, the more likely you are to experience transference. which I hate. the whole process makes me cringe, and I don't mind admitting that I have felt much safer and more prone to talk about things on this forum for the sheer anonymity and the fact that it is highly unlikely that anyone here will ever know me. and there is something therapeutic and helpful, I find, about seeing it posted here, and getting comments. i really do want to know what others with the same problem, generally speaking, think.

correlating the feeling that your emotional development stopped at 14 with expressing the feelings that you have that feel like those of a 14 year old - well, yeah, that's what it's like, saying it out loud like that, it makes you realize where you really are. But the thing that goes along with that is, you aren't a 14 year old. YOu are a grown man with intellect and abilities that you didn't have back then, and once you decide to tackle those things, you have more armament at your disposal than an actual 14 year old. I think we're just more acutely aware of the battle for emotional independence and self worth, because we _are_ adults. the good news is, the process can happen faster. how many years would it take for a 14 year old to gain adulthood? It won't take as long now.

Sounds like you're really digging in.


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## leonardess (Jun 30, 2009)

Atticus said:


> I've always wanted to be a writer. My dream is to write literary fiction that sells. That combination of surface style and thematic depth.
> 
> That's a dream, a fantasy, and not something I expect to see happen. I'm not sure I can write what I want to, and I realize that great books sometimes never get published, so writing one is only half the task.


I've always harboured a similar dreamship.



Atticus said:


> Then there's selling the book. The primary reason I haven't seriously attempted to write a novel is that I can't imagine myself being part of marketing it. My love for words and ideas goes limp when I imagine a book signing and the lose-lose that would be; me hoping that no one shows up and mortified if they don't, and perhaps more mortified if they do show up and watch me in the fish bowl. Especially if the book is actually good and that sets up expectations that the man behind it is something or someone that I am not.


YES. I am afraid of that whenever I do anything that gets praised. I bask in it for a while, then feel like it's some sort of facade I have to keep up, and that people will expect more from me, continuously. and if i don't keep up the facade well enough for their liking, then they will drop me. and that, by the way, sounds pretty much like what a teenager might say.



Atticus said:


> That little admission sort of symbolizes what I've done, or not done, with my life. I've stayed safe, kept a low profile, and died a little bit every day for that safe non-feeling.


yep, a continuous, gradual stamping down of one's own spirit, hopes and desires.



Atticus said:


> Since then I've wondered what I can do, if anything, to forgive myself for the high irony of bleeding myself half to death because I was afraid I might get cut out there is the real world. About all I can do is imagine my 22 yr old self on a good day, a hopeful day, asking me what the next 30 years will be like.
> 
> "Sit down son, we need to talk."


I hear you, Dad.

by that I mean, I know what you mean.


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

At my 7-13 counseling appointment I talked quite a bit about how I view my past. All I can add is that I have a strong emotional response, an ironic sadness or regret, when I think about figuring out how to function better now, and what that would mean for my past. At first blush it seems to invalidate my past. Especially if what "fixes" my present is mostly related to accepting myself and my circumstances, it seems painful to think about how much pain I might have saved myself by doing that years ago. But I didn't, so there is no practical value in that kind of thinking.

My therapist was persuasive in saying that another thing to consider is that maybe this is how things are supposed to work out. I know she has a different belief system than I do, and hers includes a religious based premise that there is a plan to things. She knows how our beliefs diverge, and as soon as she talked about how things were meant to be, she started to back off of the comment, but I quickly interrupted her. I did so because my belief isn't so much that there is an orchestrated or ordained plan, but that all the things that influence a person like their genetics, upbringing and environment, and later their choices, all converge to form what amounts to a plan anyway. 
What she said clicked for me. Maybe I'm learning something, because this "past is prologue" thought was comforting.

The other element I added that seems relevant is that I often shrink away from focusing on how I have to be here (this life and these circumstances) because I don't appreciate the "I" in that statement. If I at least imagine accepting the basic person I am, and god forbid, maybe appreciating him, then I can look at the past as the steps or the formula that created this decent, lovable person. In that way the past, with all the choices I wonder about and all the opportunities I appear to have passed up, is a valuable prologue to a present that I appreciate.

In that way I redeem the past by living well in the present, and by crediting the experiences that formed me. Shyt!


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

I've probably had 3 sessions since I last posted here. I've reached an impasse with therapy, the same impasse I've reached before in therapy, and similar to where I get stuck struggling with things on my own.

