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Hi Sally Brown,
You hit the nail on the head when you said this:
Exacting a change to a situation that you have never experienced before is really frightening.
It’s fear of the unknown. I’m a planner and like to be prepared for everything. . .and yet when it comes to changing myself through therapy, it is very scary because I don’t always know the when, where, and how of my healing journey. When I feel I don’t have enough information or control to know ahead of time what the future holds, it makes me very anxious. So if I appear to be digging in my heels, it’s not due to lack of effort or lack of desire to get better, but a fear of change. And what change will mean for “me” . . .the “me” that I’ve always seen myself as. And I guess the “me” I am used to is one that feels a lot of internal pain and angst. It doesn’t feel “good,” but it feels like “me,” if that makes sense. Somehow, I need to get used to the idea that I can let go of pain and still be me, that I can feel better and still be me.
Hi Mykidsarecool,
I could relate to what you said about the fear of starting new relationships because you felt you would make the mistake of bonding with somebody who would hurt or reject you again. I totally chose the wrong friend more than once, and ended up terribly, terribly hurt. So yeh, I don’t trust myself to make good choices yet, so I keep isolating until I feel I can understand and choose friends who will be healthy for me. I also hate, hate, hate making mistakes and am pretty hard on myself.
It sounds like your early work in therapy has helped you with compassion and self-acceptance. Can I ask what specifically helped you learn to deal with yourself more compassionately? Did you use affirmations? Or did you just start feeling more tender and accepting of yourself, as you noticed your t treating you that way?
Hi Listenmoretalkless,
Thanks for recognizing that I’m doing the work. I guess I am. At least I notice that I’m still clinging to my pain, and some of the possible reasons why. Knowing that, I can chip away bit by bit at the fear that is keeping me from making the next leap. It makes sense what you said about the “letting go” happening in bits and pieces. That seems much more do-able to me and less scary.
Hi Geez,
It helps to know you relate. But I’m sorry you struggle with this same thing too. Hopefully, we can encourage each other!
Hi Eskielover,
Thank you for the insightful and comprehensive post. I appreciate all the time it took for you to do that!
It’s good to know that Radical Acceptance is a process. It makes more sense to me now. I still struggle with Radical Acceptance. I find myself thinking things like, “But it should have been this way, or That should not have happened, or That person should have treated me this way, or “That was wrong and unfair.” When someone has treated me in a way that has felt unfair and has caused me much pain, it’s hard to accept that, whether it was fair or not, “it was what it was” and perhaps nothing can be done to fix or change it now. Equally hard are situations where the person who hurt me failed to apologize or even acknowledge the harm they’d done. I’m a Christian, and the Bible teaches that we should freely forgive. I am able to understand that we all make mistakes, and that is true also of the people who hurt me. I’m working on forgiving them for their actions toward me. Perhaps my expectations are too high for people. I tend to assume people will do the good and right and caring things in life. But when they do not, I feel very disappointed and disillusioned. So Radical Acceptance and Forgiveness are still very much things I need to work on.
It’s interesting what you shared about neural pathways, the limbic system, frontal lobe, etc. It takes time to retrain or rewire deeply held beliefs and feelings. In my case, I experience a pretty big disconnect between my “emotional self” and my “logical self.” I have some fragmentation and dissociation, which makes those aspects of me feel very different from one another. It’s very hard for me to access both sides at the same time. Instead, I tend to be in the logical part of myself most of the time, until I get triggered and then an emotional, irrational, dysfunctional side of me emerges. That’s the part my t says we need to work more with. I find that when I get triggered into the emotional traumatized part of myself, the logical part of me goes out the window, unless I make very difficult, concentrated effort to try to hold onto it. Sometimes I can do it; other times not.
I’m sorry to hear you went through such a terrible situation with your mom and the healthcare worker in 2004. It sounds like it was really painful and trying, especially when you didn’t get the understanding and support you needed to deal with it. I admire you for allowing the situation you went through to make you a more empathetic person toward others, rather than just becoming bitter. I hope to learn something from my experiences too.
Hi SittingatWatersEdge,
I’m glad you can understand and relate to what I’m going through. From the responses to my post, it sounds like what we’re going through now is part of the healing process, and we are not just crazy! We need to just keep putting one small step in front of the other, and we will get there.
Hi Asiablue,
Yes, I told my t how I was struggling with this. I said that when we do this deeper work, it ruffles me up more, and then I feel like I need her more. I also told her it feels overwhelming, and we need to slow it down some. My t has a tendency to want to push me through it, and at times I’ve had to let her know that it’s just too much to do at one time. I get overstimulated and overloaded very easily, and when I try to do too much at once, I end up getting unstable or shutting down. For some reason, I reach my limit sooner than most other people. I’m a Highly Sensitive Person, so maybe that it part of it. If I don’t actively block it out, I tend to feel things intensely, as well as pick up on other people’s emotions. I also have a really active subconscious and tend to analyze a lot. So my normal mode of operation is on “high.” It doesn’t take a lot to begin feeling overwhelmed and pushed past my limit. I tire myself out. I am also very tired after therapy sessions, and when I get too stressed out, I have to sleep.
Hi KazzazX,
I’m glad this solution works for you. My t tried early on to get me to discharge some anger by pounding on pillows. Although I did it, I admit it was kind of half-heartedly because I felt “bad” about feeling angry. It took a long time for my t to convince me that I could still feel anger and be a nice person. Since then, I’ve come to understand that anger is a normal emotion, and it can be healthy to express it in acceptable ways that don’t hurt others. Slowly, I’ve started being able to recognize my feelings of anger, tolerate, and express them. My h says I show anger a lot more often now. Sometimes I wonder if that’s a good thing. But on the flip side, it’s not good to stuff everything down. That’s part of what caused my breakdown to start with. . . years of stuffing down sad and negative feelings and not acknowledging them.
Hi Eastcoaster,
I’m glad to know that you also can understand my fear about letting go of pain. You’re right, though, that we need to keep working through it so we can come out healthier on the other side.
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