My t and I kinda use as a baseline, how would I do on the marshmallow test right now? The marshmallow test is a test they give kids to test if they can delay gratification, see how mature they are. I think that's not the right use of the test - it really shows if the kids parents lie to the kid or not, is my belief. The tester leaves the kid alone in the room with a marshmallow and tells the kid he can have 2 marshmallows if he waits - doesn't eat the 1 marshmallow -til the tester returns.

Rain, your reaction to the phone call was like you saw the tester burning the bag of marshmallows! I told my t, darn rite I'm eating that first marshmallow I'm given - a bird in the hand, you know! Otherwise someone's gonna tell me I must not even really want any marshmallows at all, if I could wait that long. Honestly what kind of white people design these tests??

(((((( Rain ))))))

You know Rain, I would feel doubly angry if I was thinking like this, that no-one 'can' be there for me. Perhaps you are at a stage (actually make that several stages!) further than me in this struggle, but I wonder if you're feeling pressured into accepting some sort of status quo (the therapeutic adage that no-one 'can' fill those childhood needs once you become an adult) rather than letting yourself experience what YOU actually believe?

As in, you're supposed to see this apparent truth that no-one can fill those needs, but in actuality deep down perhaps you (as I do) believe that those needs CAN be filled and the reality is that no-one IS meeting them and therein stems a lot of anger - it does for me. I just don't believe, despite all the literature and psych education about it, that someone can't meet those needs. If I believed that, I think I'd be 90% towards acceptance and moving on. I think I'm stuck in my needs precisely because I (or some part of me perhaps, distinct from my intellectual/cognitive self) believes my needs can be met and that whoever can meet them out there is refusing to, for whatever reason, and so I turn myself inside out trying to adapt and adopt and be good enough to convince whoever it might be, to get on with it and give me what I need!

I hope this is not way off the mark, I keep up with your threads though I don't post much at the moment, and I always seem to pick up on this small element of 'shouldism' in your posts, as if you are saying or trying make yourself believe something you've been told (or accepted intellectually) is true, but that doesn't reflect your current reality. Like you're trying so hard to take in and learn and adapt to things that are ostensibly healthy and the 'correct' way to be, and all the time what you really need and want and who you really are, in any current moment, is being rejected and ignored and treated as unacceptable or having to change...

Ack this sounds like I'm being critical and I don't mean that at all, I feel so much sympathy for your struggle (especially dealing with anger) that I want to just reach out and say f*** what everyone else is saying, you just be who you are and express what you need and want and don't worry about being or doing the 'right' thing

A propos child parts - I'm always interested in that concept, having been all my life completely unable to split myself up into parts - there's always only ever been ME in here (more's the pity). So it's been interesting to read the discussion here.

Lately I've begun to understand how separating aspects of oneself out into parts can actually be very useful even on a basic level such as enabling me to gain some distance from more overwhelming and threatening aspects of my internal set up (vulnerability for one, which I associate with a stuck developmental aspect of myself...) I'm not yet at any kind of point where I can say 'she' but it is helpful for me to experience the concept of there being an aspect of me that isn't ALL of me in any given moment and can therefore be looked at and understood as something separate from the me who is contemplating it. Hm does that make any sense?

Rain I know you do IFS with your T and that it's really helpful, have you done much reading around the subject? Once I got interested in the idea of parts, I found other literature that was also helpful in explaining the concept of parts/aspects of self - ego state therapy for instance, and the books by John Rowan (though he keeps changing his mind about it). It's all very fascinating even if one doesn't experience parts as separate entities within oneself.

Anyway sorry for the looooooong post, I haven't posted properly in ages and poor you get my first mega post back .

I wanted to comment also on your struggle with anger, but I've written way too much already. Sorry .

Hope you're doing ok, hugs to you (((((((((( Rainbow )))))))))))))

Torn xxxxxxx

Torn mind - you've clarified a couple of things for me. Recently t and I spent part of a session laughing over the new at&t commercials of the guy and the little kids, where he throws out a question like, which is better, less or more? Then I was like, why are we talking about this? I see now it relates back to getting our needs fulfilled. My t IS wily!! Less is more.

When I was in the hospital in september with crosseyes - they think a minor stroke - I called to cancel t, but then he said to call him and keep him informed. I didn't call anyone else. And after a while, it was like, okay, this is dumb, I'm running out of things to say to him. I realize now what he was doing. Just being there for me, being supportive. Last time I was in hospital with food poisoning or gall bladder from my mother's home, she would call me, telling me I wasn't really sick and to go back to work. Wtf?? Total denial of my reality.

Then when I was back at sessions, t said he WANTED to give me a ride home. I took a taxi, as he lives way the other side of town. Anyway, his earnestness puzzled me. It was like when he said he WANTED to get me a birthday present - yet, no gift? Now I get it! I can be pretty dense. Hopefully some part of me is hearing his messages, because I am being somewhat less destructive.