My T helped me to look at myself as an "outsider" would. I learned to have compassion for myself--that my past mistakes were not made because of malice or evilness or even stupidity, but because I was doing the best I could under the circumstances at the time. (I felt incredible guilt & shame about causing my daughter to be born a preemie due to my drinking & smoking while pregnant, plus the suicide attempts).

She pointed out the similarities of my feeling that I was unloveable to my husband & my father, who rejected me to the point of introducing another woman as his daughter to all his yacht club friends & didn't mention me. When I went to my sister's engagement party on his yacht, people were like "Who are you?" When I said I was his daughter, they said they thought he only had two daughters--my sister & the woman who had replaced me as his daughter.

I also tested my husband a lot to see if he really was committed to me & would stay with me despite some of my outrageous behavior & rants.

She helped me see why I was starting fights when things were too calm at home. I grew up with a lot of chaos & one crisis after another with my mother attempting suicide & my father having affairs & their fighting so violently that sometimes I had to call the police. I became very focussed when there was a crisis. It seemed that as an adult I would stir up trouble because I was used to it & somehow missed the power of a crisis to focus me on something other than my bad feelings about myself. Still working on the self-esteem thing, but no longer starting fights & running off in the middle of the night (meds for bipolar helped this tremendously, too, since they helped me to think more clearly & not to be so rash).

I quit going to therapy several years ago, because I was stable & doing well. After a recent episode, though, my meds provider said I should go back. I'm just not sure of what my ins. will cover now. The company my husband works for changed policies so, of course, they are not adding services, but taking away. Basically, they are trying to discourage you from going for any medical treatment due to the hassle & how much they don't cover.--Suzy