I'm stuck at the point where exposure isn't helping. For me, life isn't a ****ing Nike ad, and so just doing it not only fails to help, but it seems to hurt my cause. I've almost always been able to force myself to endure social situations to some extent without really getting any more comfortable in those situations. I can do homework assignments well enough. I can develop a fear hierarchy in my sleep, and I could do (muddling through) the easier half tomorrow and I doubt I could do the tougher half in a lifetime of tomorrows.

My beliefs about myself and the way the world works get in my way. Nothing unique about that. I've had a fledgling awareness of this for 30 years, and a well developed understanding the last decade. Still, this understanding doesn't mix with or support my social behavior. That's where I'm stuck.

I don't know how to change my beliefs. I can state them, refute them, and at least mentally reframe my experience in the context of an alternative belief. But nothing changes.

So while I feel stuck, this seems to be where I need to be right now. I'm very frustrated and pretty discouraged at times, but I believe (there's that word) that there's a way for my beliefs to help me just a tiny bit, and for something like:

Small *real* change in belief>>>behavior a bit less stressful>>>belief a bit strengthened>>>supports behavior a bit more firmly>>>and so on.

Something has to serve as a catalyst, and in my case I think that something is a thought or belief.


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## mjhea0 (Oct 1, 2009)

Hey- So, I just read over your experiences in therapy, and I must say that there are quite a few parallels between our experiences. I started seeing a mindfulness-based therapist in November of 2009. Since then I've had a lot of struggles dealing with therapy in general and the emotions that are stirred up. I'll highlight some of these below ...



> I get real intellectually active when I start to feel emotions like fear or shame or sadness. I think about what I'm feeling, incessantly and under the guise of researching some solution. This interferes with feeling it. There's a time for thinking about why I was sad or afraid or ashamed. There's a time for considering whether I could have behaved differently and gotten a better emotional result. But that comes later.


I'm the same: Whenever the session is getting tough, when I'm deep in my emotions, I try to pull myself back to the logical portion of my brain by either trying to figure out why the emotions are there to begin with or changing the subject all together. Emotions are difficult to look at, and the memories beneath them are even uglier. I buried them a long time ago. When they come up, especially in the presence of another, I just want to push them right back down. I'm starting to realize that the time for rational thought is after the session, when I'm back in the safety of my apartment. There, I can analyze the session and why those emotions are there to begin with via writing.



> Between therapy sessions I've been writing. About me and what works in my life, and what doesn't. It's about 7000 words now, and I'm not sure what purpose it will serve, but it may not have to serve a purpose beyond the process of writing it. I'll see.
> 
> One of the things I've written about is finding some way to grieve for my past. I've talked about this here on SAS. Everyone my age looks at his or her life and asks the horrible but inescapable, what if? question. As I come to grips with how irrational some of my fears really are, I find that current realization has scary implications for my past. It's one thing to say, "it's silly of me to worry what this person thinks". That can be sort of liberating for that current moment. Looking backward, though, this momentary lightness seems to come at the price of weighing down my past.


First, I think that writing in this sense is more than just writing. It's liberating. Even if no one is reading it. For me, it's a way to release a lot of things from my past, and it helps to find new things -- new things that can be looked at during therapy.

Second, in my opinion, trying to reason with your thoughts in the moment ("it's silly of me to worry what this person thinks") should be used just in the moment. I don't think trying to apply CBT in retrospect does much good. I understand the thinking, because, frankly, I engage in it too, but it doesn't serve me. I can pull apart social situations until I find the final causes, but where does it leave me? It doesn't help. I think that it's important to pick apart the emotions from the past and figure out how they create meaning in the present -- and how they weigh you down.



> The primary reason I haven't seriously attempted to write a novel is that I can't imagine myself being part of marketing it. My love for words and ideas goes limp when I imagine a book signing and the lose-lose that would be; me hoping that no one shows up and mortified if they don't, and perhaps more mortified if they do show up and watch me in the fish bowl. Especially if the book is actually good and that sets up expectations that the man behind it is something or someone that I am not.


