In your family you were always the one responsible to help others, it feels alien and embarrassing to need to receive, and to receive, help from others. To have a "mental illness" is impossible in the eyes of family members, so it is very tough to believe and admit that you have one. You need to be fine in order to believe that you are in control.

That was another thing mentioned in that article: control. What is your thinking about that right now?

What would it mean if you were to admit how sick you really are?

Thank you for your thoughts about having a job. I'd really like to hear back on that when you are ready, if okay.

Okay, that is the reality of the situation: You will need to deal with it. Tell me about that: What does it mean to you to hear all of that from them? How might you deal with it?

Yes, the locked unit, not the event.

Are you familiar with safety behaviors? When something causing anxiety, there is a temptation to defuse the anxiety by avoiding the situation. So if someone is anxious in a crowd, they go food shopping at 7:00 a.m. That is a safety behavior. They avoid that anxiety, but they never face or cure the problem, it just persists indefinitely and their world gets that much smaller. The solution generally involves facing the fear, living with the anxiety, towing it along, if you will, doing what makes one anxious (in real life and/or in imagination), and over time the anxiety goes down.

Of course, in addressing causes of anxiety one generally starts with lower anxiety issues and works their way up a "fear ladder".

I of course expect you would be panicky about being in the locked unit, and maybe it is too big of an anxiety/panic for right now. But see if T can help, talking it over could be a very positive step.

How did you decide on JHU?

Yes, I think that most Ts are going to want to discuss the past with you to some extent as part of treatment. I think that a lot of the past is intertwined with the ED and needs to be understood and unraveled.

I completely agree that it would be best to discuss it with the T you know and trust. I wonder if that could be done by skype let's say at an ED unit. Or maybe by chat/email with her, like what we are doing. Or what about Ts at units: do you ever get to trust them over time--or no?

It is quite significant that you can trust her implicitly, and really good to hear.

But what about talking with me? You have been able to be candid with me about many things. It seems that you can trust me to some degree--and I hope always to be worthy of your trust. What is it like for you to speak with me?

What sort of help and attention did you get growing up?

What bad things do you think would happen if you got well and did not get the attention that you think you need?

Fear of success is a known phenomenon, but I don't think that it has to do with "just getting over" the very rough things that happened in childhood. I think you can be very hard on yourself.

Here are a few thoughts on fear of success. Sometimes people who have survived a rough/traumatic/tragic situation feel survivor guilt when they think of those who did not survive or whose lives were even more shattered. They might not want to succeed then, because success could increase the guilt.

Another possibility is that in your childhood you were never considered good enough, you always fell short of perfection and were criticized for it. So "I am not good enough" might be like the air for you: it is just always there, it is what you grew up with, it is what you take for granted, it is a core belief. To succeed is to question the very basis of your life, to question your most core belief about yourself. It feels alien and disorienting.

I want that for you too.

Okay good, when you are ready. I think there is a lot to be learned from looking at what happened.

Yes.

What happened growing up if someone in your family did in fact fail at something? Or maybe that just never happened, it was utterly unthinkable?

Obviously.

It is okay, your health is the most important thing. I hope that you feel better!

Good. Thanks for letting me know.

If it is okay, I would like to ask about two small things in connection with how you present yourself here. First, how did you choose the word in your screen name, pinkflower? Also, it interests me that you use the magenta color in this thread. Thanks!