As kids we learn not to touch the hot stove because we'll get burnt. There is a similar connection in my adult life and I need to unlearn it. How do you do that? Do you just keep touching the stove over and over until it becomes not painful? Does it ever?

To explain a little bit more... I avoid situations and conversations that make me feel a certain awful way (the painful feelings are my hot stove). This isn't really a good response. My feelings are the painful thing, not the events. I am causing this pain for myself by feeling this way. How can I break this link and learn not to feel this awful way that throws me into full avoidance mode? I need to take responsibility and not blame my feelings on external events. But even though I now see the link, how can I stop this? How do you severe those connections in your brain?

I wonder if that's what T was trying to get me to do when he told me to act angry in response to the events--even if I wasn't. By saying the words maybe I would discover that feeling within? Was he trying to get me to break those connections and substitute anger as the feeling, which I guess he saw as a healthier response?

Sometimes I feel so retarded (and I don't use that word lightly) at stuff like knowing how to feel. I see other people just feeling angry and not thinking about how to do it or what steps to take, like it's some natural skill they have. How did they learn to do that? I need some instructions because I have no idea how to put it all together. Should I do this faking thing that T seems to suggest? If I can just recognize the awful feeling inside and then try to fake anger, will that somehow lead me out of this?

Right now I think I might be mad at my lawyer and my sister. But I'm not sure. How do I know for sure and what do I do about it, if anything? If you realize you're mad about something, are you supposed to tell the other person? I keep trying to tell myself that I don't have a good reason to be mad, that I need to be more reasonable, but despite that, there is still that mad feeling inside. Reasoning with myself doesn't make it go away. Is it OK to be mad at someone even if you don't really have a reasonable cause? Or should I just keep trying to reason with myself to make it go away?

Right now I am scared to call up my H and tell him something, because I know he will get mad, and that makes me feel that awful way.

I am pathetic.