It's hard for me to take any sort of compliments when I feel like such crap inside. Anytime someone says something nice about me, I generally throw most of what's said out. My mind then says something like, _Well, if you only knew this about me, then you'd probably think otherwise. _I've had a few pieces of my work published, and, sure, it feels good, but there's another part of me that hates it. The first time I had something published, I posted a link to it on Facebook. It was so hard, because a part of me wanted my friends to read it, like it, and comment about it, and another part wanted them to either not read it or read it and not like it.



> My belief isn't so much that there is an orchestrated or ordained plan, but that all the things that influence a person like their genetics, upbringing and environment, and later their choices, all converge to form what amounts to a plan anyway.


Lots of people like to talk about there being a "plan" or "everything happens for a reason", that sort of thing. I just don't really know what that means. Does that mean there's no free will? How can there be meaning if everything is already decided? That said, I'm starting to believe more in connections -- connections between _my _choices to _your _choices and _everyone else's. _If everything is connected, doesn't that imply order? But is "order" the same as a "plan"?



> My beliefs about myself and the way the world works get in my way. Nothing unique about that. I've had a fledgling awareness of this for 30 years, and a well developed understanding the last decade. Still, this understanding doesn't mix with or support my social behavior. That's where I'm stuck.
> 
> I don't know how to change my beliefs. I can state them, refute them, and at least mentally reframe my experience in the context of an alternative belief. But nothing changes.


My way of thinking is self-fulfilling. There's no doubt about that. I go into most social situations thinking I'm going to fail. Not surprisingly, in my mind, I do fail. I understand that if I just change my thoughts I can probably change my actions, which will probably change the way I feel, rationally speaking.

Changing beliefs is tricky, and it's one thing that I've had to deal with a lot recently. My parents are very closed-minded. They're very set in their opinions and beliefs. Getting them to listen, let alone budge, is extremely difficult. I believe in dialectics, and as long as someone is willing to listen, that person is open to change. It sounds like you are very open-minded, and it sounds like you are engaged in a very large dialectical discussion within yourself. I think that change will eventually occur. If you continue to state your beliefs and challenge them, synthesis will occur ... it just takes time. We all want change, and we all want it NOW. One of the hardest things for me to understand is that I can't change in one night. It's going to take years for me to see any significant changes. I've been trying very hard recently to start enjoying the process, and I've somewhat succeeded through writing.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing more about your experiences in therapy Good luck!


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

Thanks for the response, MJ. I think you're right about the time this takes. I guess at points I have to accept on faith that the process I'm going through will help, even when there may be little or no immediate evidence in support. I can do that intellectually, but emotionally I still tend to have the patience of a pre-schooler. No offense to any pre-schoolers reading this.

I know that I want this to be and believe that it should be a logical, orderly process, and at the same time I know it won't be. I know and see the flaw in this. And yet.... :sigh

Thanks again for stopping by.


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## mjhea0 (Oct 1, 2009)

I know exactly what you mean. I don't know how many times I've come out of therapy or meditation or something and just felt like I wanted some tangible evidence that I'm getting better. I just want someone to tell me I'm on the right track. Someone to say, "You're doing the right thing. Just keep at it." I mean, I enjoy everything I'm doing, but, in the end, I still want it to have some practical value.


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## kid a (Aug 26, 2010)

I can relate to the random emotional outbursts. Its better than holding all of it in, those type of people become serial killers. 
I hope you reach what the standpoint with yourself that your trying to get to


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

There's something about sitting in a house alone at 2 AM, rain pelting an awning and thunder sometimes exploding over the rain, and seeing the sharp edges of lightning while staring at a blank computer screen. There's something about that, but I won't name what that thing is. Naming things gives them power.

So I won't name the thing that tells me I'm ill equipped to meet any of life's significant challenges. The thing that sifts through my experience to find evidence to support it. That thing. 

Nor will I name the belief that all feelings are to be avoided, and consequently contact with people is to be avoided because that contact, (stay with me now) causes feelings. And this life of near soli ****ing tude doesn't. No, wait.

Nomenclature will be absent as I consider how I'm damned near killing myself to avoid disappointing the few people who are in my life, mainly my kids. I may just be less use to them dead than alive. Head scratcher, that one.

And I won't nom de anything when I write about how every step I consider seems cost too much. How tra---- (almost named that one) that makes me feel. How self pitying that looks and probably is, 
(F it, I'm naming ****) and yet how real and justified and necessary it seems to say that I'm poor in part because I love my kids and passed on opportunities to earn more money because of the time away it would have meant and now I just want to help her more with college and to continue voice lessons for her sister and I don't know if I can and I can't do much of anything really so why do I expect to do it all and they'll love me anyway and I know that except that they won't if I don't and yet they will still love me but I won't feel it so it's pretty much impossible and there is so much more.

