Search results

I appreciate people's comments about focusing on what one values and acting on them. I think that when you're abused as a child, you don't get to have your needs and values expressed, and my experience has been that I continued to suppress them in adulthood because they were problematic for my...

When I do things that hit up against my triggers but handle it successfully, it's like I open up old wounds in order to air them out. It takes time and tolerance to endure the feelings of raw pain and grossness, but it's a lot better than keeping it closed and festering. I think the dream was...

I don't know if you're up for it, but how about just going for it? I believe that it helps us check our distortions by doing what we fear and finding out that it's not the catastrophic consequence we expected. A repetition of such exposures to our fears help us create new habits. To me, no...

I agree with @somerandomguy . Giving notice is just a convention, and typically only if you don't want to burn bridges. Congrats on the new job! I hope you continue to check yourself for the distortions that make you feel incompetent.

@LovingH , thanks for the words of sympathy. I totally understand the feelings behind the need for reassurance when you're feeling "clingy". I may not always act on it and as I heal, it's becoming less intense, but the need for reassurance when I'm feeling insecure can be really intense. I think...

I think I have a slightly different perspective to offer. I tend to think that the critical voices come from the internal censors that tried to keep me alive when I was a child by monitoring, scrutinizing and squashing thoughts and behaviors which would get me into trouble with my parents. The...

This is hard to articulate. I feel like there is fear of humiliation at the bottom of this. Needs are natural, and when they don't get met, according to Peter Walker, we at first get angry (protest emotion), and then if we still don't get them met, we conclude that they are wrong and bad, that...

It's pretty awful to feel the way you're feeling now. I think there is a ray of hope in the fact that you recognize where the feeling is coming from, and that your feelings of worthlessness are not really from you. I wanted to respond to this quote. I think knowing that a parent wishes you were...

I wanted to post an update: after a few weeks of me panicking on the inside that my sharing thoughts on anger was scaring him off (I was convinced at times that he was going to leave me without any proof in fact), my bf and I have come to a good understanding. He said he was confused and didn't...

Sorry for getting in on the conversation so late. I just wanted to say that as far as I know, no one is incompetent at their core, and if you think so, it's almost 100% likely that it's cognitive distortion. I understand that learning disabilities can affect performance, but you could focus on...

Thanks @Ronin! You use the MTG acronym like a pro.

I totally get the experience you were having here, @mumstheword, and I think you exhibit a lot of self-awareness in describing how you were feeling and what you thought was underlying the anger. My T thinks that a lot of anger comes from hurt, and in particular fear of abandonment and being...

I did say in my post that I sometimes felt pissed and didn't show it. In fact, I said it over and over again throughout my posts that there is a distinction. I think I understand the "triangle". I understand that one can feel anger and still not exhibit it in action. But part of this thread was...

I pretty much agree with this, and I don't think I said once that anger is bad or immoral or anything like that. But I do think it's a second-order phenomenon like someone said, so a lot of factors go into it, both affective and cognitive. My T is trained in CBT. I wanted to share a story about...

Thanks. That's a good perspective to keep in mind. Maybe I'm being a little judgmental about parents who stay in abusive situations. I understand that they probably don't intend harm by staying despite the fact that it does do harm to the child in the end.

Yes, @mumstheword , I think we're mostly in agreement. It sounds like you guys have grown together and work well. I think the key thing I was trying to say that you also seem to agree with is that wherever we are with our relationship to anger, if we can agree that unchecked, shit-throwing anger...

It took me a long time to realize that I harbored anger at my passive mom who allowed my aggressive dad to abuse us. I think the passive parent is all the more frustrating because they often do not take responsibility for their part, as my mom did. Until the day she died, she never acknowledged...

Thanks so much for all of your thoughtful responses. I wanted to try and hit up as many as I could, but undoubtedly I'll miss some really good points. I feel like some people misunderstood me, but even then they had some really good points. And there was a lot of you that I think hit it on the...

Yes, I see that. I think I differ in that I'm tougher than most on yelling and venting. The research shows that the more angry you get, the more angry you get. I think that's just common sense. If I want to get better at writing, I write a lot more. If I want to get better at acting charitably...

By the way, I was worried that my bf would be put off by our discussion on anger, and he did seem to have some sort of reaction to it. That was Sunday. I saw him today, and we were happy as could be to see each other and had a nice time. I tend to be HV about the things I say and do in a...

I'm not looking for perfection. My T thinks that I was basically floating the idea that anger can be talked through versus taking turns ranting at each other, and she thinks it will plant in his mind an idea that we will probably return to once we have our first fight. We can then see if we can...

@enough, I think you're right that anger goes both ways. My T thinks that anger is merely a signal of something wrong. Figuring out what is wrong and what to do about it can be influenced. Yelling and ranting are not inevitably linked to that. I like your thought about the spleen. Makes a good...

Thanks for contextualizing, @Sideways. I always appreciate your comments, and look forward to more in the future. Yeah, anger is a sensitive topic for me too. I feel like it brings out stuff because it's about deep felt needs at the core and about the ways we've protected ourselves (by lashing...

I talked to my T about this today, and she gave me some perspective as well. As you all are saying, I too wonder if I'm suppressing or minimizing my anger because of my history. She and I both felt that I am not suppressing my anger in an unhealthy way. She thought that I do in fact deal with...

I think both of you make good points about how already anticipating problems and providing guidelines is kind of like asking not to be abused in advanced, which is not helpful because if the person has that in him, he's going to abuse anyway, and if he doesn't, then I'm running interference...