Search results

@greenleaf I have done a fair bit of research. We work with a pediatrician who did her doctoral research on intergenerational abuse patterns. I have very carefully crafted a life in which I can overcome many of the neglect/poverty/abuse cycles that my family has lived in for many generations...

I'm going to defend my neighbors just a tad while agreeing I need to find a different way of dealing with them. :) My neighborhood is about 1/3 old, retired white people. The rest of the population is wonderfully diverse. My city is one of the most diverse cities in the country. The folks who...

I have a fierce glower I turn on. Once I turned around and started screaming profanity at the top of my lungs and the group of young men ran.

It isn't that I worry about what they say... exactly... I wish they would stop giving me clothes. Then they follow up with asking why I'm not wearing the clothes they gave me. Uhm, because it didn't fit right and my clothes do fit. Yes yours didn't have a hole in the knee... but I don't care...

@Eleanor .... your brain is a wonderful place. The way you have with words is fabulous. You... Oh man. Positive feelings. What awesome questions! I'd be happy to try to answer. Thank you so much for thinking of them. Yes! Tons of overlapping things. Teasing them out is part of my difficulty. Oh...

Sorry this was so triggering. I've seen those Cracked articles before. I feel like Cracked is strangely high quality journalism these days. :) It's not me, it is the values that society has drilled into my head... but then I don't know what to replace it with. I feel... empty.

I try very hard to be nice to my neighbors. They've been very good to me for a decade now. We exchange presents around holidays and when folks have to go to hospital we will bring meals and such. I really like the community I lucked into and I don't want them to feel bad. I know they offer me...

Well, part of it is: I always pay myself first. I save and save and save and save. When I lived on $1200/month (in a very high cost of living area) I always maintained a savings of a minimum of $3,000 and it has grown from there. I started small with investments: $20 at a time. Then I married my...

I feel like this is part of it. My ability to help people is very important to my sense of self. I actually presented on overcoming impostor syndrome last month at a conference for writers. Heh. It's a fascinating thing! I definitely have it. They say up to 80% of people have it at some point.

This is going to sound really weird and some people are probably going to think, "Poor little rich girl, shut up." I can live with that. With that introduction, I am currently really financially privileged. This is weird for me. I grew up very poor. I have a lot of poor-people habits. I appear...

I get this a lot. I laugh and say, "I was raised by wolves so my idea of 'normal' may seem a bit odd." Often people say, "Uhm I guess." I make a lot of references to gangs. I spent a lot of time around gang culture as a kid and references are peppered all through my speech and I don't even...

Whooping cough is one of the ones that is less severe if you are vaccinated but it doesn't really prevent you from getting it. I hope you recover quickly. Vaccination is a tricky topic.

I have no contact with my family. Sometimes cutting off the people who are poisoning you is the only way to create space in your room for people who won't abuse you.

Your kid is who you need to think about right now. Not you nor your husband. What is best for the kid? Fight for *him* if you can't fight for yourself.

I brought it up to continue explaining what was happening in an ongoing situation. I don't desire her help with the topic. She just wanted to know how things were progressing. I do a lot of treating therapists as substitute parents. I want them to know what is going on with me, not necessarily...

I do well with folks who are retiring. That feels like a healthy, good sort of release for me in a relationship. I can wish those folks well. I really struggle with therapists deciding to pursue other career options so they stop seeing me. That feels more personal. Retiring I support. :)...

Severe dissociation with awful attachment and horrible trauma: Yup, that's me.

I come in with most of the information about my traumas written down. I bring in many sheets of paper to my first appointment. I bring in a Cast of Characters with brief biographical information on everyone I will be talking about (so the therapist doesn't have to waste time saying "Who was that...

I'm having some interpersonal issues with someone in my life. The full circumstance isn't important. My therapist wanted to delve deep into defending the other persons point of view. Given that I've already spent a lot of hours writing about their point of view on my blog I was cranky about...

Is it justice? I don't know. I wish ... I wish things had been different for me.

Hoo boy. I won't say "definitely better". It's fraught. I am not a stable person. I am getting slowly more stable... but not at the rate that outside observers wish. It is not ok for me to pay for services at a rate someone else feels like delivering them. I'm asking for what I need, how I need...

There have been studies that show that women who wear makeup are perceived as generally more likable and competent. This makes me angry. On low-self-esteem days I wear some makeup because it does seem to cause people to be nicer to me. Mostly I don't bother. My husband likes me just fine...

I wasn't willing to pay a lot of money to figure out what her issue was. That's the thing about therapy, it's expensive. I can't pay to find out why other people are shutting me down.

The thing is... when someone needs to talk about something... telling them that they aren't allowed to until an outside observer decides they are "ready" is... That's never worked for me. It has never resulted in those people deciding I get a turn to talk. I'm never calm enough for them. I'm...

I've dealt with this. During phone screens I say, "I need to be able to talk about trauma that goes to 11 on a scale of 1-10 without you flinching or changing the topic or making your discomfort the focus of a session. Can you handle that?" I haven't been fired for being scary in a few years...