Quote:
Originally Posted by Ygrec23
I'm trying (so far without success) to connect with all those really terrible emotions T and I know I must have had as a very small child when it became apparent to me that my mother was entirely out to lunch and dissociating almost all the time. So T and I are working on this very hard.
|
Did your T tell you that, or is it your own explanation?
----- Not as much of a digression -----
as it might sound like
Once upon a time I was very interested in having whatever I did
make sense to myself and others. It wasn't hard at all for someone to convince me (or for me to convince myself) that I had to be repressing one thing or another. After that, it obviously became my duty to unrepress it by any means necessary. For some perverse reason or other, though, the more I struggled to feel whatever way I knew I needed to feel, the less I actually felt that way and the harder it seemed to
ever feel that way. Logically, of course, this proved I wasn't trying hard enough and didn't know what was good for me.
It took me quite a while to discover that I'd always experience whatever I experienced; I'd never experience anything I didn't experience; and if I ever failed to experience something I was supposed to, the problem wasn't with the experiencing but with the supposing.
----- /non-digression
-----
Quote:
I've become obsessed with food.... My wife is really upset. She tells me I'm getting fat. I listen to her in the house, but when I'm out and about I give in to these desires.
|
What, exactly, comes up for you when you
don't "give in to these desires"? I'm not saying you have to post about it, just notice it for yourself. It could very well turn out to be one of the things you're working on in therapy, only viewed from a different angle.
Quote:
What do you do when you're around these places serving delicious food and you're just overwhelmed with raging hunger? How do you resist? If I give in on a regular basis I'll be obese.
|
I think you may be getting a little ahead of yourself here, trying to be where you aren't.
If you keep giving in you may become obese, and
if you become obese you may not like it... etc. I say, start from where you are. Be here now. Say you're in the place that serves the food and you experience hunger. You have a choice. You can decline the food and notice what comes up for you: feelings of hunger, thoughts about deprivation, memories of your mother, or whatever. Or you can eat the food and notice what comes up for you then, quite likely including thoughts about becoming obese. It's much less important
which you choose than whether or not it's
your choice and you allow yourself to experience it (along with whatever comes up for you after that, and after that, and after that...)