What If That's Just Who I Am?

So, I enter therapy because I want to change. I want to figure out my faults and weaknesses and eliminate them.

But what if, just as a 5'2" person cannot become a 6' person, that's just who I am? What if my core personality, my core identity, my core essence is those faults and weaknesses?

Maybe I can learn techniques and skills to overcome my disabilities - just like a 5'2" person could conceivably wear stilts. But there is no denying the fact that the 5'2" person is still a 5'2" person.

So, is just managing the deficits all that can be expected or can real true permanent change be a hope?

People can always learn and grow; not upward physically perhaps you can't be that 6' person, but you can change how you view the world which makes up the lion's share of mental "disabilities". If you do a math problem wrong, you can go back and find the mistake and do it right; if you drop a stitch in your needlework, you can go back and pick it up. Behavior is all learned and can be changed. Sure if you do something you deem "wrong" for 30 years it's not going to get corrected in six sessions of therapy or your money back! Behavior causes habits and we know how hard it is to stop smoking or any other bad habit? There are association threads that bind one to the behavior. Same with anything else we want to change.

Very well stated, Perna. I also believe that you can make changes. However, they are not easy to make, take a lot of time, practice, and patience. These things did not develop over night, therefore you will not be able to change them overnight. It is a process and can be a long one. You just have to be willing to commit to it and want to make the changes. (of course this is just my opinion.) Wishing you the best.

Such a good question. I've wondered that too. Sometimes I've found myself getting prickly in a session - irritated that my easygoing, feel-good, incense-and-crystals therapist seems to think everyone should want to be the way he is. He was very up with people, thought I should be more positive, and was trying to help me get over my anger. He really didn't like my anger.

The problem was that I didn't WANT to get over it. I can't say that I like being angry, but it's part of who I am. Some things happened to me as a kid that shouldn't have, and forty-some years later, I'm still pissed off about it.

This anger isn't just an inconvenient symptom of my failed life strategies. It's really important! My anger is a reminder of the source of the wound, and I mustn't ever lose sight of it. That wound is who I am, just like my physical scars have become a part of me, and they're a reminder of my experience, the things that have shaped me for better and worse

Also, anger can be revealing. It can revive memories, reveal sources, inspire insights about our deepest selves.

Anyway, life is light and dark. And we need the dark - we need the shadow. We need it all!

See, but I do - I want to be different but maybe I have to accept that it's not really possible

No way!!! I think it is always possible. I think of that song by Martina McBride. Anyway

"you can chase a dream that seems so out of reach, and you know it may never come you way. Dream it anyways."

Maggy Jo

A smile burst forth while reading this - thanks.

Suratji, why are you feeling that it isn't possible? Have you tried really hard to change and haven't been able to? You've posted that you are feeling different since starting therapy--feeling a lot of feelings you hadn't felt before, etc. That is change and progress. I don't see you describing that you go to therapy week after week and just sit there ever the same and see no change. You sound like there is a lot of movement going on inside of you. I am surprised that you think change is not possible because it doesn't match what you have described for your therapy so far. You're only a few months into therapy and a ton has been stirred up! You're feelings things from the past that you had stuffed away. You are experiencing a strong attachment to your T (or at least it has sounded like that). All of these are changes and movement. I don't see evidence in your posts that change is not possible for you!

Good luck at your session.

Did you ever watch the TV show "Clean Sweep"? http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/cl...io/bio_07.html

Over and over Host Peter Walsh points out that the "thing" one wants to keep is not the actual person or memory. You have your memories, you will not forget the source of a scar but why keep the wound open with the anger? Why define yourself by that wound and that scar? Wouldn't you like to define yourself by something more positive, that is "you" instead of something ugly done to you?

Kitten... I hear what you are saying but................if not to release/dissipate/heal from anger, if not to heal from wounds, why are you in therapy?

I read this and I kept hearing that a sore or wound that does not heal... is one of the warning signs of cancer..... maybe it's not best to be walking wounded all your life saying, it's just the way you are?

if this sounds harsh I don't mean it that way.

It depends what your deficits are, Suratji! Can you share more????

Or are you afraid to change?

I've had a roller coaster emotional experience since the last session on 4/6 but it has been supremely amazingly productive personally. You're right - there is a lot of movement and it has been tough to handle. The emotions without an apparent cause were driving me batty.

But, the powerful step in therapy called 'attachment' and also the process called 'transference' have happened to me. What is so great about those is that now I'm able to work with these emotions because they're projected onto my T. There is a concreteness that allows me and T a way to get to the bottom of stuff.

Reading so many books and articles about these processes have been so enlightening. If I had read those 6 months ago there is no way I could have understood how it was possible to become attached to a stranger nor could I have imagined projecting my issues onto a stranger. To now know that I am 'textbook' is mind blowing. I am allowing the healing process to move forward by recognizing and even encouraging my own emotions towards T to be felt.

In the past 5 days I have made giants leaps in self-understanding and only because of 'attachment' and 'transference'. But knowing more clearly my issues will not be enough. The next step is learning to regulate the emotions and that is done by practice with my T.