Punctuation will now return. There seems to be so much more of this kind of crap. My head is filled with clever traps and they snag me minute by minute and hour by hour. Therapy has shown me where they are and how many there are and how effectively they work to confine me. I'd rather not know the scope of my twisted thinking, but knowing gives me some chance to disable the traps. 

I'll sleep on that.


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

I had another therapy session on 9-30. During the last few I've talked, a lot, about things I see as symptoms. That has its place I guess, but I've covered that ground already, and so more than anything now it distracts me away from more productive stuff. This last meeting I talked more about what I see as core issues.

I don't like where I am, but where I am makes sense to me. That's important. There isn't much mystery left. To some extent that's because I've been thorough in laying out the combination of inherent tendencies, experiences, and most import, interpretations of my experiences that have mixed together to limit me. Those interpretations made sense out of my life as a kid and probably served me well as a kid who was relatively weak, irresponsible, impulsive, and confused, by adult standards, and mostly invisible to important adults in my life. I really think I did the best I could with a pretty crappy situation.

The problem is that those interpretations became the permanent lens I see the world through. I still see the world as a pretty frightening place, and I see myself as it's almost helpless victim. Like a child might, I believe that I lack any personal resources that I need to do well in almost any aspect of adult life. This belief is really a web of interrelated beliefs and beliefs that refute objections to or obscure the absurdity of some of the deeper beliefs. I believe other, positive things, but those beliefs get overshadowed by the negatives. The negatives are familiar, and feel kind of like home. 

Another reason there isn't much mystery left is because I'm willing to believe there isn't. Maybe that's the first change in my sick belief system; I've given up the old belief that there is some more complicated explanation. I know that I've held some of these beliefs and thought in these distorted ways most of my life, and it will be a challenge to change. 

On a beautiful day, healthy people see the blue sky and enjoy the warm sun on their skin. I shade my eyes against the glare and curse the unfairness of my being a bit light sensitive. Maybe sunglasses would let me see the day a bit more realistically? I hope (believe?) they would.


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## leonardess (Jun 30, 2009)

I have read all of your posts here, from before and the recent ones today.

I will offer my opinion, for whatever it is worth.

What all this tells me you are seriously grappling with is the issue of self acceptance. That you are fine, as you are. That Paul, the man who gives himself assignments such as getting the mail to the house, is perfectly fine, and has done well with what he was given to work with.

It is difficult to say about the past: I did the best I could with what I had. Many people, no matter what age, have this same issue. A 20 or 30-something will feel it as much as a 40 or 50-something. My point with that is, you are not alone, and perhaps when realized, it may not seem so bad. I found that once I was able to accept this, I was more able to determine to make the time I have left the best I can possibly make it, because at any one point along anyone's life, they are doing the best they can with what they have.

with self acceptance comes a more general acceptance of life as it is.

This came with tiny things. Dropping a line in the middle of a conversation that was appropos of nothing. And just letting it be. Thinking, yep, there it is. I said that. It makes no sense, and I'll just sit with that. Let's see what happens next. Accepting my mistakes, my complete lack of perfection. Accepting my faults. Acknowledging my strengths, claiming them. For example, I am creative. There will always be someone who is less creative, and there will always be someone who is more creative.

Small things are where to start. After all, children, even slightly "bigger" children of 12 and 13, learn to take pride in small things. They write a poem for class. It may not be very good, but they write it and they recite it, and they get a decent grade. Only now, you must trust yourself to give yourself an appropriate grade, not to make of yourself a whipping boy.

