Hi Somegirl, I have been working on my mental health for the last 20 years (small changes 10 years before that as a teenager). The first decade of this 20 I spent in therapy on and off with different therapists as issues came up. The last decade just working on myself by myself. I am a stay-at-home mom with an MSW.

We get to these places because our development isn't complete and maybe even a bit messed up because of the environment/support that we had while growing up. I think that you just haven't completed your healing/corrected your development yet. What issues have you worked on already? I worked on personal boundaries, self-worth, my feelings, empowerment/taking control of my life, meeting my needs, etc. To heal properly, I had to take each one of these issues and trace it back to see what happened and why it went wrong. If you don't trace it back, those messages in your head remain and changing the behavior is impossible.

Twenty years might seem like a long time but I was so happy each time that I corrected something so my life improved with each step forward and I couldn't wait for the next issue to be solved so that I could move up to the next level.