Questions from therapist - What to work on & how would I know things were better?

[LucyLou]

My therapist asked me to think of a couple of things this week and I'm not sure why but it took a while for me to come up with answers.

1. What I'd like to work on/ how I'd like things to be different.
So for this. I'd say a big thing that I think I need to work on is how I see myself/how I think others see me. I'm always so self critical and think others feel the same about me, which seemed like a bigger thing, when it came to work....I convinced myself that people didn't like me / they thought I wasn't good at my job and I constantly second guessed myself, which made each task longer as I was repeating myself, to make sure I felt like I was doing it right.

I'd like to feel more confident in myself and not be a "people pleaser" - I tend to put other people before myself

Another thing I'd like to be different is the fact that I'd like to get myself back to the gym but at the same, I don't want to get in to an obsessive pattern about it and start with the ED behaviours (constantly weighing etc) again because at the mo, I am doing much better with it.


2. If all your problems were solved, how would you know things are better? How would you feel? What would life look like.

Not too sure how to even answer this!

I think I'd know things were better, if I started having more good days than bad / I wasn't so in my own head and overthinking things and I felt more comfortable going out by myself.

I'm not sure if I've adequately answered here. I don't know how life would look, if problems were solved but I know it would probably feel pretty strange! Whenever I do have good days, it's like I'm always waiting on something else to go wrong and that in itself can feel pretty unsettling....I wouldn't know how to kind of roll with it and enjoy the good.

 

[arfie]

when a therapist asked me that first question, i found myself building what would eventually morph into the therapy "safe places" where i mindfully retreat when my symptoms are showing. imagining myself in a safe, peaceful place goes a long way toward preventing escalation of my symptoms.

the second question got me questioning my own expectations of, "better." i can't spend the rest of my life chilling in the hot mud rooms of my phosphorescently lit mud caves. fast forward a few decades and "more good days than bad / I wasn't so in my own head and overthinking things and ...to feel... more comfortable going out by myself." sounds like a simple, direct, achievable and sustainable answer.

be gentle with yourself, lucy. there are no right or wrong answers and therapy is not a doctoral review board. be patient with the process. there is so very much to learn.