One of the most helpful on-going discussions I had with my T was about what friendships are. What do they look like and how do they function? I had no idea--I knew the warped dynamics of relationships in my family, saw how duplicitous my mother was with her "friends"--being nice to their faces, and demeaning them to me--so all I learned growing up was to expect both everything and nothing from "friends." I expected them to inappropriately meet all my unmet needs, as well as expected them to hurt me and be duplicitous. Crazy-making, no? The wonder is that some stuck around anyway.

My T helped me to deconstruct all these expectations and behaviors that kept me trapped in a cycle of isolation. It came about because of housemate issues during grad school, and he helped me to see that respect is about giving others the freedom to be who they are, and part of that is accepting that others are allowed to define their relationships with everyone in their life. So a friend can be in relationship with me and with someone with whom I'm not a friend. It's like when a friend has a spouse we don't like: well, we can have our opinion, but we can't keep our friend and not respect their choice for their life. And their relationship with someone else does not define or impinge on their relationship with us. But that's a friendship--a marriage or similar relationship is a bit different because the emotional investment is higher. And I think it's one of those things that couples have to sort out between themselves. Sometimes they won't be able to be with us in the way we want, not because of who we are, but because they have their own history and challenges.

As children, we were never respected as autonomous beings: we were controlled, abused, ignored, scapegoated, seen as extensions of our parents, etc. And being children, those lessons and their pain run deep. And they form our perception of the world.

I found part of what helped me was the cognitive adjustment and education about relationships; a bigger part was the lessons learned from the modeling of a respecting relationship by my T. As the unmet needs were met, they subsided; as I was shown respect, I changed my expectations of how others would treat me (and how I treated myself.) And then I changed how I treated others.

But the feelings we had as children are appropriate and understandable: we should be angry, I think, at those adults who ignored our abuse.

One of the worst episodes of abuse I remember happened on a family trip. I was 8 years old. I won't go into detail, but as a result of what happened, I was covered in bruises: arms, legs, neck, face. I was so afraid of my mother finding out, that I used her make-up on my face in an attempt to hide the evidence. Needless to say, at 8 I wasn't wearing make-up and had no idea how to apply it. Although it was hot, I chose a long sleeved shirt and long pants. When my mother saw me, she got really angry, screaming at me that it was hot and how stupid was I to dress that way--and what did I have on my face? She made me wash my face and change into shorts and a sleeveless shirt. I was terrified for her to see me so exposed. What happened? Nothing. She didn't notice a thing. We were visiting a tourist place, and scores of adults had to have seen me looking like a truck ran over me: not one person intervened or even whispered to me, "Are you OK?" Hell yes, I have anger for those people! They had an adult responsibility to protect a child, and they looked away instead.

But I'm not a vulnerable child anymore: I don't need their protection, nor do I want it. Those feelings and needs and expectations ruled me before therapy, and they emerged strongly within therapy, and that was appropriate. But as they were addressed and explored, they were no longer alive. But the only way it worked for me was to allow my T to meet me in the middle of those needs.