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sister said:

Maybe this is indicative of what you are doing with your hesitance about therapy--changing your mind from one day to the next-

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Yes. I am very indecisive and "wishy-washy" sometimes. For example, recently I've been trying to order a replacement cell phone from my provider, and it seems like a simple thing since it will be free and i don't use my phone much in the first place and I have researched it a lot, trying to decide which is the best phone. And several times I've been to the last part, where you hit the button to make the order official. But I usually bow out at the last second. This has been going on about a month with the cell phone ordering.

And people at work wonder why I haven't bought a house yet...i can't decide on a cell phone, let alone a home.

So I am indecisive and fear making choices, because so often in the past it seems like i have screwed up.

To an earlier question about why I am in therapy in the first place: no easy answer to that. But the first thing that makes me think I need therapy is that I have no relationships in the world, outside of the casual work acquaintances and, as a stretch, the people at the grocery store checkout who ring up my food (but even then, more and more I have the option of using the "self-check out" stand they have now.) The world feels unsafe and I have a feeling like it will never be a safe enough place to allow my "vulernable" self into.

The past issues I'm dealing with are my parents were never really good at parenting (which can be said for many parents, I suppose). But their less the good parenting skills sort of collaborated with bad life events to make me view myself as poision. They were neglectful, didn't listen, and just had a "my way or the highway" and never cared what I was feeling - or at least never made it an atmosphere where I thought my feelings were normal or welcome.

I was attacked by two Dobermans when I was 5 or 6, when I had walked down the park on my own. And it was a trauma and I think started to shake my safety. Plus I was starting school and my new baby sister was born, so I was no longer the baby.

I had no friends growing up except one, but when I was like 7 I had set the back room on fire (I was playing with matches - bad boy). Thankfully the damage was confined to the small room. But the one friend I had was no longer allow the be around me, because I had been bad with fire.

A couple years later (when I was 8 or 9), my older sister sexually abused me. My other other sister walked in and told the parents, but the parents barely wanted to even look at me. There attitude was like they were disgusted and they were shunning me and it made me feel like it was all my fault. This experience led to a decided amount of confusion and shame about my sexuality. A couple years later I turned around and did the same to my younger sister (I have a big family)...and that has haunted me so much over the years that I turned around and did that my sister.

I had a lot of sexuality issues after that, confusion about my gender identity and then growing into puberty that added more confusion. And being Catholic with strict Catholic parents, that only added to my feelings that I am dirty and poison and bad.

When I was 16, I was arrested for sending secret admirer letters to a neighbor. When I was in 3rd Grade, I did a similar thing to an older teacher and she thought it was cute. And I did it again in 6th grade to another teacher and she didn't get upset. But when i was 16, it was not so cute. And someone at the same time was doing similar things to the same neighbor. So they police were staking out the house and then when I went up to leave a note, they burst out the door, slammed me against the wall, handcuffed me and shouted things and me and dragged me to the station. In my confused mind, I thought i was looking for someone's attention and love by sending secret admirer letters. But it wasn't the best way to go about it.

So the arrest was the final straw: my needs were officially criminal.

And a short while later, like a month, a teacher at school heard about my arrest and was concerned and offered to talk and listen to me. Oh God! That was confusing and since I had no one else, I got attached to her!!! And when that attachment happened, she got uncomfortable and they took me away from her class. As I was getting aware of my attachment to her, I knew it meant something deeper (even at 16) but didn't have the logic to put it into words, so it just came out bad when I tried to express my confusion about my feelings to her. And she assumed I wanted to marry her. I had just been arrested like a month ago for becoming attached to someone. Now I'm an idiot, but not that much of an idiot to realize that there was pattern here and I wasn't wanting to do the same thing. But before I knew it, they pulled me from her class and started to send me to all sorts of therapists. And I had no time to really think about anything. It just came down to me feeling that I am bad and poision and love/need was criminal and something that needed to be fixed and removed from me.

These are just some of the big examples. It can't really describe my entire life and all the events, and all the interactions that reinforced my self believe that I am poision (such as the bullying growing up). I was always on my own it seemed and when I tried to find love and care and someone to listen, I was either pushed away, or I did it wrong and it turned out hurting someone.

Result is that now at 33, it just isn't safe. It doesn't feel safe to go into the world because I will get hurt and I will end up hurting others. That is what keeps me paralyzed and not really living at all. And, partly why I'm so indecisive.

And you can imagine all the transference feelings going on in therapy. My therapist is very giving and caring and "loving" (if I can legally use the word "loving"). And with all my past experience with that, any need for her is seen as bad to me - in an emotional way.

In a logical sense, I KNOW the truth. But I am ruled more by my emotions. So, I struggle to stay in therapy to try to come to terms to this push between Logic and Emotion.

But it is so scary. I just want to run. And thus I'm having this current trouble with caring and not thinking: What is the point.

Thank you.

Wow that was long.