Emotions: this started very small and basic for me as well. I got the book CBT for Dummies. I know I keep banging on about this book, but in it are a few very crucial, very plain and basic pages that explain emotions, what they are, and what they do, and how they are manifested. I found this enormously helpful in naming what I was feeling and why, and in reaction to what. From this very simplistic beginning, I worked and developed it into the most emotional maturity I have ever known. It calmed me and brought me maturity in ways that I needed it most. I combined this with writing everything down, and I mean everything. I wrote constantly. It is better than keeping it bottled up, and it is better than waiting until it blows up (as it inevitably will). When I began, I was anxioux about every little thing, every little or big emotion, the events which provoked them. I was anxious about _feeling_. Eventually I saw that to feel does not mean that I will crumble, or that the world will end, or my life is sh*t, or that I am weak. It means that I am human after all, and I can feel (which is so much better than not, because when you can, you feel like a real person. YOu are you. It has just occurred to me - so often here people ask, what does it mean, "just be yourself"? Perhaps that is what it is - feeling the way you feel about anything from moment to moment, in reaction to what is happening around you, and possessing the security of knowing that you can deal with it, that you are okay and whatever is happening is okay whatever you feel about it. I don't know. I'm just guessing. Besides, once you decide, it stops mattering).

I hope I don't come across as endlessly fascinated by me and my own process. I am hoping that something can be found in my own experience that may benefit you. Group therapy is kind of like that.

I think that pushing ahead with therapy when it starts to feel unrewarding may be a good thing. The ennui you may feel about it may mean something else entirely - it may be an old defense mechanism of avoiding because things are actually getting more difficult.


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## leonardess (Jun 30, 2009)

PS- you ought to be proud of yourself.


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## mjhea0 (Oct 1, 2009)

Atticus said:


> The problem is that those interpretations became the permanent lens I see the world through. I still see the world as a pretty frightening place, and I see myself as it's almost helpless victim. Like a child might, I believe that I lack any personal resources that I need to do well in almost any aspect of adult life. This belief is really a web of interrelated beliefs and beliefs that refute objections to or obscure the absurdity of some of the deeper beliefs. I believe other, positive things, but those beliefs get overshadowed by the negatives. The negatives are familiar, and feel kind of like home.


To a certain extent I think that every one holds beliefs and judgments and interpretations from their childhood. Interpretations serve us; they are familiar; without them, who would we be? Accepting that, the point of therapy has been for me to reprogram those interpretations--seeing the world for what it is, without my subjective interpretations.

Every therapy session is a struggle, but my hope is that after each session, I'm one step closer to contentment.

Awareness allows us to shine a light on those parts of ourselves that we generally don't analyze, and it's the first part of change. By shining the light on those aspects over and over again, we open ourselves up to the possibility of change.

It's frustrating because it can't happen over night; it's frustrating because there are no progress charts, we don't even know if we're heading in the right direction; it's frustrating because it's hard.


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## Knowla (Feb 23, 2010)

If you write anything that gets published can you please let us here know?


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

Thanks for the feedback, folks. I really enjoy reading other people's perspectives on this stuff.

*Leonardess*, acceptance is definitely a missing piece in the puzzle for me. I can quibble over how distorted my thinking and beliefs are, and I can re-word and qualify them until they sound different but still mean about the same thing to me. But I can't argue with the wisdom of accepting what is right now.

Part of what makes it tough is that my view of "reality" is so harsh, but that's no excuse. I'm able to translate my bleak view into something I can accept. I'm just in the lazy habit of not challenging myself.

I'm learning, slowly, that acceptance isn't a fight, but a surrender. That's calming and a bit disgusting at the same time.

*mjhea0*, I think I'm attempting something similar regarding my interpretations. I'm trying to merely observe what's going on, attending to the surface meaning of things I need to notice, without adding my spin. That red traffic light means that I should stop, but it doesn't mean I'm an idiot for being stopped and likley late for work.

I also need to talk with myself about some of the deeper, pervasive beliefs I hold. I get quite stuck in the idea of fairness, for example. As if there's some court I can appeal to if ordinary things don't go my way. This can be damned near disabling, playing havoc with my efforts to accept things, to come full circle. My first and last objection is that it's just not fair.

So thank you both for helping me think.

And *Knowla*, if your comment was directed at me, I will make this place a very early stop on my book tour


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## rubyruby (Jun 17, 2009)

It's a cliche but "write what you know".


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

I had a long, sad, bout of self pity tuesday night. I think it may do me some good, though.

Too often I indulge in self pity, which I define as almost morbid thoughts about my real and imagined shortcomings. I'm not talking about a moment or two of "why me", but rather hours of cycling through the same internal complaints about how I'm getting less than I want and need, and how that's really terrible and should change a whole lot right now.

There's nothing new about me feeling sorry for myself. What is new is the way I reacted to it. I learned something from it. First, I learned that it can sneak up on me. I learned that I seem to purposely camoflauge it until I become like the frog in the slowly heating water. Soon it's boiling and then it's too late.

