Musings on my "need to be special"

Hi gang!

Since my therapist was so vague about this, I asked a friend who was in the Good Group with me.

My friend says I was the "leader" in that group, which I guess is pretty accurate. But everyone accepted me as leader, so that was fine. I wanted to be special and they let me be special.

Now it seems to me that I tried to lead in the Bad Group too, and they were not OK with that. So for several sessions I worked on listening and being ordinary. The group liked that but I got very frustrated. I felt I wasn't connecting. And they didn't want to hear that, so I gave up on them.

So.

I do have a need to be special. But it is up to others if they are prepared to let me be special. Some will, others won't. But trying to be ordinary to win them over is not a success.

I'm not prepared to be ordinary if it means being ignored.

"I'm not prepared to be ordinary if it means being ignored"

Me either! My T once said to me that "You're special alright" and I had no idea what she meant by it, it came out of the blue and was kinda said in an irritated way. Kinda freaked me out for a minute and I just gave her this funny look.

I think of special as dangerous. But CE could you be special and not try to lead?

OK I'll be honest here. I tend to want to stand out too. I also tend to want to take over and lead whatever group I'm in. And that's a bad habit, I know. Doesn't always go over too well at work - can't always be the leader of the pack. But like all my other bad habits, I'm working on it, little by little. Although...this one may take more time than some of the others

I haven't been able to do that in the past, as Bad Group shows.

What's in it for me?

I talked to T a bit more about this. We've identified two things:
1. "Special" is as far as I can get from "abandoned".
2. I use "being special" as a substitute (her word) for a proper sense of identity.