Okay... Validation... Attunement...

You know, I could have written exactly that post a few years back. Why? Why? Why? I couldn't understand why I felt so different from everybody else...

The first thing that springs to mind is validation. If your perceptions / thoughts / feelings aren't validated as a kid (if they are invalidated instead) then one grows up learning to constantly question the accuracy / validity of ones perceptions / thoughts / feelings. Hence... Inability to say what ones preferences, thoughts, feelings, perceptions etc are and even more importantly, one worries that one doesn't know what one prefers or thinks or whatever so one can constantly worry that they are lying or making up stories or are wrong or crazy or whatever.

Linehan gives a good example of this:
'Can you help me put up the picture dear'
'Sure, just let me go to the bathroom first'
'You don't need to go to the bathroom'

The second thing that springs to mind is attunement. I've only just acquired the word but I figured out the concept a while back. Have you ever played the computer game 'The Sims'? The laws of interaction are based on someone or others theory of social interaction. Basically, when the sim is enjoying the conversation they get little +++ depending on how much they are enjoying it. When the sim is not enjoying the conversation they get little -- depending on how much they are not enjoying it. The aim of the game is to have as many +++ (positive social interactions) all round.

I started to see little ++ and ---- when people were talking. Other people. And then when I was participating in a conversation I started notiving the same thing too. And what I found really hard was to have mutual instances of ++. A moment of a mutual smile when both people feel connected, for example. This is linked to validation. Some peoples parents aren't very attuned so they mirror / compliment their kids perceptions / feelings etc. And so the kid grow up not knowing how to do that.

That is where therapy can help. Empathetic attunement. In having that kind of relationship with your t the skills you learn with interacting with her should (eventually) start to generalise to outside the therapy situation. It is hard. I understand how hard it is. It is a slow process...

Why do people leave? Their own %#@&#! mostly. Especially when little kids are involved. With respect to adults the situation can be more complicated. Hang in there sweetie, things will get a whole heap better for you. It will take some time. But things will get better.

With respect to crying... Can you put on a sad movie or something and allow yourself to cry to that? Sometimes that can be a relatively safe way of crying. Just a thought...