I knew that I had internalized negative messages about myself from growing up. But I never before realized how ingrained they are and how vicious they are. How much they have made me feel like crap. It's scary to look at them. I feel like they will never go away. But it is hard to want them to go away when I feel like I deserve it. I feel guilty, awful, ashamed about wanting to stay in the same comfortable place. I've never had (or at least never been able to recognize and name) these feelings before. It scares me. My T asked if I had dealt with this before with my T. And I haven't. I felt like I needed to defend my previous Ts. I know my T wasn't being critical, just seeing what had been encountered before. But I felt like I needed to say that I did hard work with my other Ts also. Just because we didn't get to everything that is screwed up inside of me didn't mean we didn't work and accomplish things. But I know she wasn't trying to sound critical. I hate my complicated insides. Especially since they don't seem to come with a map.


Even though those were our parents and they did not love us they are the only parents we have and somehow we keep hoping that they will change or maybe we were wrong.

This is so true. I keep giving them chances over and over again hoping that they will change. Over and over again. But they don't change.

At the same time I feel guilty. I feel guilty for feeling so bad. I remember the children's saying "sticks and stone will break your bones but words will never hurt you...." But there were no sticks and stones, there were only words. How can words hurt this much? I feel like other people experienced so much worse. It was only words. There was no proof. It makes me question myself about things I know happened. It was like it never happened. I was never allowed to talk about it. People pretended that it didn't happen after it was done. No one protected me. I was the kid. Didn't I deserve protection? But no one stepped in to stop it. It makes me feel worthless.

Googley we love you.

Thank you so much. This means so much to me to have support here.