Search results

I had a pretty good last three weeks - I was back east at a conference and then visiting family. It was a good visit overall - got lots of time at the beach. My daughter and I were in a protracted power struggle over school work and... something else I don't quite understand. But we survived...

Thanks,@Cashew . My H and I had a big HUGE blow up today. He said divorce (again) and I'm just too tired and discouraged to argue about it. I thought we were beyond all this. But apparently not. And it sort of blind sided me, and I'm really really stressed out for a few reasons and tired after a...

1-5 and 9. I don't do so much. Why? I think it is the philosophical training. I have VERY philosophical habits of thought which are rigorous to a fault. And they are habits. 6-8 and 10 seem to me a bit different. They seem less amenable to purely cognitive intervention - but maybe not...Maybe...

HOW COME I HAVEN"T BEEN GETTING NOTIFICATIONS OF THIS????? Ok, but here I am. And catching up but OMG Hope, I am so so sorry to hear about your mother. There is nothing else to do right? So why not go to a concert and check out. Sounds, I don't know, healthy? to me. What's the alternative? Sit...

It is not an excuse for emotional or verbal abuse either. A cause, maybe. But not an excuse. Or a justification.

Thank you, @void and @Pencil - I'll give it a go in a day or two. I'm kind of broken up right now. But I need to figure some stuff out and this might help....

There was a monster... but it wasn't you.... @SheilaKathy So sorry about all of that... and wish there'd been much better protection and support for the little you...

I just want to point out - in case anyone has not taken the time to notice this - how totally and amazingly world shatteringly awesome and wise and compassionate this thread/discussion is. The Earth might well tilt slightly on its axis due to stuff like this. In a good way.

BRAVO!!! Standing ovation!!!! Huge huge huge stuff!!! Breakthrough. Pizza for everyone. :tup::tup::tup::D

I haven't had this myself - but I've sure WATCHED it happen a lot of times. I've tried four times to respond with what I want to say... but it is difficult to because it is so likely to SOUND invalidating. And I don't want you to go down that rabbit hole again. So how's this to start? Your...

I had a cat, and an imaginary friend. I clearly have attachment problems now - (ambivalent/anxious? the standard categories don't seem to quite fit me...) I was mostly attached to my cat, and places. Lots going on with my relationship with my daughter at this point - who is attached but...

This is a wild guess .... might neurofeedback/biofeedback be a way "in?" My idea is this - that since this is an habituated response - can a counter-respose be habituated? Specifically - can you activate that state/program on purpose? Is it all or nothing? If it is NOT all or nothing you could...

When I say that things effect children differently I actually mean some pretty specific things. Like: withdrawal of affection IS life threatening for infants. There are cognitive effects in childhood that are not the same as in adults in part because of differences in linguistic and cognitive...

Didn't read the whole thread. I am just responding to the question about "shoulds." (Putting on professorial hat) "Should" indicates a statement in the prescriptive mode. Thus whatever follows the "should" is prescription based on a prior evaluation. Prescriptions/evaluations always presume...

FWIW - I'm kind of hopeful that as early childhood development thinking gets more disseminated that the powers that be will realize that things effect children DIFFERENTLY - so developmental trauma must be treated differently than adult trauma. I am also slightly hopeful that with more (and...

Keep in mind that the necessity of staying away from bad family is part of what makes THEM (not you) BAD. Abuse and enabling abuse is directly bad, sure, but the ripples from it... are sometimes just as bad or even worse.

You can say anything you like. From "I don't want to talk about it." to "We are estranged" to @Fadeaway's "they are dead" to completely ignoring the question with a non-sequitor "Do you think it will rain next week?" Bottom line is it is not anyone's business, so you don't have any obligation...

I swear to God, @Valentino, you are the most insightful therapist ever. I have to read this a few times and let it sink in. It simply never occurred to me MY PANIC might invoke FEAR and then use argument as aggression. Which is CLEARLY nuts because I practice a profession where people use...

In his case it is pretty clear because his mother and his father both physically abused him. His mother emotionally and verbally abused him and trained him to serious co-dependence which lasted until she died. Love = mother? I have taken to doing this - and ordinarily he is not. It does help...

You said that you acted in a way that demonstrated FEAR when your T said "You LOVE them." The major difficulty right now with my H (now that we have worked through a million other things...) is that when his brain goes into PANIC he appears angry to me - and I get defensive and he takes that...

@scout86 thank you for your post above. I think it was the last little bit I needed to help break up a logjam in my understanding of my H.

Reference on black slave owners Link Removed It is significant that they were mostly from Louisiana (which had been a french colony and had quite a different culture than other Southern or northern states..) The culture of New Orleans around race was ... amazing... If one reads history with...

History geek pedantry warning. Not exactly. 1) The first american revolution, in the summer of 1774, was a broad based non-violent takeover of the existing civil government institutions. It was precipitated by the crown usurping, as its sole and exclusive privilege, the powers to appoint civil...

Will do. Honestly, @Cashew these guys are going to have to work pretty hard to have any 'street cred' with me on these topics. You never know, of course, they could be "ones" of us, tho!

A small aside, ‘The heart of love, however, is neither affective nor cognitive. It is volitional. That a person cares about or that he loves something has less to do with how things make him feel, or with his opinions about them, than with the more or less stable motivational structures that...