T's rose colored glasses

I hurt so much. I feel like I want to dig out all the bad stuff my mom said to me and show it to T so she can see how bad I am. So she will be able to understand why no one likes me. Then she will be able to hate me just like everyone else does. If my own parents can't love me then how is anyone else supposed to? I feel like she just doesn't understand how awful I am. That I need to shock her with all the bad stuff. I don't remember if I've told this T about it all. I need her to understand how awful everything is. And how there is no way to escape it. How people really see me. That some how she has gotten this view of me with rose colored glasses. She doesn't know how bad I really am. I don't want to hurt T, but I do want to shock her. I want her to agree with everyone else about how bad I am. Then I can trust her. I don't know that I can trust nice things. Nice things always have hidden thrones. It is so much easier to trust the bad stuff. People don't make up the bad stuff. But you can make up the happy stuff, I know, I've been doing it my whole life.

I know I've been here before. But I don't remember how to get out. Maybe I'll bring this in to her so she knows I'm there (wherever that is) again.

((((((((((googley))))))))))))

ugh, it's SO HARD to not believe the lies that we were told about ourselves. When I tell T the things I believe about myself, T tells me I am believing a lie, a lie I was told so many times that it feels like the truth. It's so hard to wrap my mind around that...and even if I believe him intellectually, it's so hard to really BELIEVE it in my heart.

You are not a bad person, googley. Like T tells me, how you feel is NOT who you are. It's not. For real. You are a good person who is absolutely deserving of love and caring.

I think printing your post and bringing it to T is such a good and brave idea. It will help her know where you are, and the more she knows about where you are, the better she can help you heal.

Lots and lots of to you.

(((((googley))))) That's such a hard place to be. I hope your T can help you find a way to a better place. Sharing your post with her sounds like a good idea.

(((googley))) T is reacting from a real place inside her. She has the honor of knowing all of you. She hears the your of your past, but she experiences the you of your present. She can't react as someone else because she is a separate person, with her own thoughts and feelings.

But.. that can be difficult to deal with because it is not what we expect. It is not familiar. So the reaction we feel is also not predictable or familiar. It is different, it feels different and can feel confusing and threatening/frightening.

You and T would have so much to talk about if you were to take your post to therapy with you. Your post is so open and honest and real.

I hope you feel better.

What an important question this is ^ !!!! You know, some parents are just a mess. If you are one of the unlucky ones who "chose" such parents, well, sorry.... But you know what? There are many people out here who can love you more than your parents. I'm not kidding. I've found many of them.

I'll bet you have spent your life avoiding these nicer people, however, because you are drawn to the bad due to what happened to you. You have a therapist now and you are fighting like crazy to make her into another mean one. I'm not putting you down. What you are doing is so normal for people who have been through what you are doing. It's just time to really face it and work through it. You can work through this Googley!

Yes, you need to tell your T this.

so what puts the brakes on this impulse?

You certainly can't go back iot the past and change those important people into the loving, stable, consistent, caring folks that you needed them to be.

why would someone being nice to you now (lookiing at you now with rose colored glasses) be expected to change anything? Finding someone who would do that would only mean that you had happened to run across one that wasn't as violent / conditional / punitive as those oh so important people of your past - yes?

googley, i'm following this discusssion with interest because i could have written the same things you did. so, in the absence of anything useful to say, i'm just sending some love and hugs .

Thank you everyone for your replies. I don't know how I would get through this all without your support.

Sannah- I don't know how I am supposed to translate their actions into an idea that they loved me. No matter how little. It sounds like (though I am sure you are not) that people should stay in an abusive relationship because the other person cares for them at some level. That the caring makes the rest of it okay. That I should forgive them because they are my parents. Would you say I should forgive them if they were complete strangers. Strangers who hurt me like my parents did. My guess would be no. The other person's lack of interpersonal skills would not be an excuse for their behavior. In fact it would be considered awful. But because it is my parents it is some how considered acceptable because they lacked parenting skills? How does that make sense?

Tree- It is so hard sometimes to keep that separate. How I am feeling and what I am. Especially when before I was never allowed to have my own emotions. I just always had to be happy. Now I just feel like a failure. I feel like I've failed life. And nobody cares. (not that people here don't care, just that it feels like no one IRL cares.)

SAWE- I don't know the answers to you questions, but I like your questions.

Echoes- Thank you for the support. It would be easier if she acted like everyone else acts. Then I wouldn't be so confused. But then hopefully I wouldn't keep her as a T either.

Deli-Thanks for the hugs.

I think for me I had to learn to see other people as seperate from me and learn that they are able to think and feel their own thoughts and feelings and that there actually "adults" out there that are caring. It takes just one person to show you that and then everything falls into place, it doesnt matter so much about the "bad" out there. Then and only then could I see that I wasn't unlovable, it was my parents that were unable to love in any autristic way.

Googley - ** I ** do not like my questions, they make me feel like a suspicious, depressed, avoidant nut - which I guess I am now that I think of it but if you could ask yr T to explore that with you, I will ask mine, and maybe we can all compare notes one day.

Maybe Sannah meant that you could (note: could) unconsciously seek hurtful relationship because it's what you've always known and therefore is "safe" - and even if it hurts and that's scary, what's known can seem preferable to relationships which MIGHT hurt but don't (yet?), and that's UNknown, and is even scarier. This I can identify with.

