Quote:
Originally Posted by Amyjay
Wow, it sounds like it was a crucial protection mechanism for your system to be elusive, adaptable and undefined so you could change at a moment's notice to avoid being rejected. Almost like you needed to be so focused on what the other person needed from you or needed you to be to avoid rejection/abuse/abandonment etc. Is that kind of right? If so, no wonder it is so terrifying for you to hold on to and own your own sense of self and experience.
When you find a therapist it might be helpful to tak about that. It could be like a primary defence that you need to unravel before you can even feel safe enough to get to the inside parts, kwim?
Don't be too hard on yourself about it. That was what you needed to do. in the environment you grew up in it was the perfect adaptation to get as many of your needs met as you possibly could. It helped you and it served you well! And now that you are no longer in that situation it might be okay to unravel that defence so you can get to help all the parts that have been hidden safely underneath.
Maybe you could say "It doesn't feel safe enough to own who I am.... yet."
(I could be completely off track here, please ignore if so!)
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YES, EXACTLY!! It's like this, you are on point.
I'm just afraid of therapy because therapists don't even recognize how impossible it is for me to truly open up. And if I want to say something about it there will be this ... magical force that prevents me from saying it.
I was always inappropriately afraid of just ordinary conversations with people. I'd always freeze up and go on autopilot responding a certain way that I guess part of me thinks that is what they want to hear. It's like I feel like I'm looking for "the right answer" rather than expressing myself. People then believe that is who I really am when it's not. And I can feel that that's who they think I am then it's like I can't stop being that way.
It takes me a LONG time to get comfortable with someone. No matter how familiar they are I always get this visceral fear that if I say the wrong thing once then they will turn on me.
So unless I am completely alone and not even thinking about anyone else, it is hard to even KNOW how I feel or what I think or what I want or what I need. It is really hard.
I have always dreamed that someday I would be able to have my own life and be my own person. I am so afraid that time is going to steal that from me.
"It doesn't feel safe enough to own who I am....
yet." <thank you I will try to remember that. I am trying to remember and be more aware of how hard it is for me to simply feel "safe."