I started thinking of all the stuff I wish would disappear as just some attribute that had been over-developed? We make choices and the more choices we make one way, the stronger that way becomes for us. My imagination was used for a long time, for example, to spend time fantasizing instead of working in real time/reality learning how to interact with others, here? But I was also reading a lot then and now I have chosen to use my imagination to learn to study effectively and to write well. I worked hard in therapy to catch up some on interaction skills with others, it's a choice and a decision to focus.

My best memory that helps me now was how I did not learn to "study" until I was 40 years old! I was in a final exam for accounting when I was working on one problem and heard myself "wish I'd studied 5 minutes more". Huh? I could have chosen that and wish I had. The big deal was that I suddenly realized it was all for me, my doing and not something that my stepmother, teacher, husband, boss, or anyone else controlled, it was all for me and my life!

I missed an A in that course by only 8 points (out of nearly 300). I did not instantly change as one would think, the next accounting course I had to literally sit on myself and make myself do homework when I tried to squirm away because I did not want to. I had to make myself go to all classes and turn in the homework (homework was worth 5 points and I had missed 2 classes in the first course because I didn't feel like going) and even in courses after, I could get myself to go but not study for the final (I usually did well enough anyway to get an A) and it took until I graduated with my next degree 17 years later (with straight A's in my major) to get myself really interested in studying for Me and not a grade or professor or whatever hoops "they" put in front of me and said were important. I did everything the way I wanted to and am extremely proud of myself now.

Look, think about, and see what the "other" side of a trait might look like? To get gross and give TMI :-) I once masturbated too much, for example, but that taught me my physical self worked well! So, the meeting and mating part was obviously all in my head and could be learned? From then on I quit worrying about my physical self and how I was afraid of touch, etc. and just worked hard in therapy, interacting with my T and learning to share myself and recognize, accept, and value what other people shared of themselves (that's what being vulnerable is). I finally was ready and met "the" right man and now am living happily every after