Why forgive your parents? because if you can find it in your heart to do so, it will give you such peace. I haven't gotten there (yet) but I long for it. And heaven knows, if you are a parent, you may long for your children's forgiveness yourself; for none of us is perfect and none will ever be the parent we aspire to be... always be trying.
here - this is for you if OK

I don't even see this as important believe it or not. I don't think that your parents are an important part of your healing at all. They are a mess and nothing is going to change that. I would focus on YOU. Can you accept that they were a mess and that they will never be able to meet your needs? YOU can meet your needs though and you can find supportive people along the way to help you. Maybe the acceptance part of all of this is why you are stuck here? Is it hard to accept the parents that you were dealt? (And I don't mean "accept" as they are cool and alright, I mean "accept" as to accept the entire situation for exactly what it was in all of its awfulness).

You have to work it through. You have to understand exactly where you are and accept it and then problem solve and figure out what you need to do about it. We are all a product of what happened to us. Really analyze what happened to you and what affects are still with you (once you come upon a problem like this one).

A lot of the work that I did (and still do) was making new messages when triggered or when responding in a dysfunctional way or hearing old messages. When you are in a situation like this when you are looking at a nice person and not trusting it, stop, look, listen and learn. What messages are you hearing? Where are they coming from? Are they appropriate for this new situation or are they just a trigger from the past which doesn't fit anymore? Keep thinking on it and working it. I have changed so many old messages by stopping, looking, listening and learning.

You certainly can't change the past. Leave it there and come alive today in the present.

So you think that anyone who would be nice to you must have those glasses on? This sounds like a self worth issue (and I have certainly done my work here! and still do!) When you have these thoughts of your low self worth, stop, look, listen and learn........

And this reminds me of how some people can not have healthy people in their lives. IT IS SCARY! Healthy people scare the crap out of us who still have to work through the dysfunction. Healthy people see you! Ouch! People who look that closely at us make us squirm because of our low self worth, we don't want anyone looking closely at us. It makes all of our uncomfortable feelings about ourselves surface and this is sooooo uncomfortable! Run! Dysfunctional people don't see you. It is much more comfortable! But this has to be worked through. Again, when you are around a healthy person and they see you, stop, look, listen and learn.....

Originally Posted by sittingatwatersedge
why would someone being nice to you now (lookiing at you now with rose colored glasses) be expected to change anything? Finding someone who would do that would only mean that you had happened to run across one that wasn't as violent / conditional / punitive as those oh so important people of your past - yes?
no, I didn't say that at all. I was asking why the therapeutic experience [of a T having "rose colored glasses", otherwise known as "giving unconditional positive regard"] is supposed to be healing?
It's just one person. If you found just one such person IRL, it wouldn't change anything; why would finding one such person in a T experience be expected to help anything? and yet it is expected to help, and in a lot of cases it does help.

I don't think the t has rose colored glasses on. I think you look in the mirror and see mud. Clean your mirror.

Im not sure T's do only see the good in us. T is well aware that I like to be right, that I am argumentive, etc, etc, but she doesnt hold that against me. Our faults aren't held up as punishment. To be seen for who we are, warts and all, then we can heal.

Googley,

This reminds me of what a friend of mine in AA keeps telling me. "whatever your opinion is of yourself, it's wrong". Last night, he told me no one can see my insides, but they can see my outsides, and they see that I am good and kind.

It's hard for me to hang onto any "you're okay" messages about myself. But I CAN hang on to "whatever your opinion is of yourself, it's wrong". I am willing to believe that I am wrong, but I don't have to know what's "right" yet. I can just be open to being wrong for right now.

I don't know if that helps, but it's helped me a little bit.

I don't advocate rose colored glasses, and I have my reservations about the idea of "unconditional positive regard" from T or anyone else, but this statement [whatever your opinion is of yourself, it's wrong] just drives me buggy. Look here:

** Starting therapy, I see myself as X.
I am wrong.

** 2.5 years into therapy: I am beginning to understand that I might not be totally X.
But - I am wrong.

** some day: After going through FIRE, I have finally come to understand that I am Y.
But......I am wrong.

no..... I can't handle it .....
Tree can you help me understand, SURELY this is just a cutesy saying and isn't what your friend really meant?! If there is no such thing as self knowledge, then what the **** am I putting myself through all this for ?!

I think he means that right now, in early sobriety, my opinion about myself is wrong. Not forever. But basically that when my opinion is "i'm not worth anything", it's wrong.

It's only temporary.

Sorry, SAWE

Thanks for the clarification Treehouse. Yesterday's session was SO HARD and I am in a **** of a mood today, which just never happens to me the day after. I don't feel like I know anything anymore. But for my $0.02, I think you are Y and not at all X. That goes for Googley too

THis is a good question. This role is supposed to be filled by our parents. Those of us who didn't get this need to get it from our T's. It is very healing!

I was just thinking about his today actually. I volunteer at the school and I was working with a boy who wasn't turning in his homework (5th grader). He was making up whopping stories about why he wasn't getting his homework done. After a few "meetings" where some trust could be built I just looked at him and told him that I couldn't believe his stories anymore. I wasn't mean or anything, just very matter-of-fact. He looked at me and burst out laughing. After a little bit more work with this kid he is turning in all of his work and is quite scholarly now.

Today I was thinking about how others might have reacted to his stories, like his parents, etc. They probably would have gotten mad at him or punished him. I look at how I responded to him as positive regard. Just because he tells whopping stories doesn't mean that I saw him in a negative light. If others respond negatively this depresses the person. A person needs to be lifted up, not pushed down. But this positive regard doesn't say "you did wrong, kiss, kiss for you". I addressed his behavior as not good but him as still "lovable".

I also think that this positive regard helps the person to accept themselves for the person that they are. So many people waste so much energy running from themselves and the facts. Acceptance is the first step to healing. If the T can accept the person for exactly who they are in that moment (warts and all), the person can learn that they can accept themselves too, because, really, you cannot move forward without accepting who you are right now.

Maybe you don't want it to help? because you don't want to go there where you can be vulnerable?