Maybe most of all I learned, a-fricking-gain, how futile the whole process is. And how silly it looks, in the light of sanity, to be trying to convince a nonexistent judge and jury that my mostly imaginary slights and shortcomings need to be redressed somehow. WTF? 

From my therapy and really common sense, I know that while I may not be able to change something about myself or my past, I do have a choice about how I deal with it. Self pity is, afterall, a choice. Generally a crappy, self defeating, and almost laughably ineffective choice. I don't have to engage in it. 

None of these insights are entirely new, but the way I think about them, and more importanlty feel about them, is different. I'm kinda pleased with myself.


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## mjhea0 (Oct 1, 2009)

Atticus said:


> I had a long, sad, bout of self pity tuesday night. I think it may do me some good, though.
> 
> Too often I indulge in self pity, which I define as almost morbid thoughts about my real and imagined shortcomings. I'm not talking about a moment or two of "why me", but rather hours of cycling through the same internal complaints about how I'm getting less than I want and need, and how that's really terrible and should change a whole lot right now.
> 
> ...


It's interesting how you can look at one thing at one point in time, and then go back to it sometime later and see it totally differently. My therapist always goes back to specific hardships for me, over and over again, and more often than not, I've change so much since our last encounter, my new view is slightly different.

Also, I wouldn't say "nonexistent judge and jury" because they are very real inside you. Now the things you give that judge and jury--criticisms and judgments and what not--may be real or imagined.

I think those thoughts sneak up on you because you allow that to happen. I do the same. Negative thoughts are usually not the most pleasant things to deal with and so we're constantly suppressing them until suppression doesn't work, and there they are, in-front of you--and by then it's too late.


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

I had kind of let this thing go dormant. It has some value for me, and so I wanted to pick up with it again.

I've been in a rut with therapy, and in general, and so that's probably why I haven't posted here. I go on about one issue or several related issues and while that's a bit cathartic in the short run, it does nothing positive in the long run. I need to consistently change my focus. 

I've reached some conclusions, and while I may backslide and act against these conclusions, they're still valid. For me there are three paths I need to walk to get healthy, in no particular order.

1. Learn from and forgive my past. This is an active process that requires my participation. 

2. Manage my OCD tendencies, which left unmanaged, hijack my efforts to understand myself and send me into a depressing fit of ruminating.

3. Accept my present circumstances without complaint or objection, and make the most of them.

Of course those are broad statements and of course they lack detail, but they're still true and they encompasse everythy ill of mine I can think of. They're all things I can do, or at least honestly strive to do, if imperfectly. 

I talked this over with the therapist, and she thinks more doing and less planning to do is a good plan. So........


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## Atticus (Nov 10, 2003)

Managed to erase a post that was 80% completed. Hate it when that happens.

I went to the therapist last week and I had some good things to report. That kind of surprised me as I sat down to talk. I think it's partly due to real progress, and partly due to my adjusting my expectations and focusing on what therapy can do for me. That in itself is a type of progress.

I'm taking a three pronged approach to therapy these days. 

1. Make peace with the past
2. Accept the present without complaint
3. Manage my OCD tendencies (compulsive, ruminating behavior)

I didn't make any peace with my past, but I didn't have any bouts of heavy regret either. 

I did OK with #2. I define acceptance as either letting something go, or doing something constructive about it. I did OK on this, with only a bit of complaining in the form of ruminating, and a few legitimate efforts to make things better. 

On #3, while I did ruminate a bit, it was minimal and much better than I've been doing.

I talked about another thing I noticed. I've been handling light social interactions better lately. Not every one and not necessarily with dramatically different results, but still, better. I'm normally pretty passive and I find myself wanting to get the interaction over with before I mess it up, which I'm often able to do. On several occasions the past few weeks, though, I've let it unfold a bit and even filled some awkward silences. That's big for me.

I've also messed up a time or two, but I did so without the usual attendant self flagelation. Also good.

The other thing I was pleased about was that I let myself be pleased about these efforts. I noticed them, sort of the way I notice every little ****ing mistake I make. This was actually balanced, or maybe even slanted in my favor a bit.

What's this world coming to that I might credit my self for successes and forgive myself my sins :yes I have work to do, but somehow it seems like the work I've done is paying off a bit. Another :yes


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