I am so excited and so happy that I believe now for a certainty that change is possible. But it's painful and it's extremely hard work that requires lots of focused attention. I've been too lazy and complacent in the past to follow through but now I'm committed. This process is not for cowards or weaklings.

I'm not sure if therapy is about changing who you fundamentally are. In fact, it might be a mistake to view it that way.

I mean, I read through this thread and it is just littered with words like deficit, failure, changes, open wounds, fear etc....

My therapist once said something to me that really struck a chord " we are all brilliantly insane"

Meaning, given our life history and our stories, that every single thing we do makes perfect sense and reflects a certain brilliance about us when viewed within the context of our lives. There is nothing wrong with us at the moment.

So the question is, I think, is given the person you are right now (who is perfect and okay) the person that you really are deep deep down.

Is there something covering up that authentic person? Is who you are, really who you are?

I know we talk a lot of about maladaptive coping techniques, personality disorders, abandonment phobias, etc... but isn't happiness just sort of accepting who you are right now while probing if that person is really you?

I don't know.

Maybe I'm just projecting on you the fact that I am to the bone tired of feeling flawed, unworthy and a perpetual victim of my own self, life and choices of others.

I want to line up who I think I am with, with the actual me. Those two seem a little out of synch.

Sorry for the ramble, just my two cents I guess.

I see your point. I think you're exactly right. Have you read the book, "Dark Side of the Light Chasers" by Debbie Ford? She examines our 'shadow'. The shadow is the unacknowledged part of us that we will not look at clearly. We can perceive the shadow as positive traits or negative traits. Sometimes we will run from our positive traits as much as we run from our 'negative' traits.

She says that as young children we lived in a magical wonderful castle. The castle was full of rooms - each room had something precious in it and we explored and enjoyed the castle with our whole selves.

Then someone told us that one of the rooms of that castle was not very nice and so we closed the door to that room. And later, we were told that another room was not very pretty and so we closed that room. Slowly but slowly we closed more and more rooms of our castle until finally many many years later, we were living in a one room hovel and had forgotten that we had ever lived in a castle.

Those rooms are parts of ourselves. We've learned that some parts were not greeted kindly and so we shut them down. So much of who we are may be hidden behind the closed doors of the castle. And just realizing that we used to live in the castle is a first big step. Then the slow process on opening door after door and reuniting with ourselves.

Some character traits we had learned to disavow because they were not accepted. For example, if we were too rambunctious, we may have been told that that energy was too destructive so we shut that door. We were not taught that rambunctiousness can be used for creativity and not only destructiveness.

So, we have labeled these traits that we avoid accepting about ourselves in a negative way instead of knowing that those same exact traits can be used in a positive way.

It takes courage and strength to go back to the castle and open all those doors but what's the alternative - live in a one room hovel?

That's beautiful, Suratji; thanks.

That story was told in Ford's book and when I was telling T about it she was very familiar with it. So, it must be a commonly agreed upon description about how our emotional minds work and develop.

I think I need to find this book and read it; I love the castle/rooms analogy and find it apt for me too.
Love elliemay's thoughts too, about lining up who I think I am with who I am.....these things are out of sync with me too. Like the picture/outer mask I present to the world at large of who I am, with who I am on the inside.....those two need to be in closer sync as well. Opening up more rooms in the castle will help me see 'me' better, help me 'be' me more and better, and not be afraid to be me more openly and not be hiding so much of me......

I don't think we need to always be so open as to who we are. But we need to able to make decisions and act based on our true selves. I guess that's how we'll be more open in a way. Do we need to show people what's on the inside? Well, only those with whom we are intimate, I guess. But to the world at large? Not necessary.

"To Thine Own Self Be True" says Polonius in Hamlet (Shakespeare) - and that's what I think is important

and I mean that even to the people with whom I work closer, am closer, I hide much of myself.....I am not so true to me even then, or even alone....this is what I am wanting to work on, that there not be such incongruity or imbalance. No, I don't want to be a totally open book to the world in general, but I don't want to be hypocritical either!

This strikes a chord with me. It is something that has been an undercurrent in my therapy--bringing the inner and outer me's in synch, becoming more congruent, authentic... My T is a great role model in this. He is authentic. He is congruent. (That is one reason, I think, that it is a joy to be around him.) In his presence I try to be authentic too. I never say something I don't mean with him or that is not true. I am true to myself and try to let him see that truth too. It is a place to start--to be authentic in therapy. I strive for this in the outside world too. It feels so good when one's selves are congruent. It is very reinforcing, and makes it harder to be incongruent. (It just begins to feel so false and awful.)

I work for authenticity too, congruence of my immediate, genuine feelings and the way I express them, in as many situations as possible. But I think I have a little different outlook about long term personality than people are expressing on this thread. I don't think of lifelong personality as a fixed thing that has one authentic existence. I think it's something that we're free to create, at least to some extent, not that it's easy to shape it. But I work for that feeling of having the freedom to be what I want too (as well as working to be authentic).