Inability to give myself a break

I refuse to think it will end that way. I want to stay in my relationship. Its more complicated, as if we split up I have no friends or family for thousands of miles. Id be alone and i don't need that right now either. I appreciate your honesty.

I could have wrote the same exact post.. It is something T and I have touched briefly on and keeps coming back up again. I wish I had some advice, but it looks as though others have chimed in. Things will change, you are working on it and you acknowedge the issue.. That is step one!

Anti-matter, i hide my self hatred behind jokes and smiles... I don't let it surface enough to consume me, i cant... the show must go on.

I'm right in the middle of this now, but I've learned a couple of things. My dad had extremely high expectations of me, which I could never meet, so that's one of the reasons I feel I have to earn love. No matter how much I knocked myself out to be perfect, it was never enough. He withheld love and acceptance, kind of sadistically, actually, and enjoyed his power over me. He could make me dance like a puppet on a string, trying to please him. Ugh.

Then we started focusing on my mother in T. She's been dead for 25 years and I can remember things about her, but no emotions at all. Suspicious, eh? I brought in pictures of her and my family, and we would spend entire sessions with me trying to remember what it was like growing up, how I felt. So far we've discovered that she tromped all over my boundaries and tried to live through me. Meanwhile, my parents had an unhappy marriage and both of them talked to me about each other and their problems, and it fell to me to try to fix the marriage. Of course I couldn't so I felt like a failure. And where were my needs in all this? Nobody met my needs!! I couldn't be happy if my mother wasn't happy, because it was my job to make her happy and I couldn't, so therefore I didn't deserve to be happy.

It's just a huge depressing mess. But as we work on this T is showing me how this informs the way I've lived my life as an adult. It's all making sense, but it's just really slow going at 50 mins/week.

If I think of more I'll post, hope this makes sense. I'm struggling with it all. Wish I could be more coherent.

Like i keep telling myself, I didn't get jacked up over night and I'm not gonna fix it overnight either... thank you for sharing, stuff like that helps.

I relate to your original post but especially this part.
When I went to renew my driver's license they had changed the rules saying you couldn't smile in the picture. I tried to explain, even if I were pulled over, I would be smiling. I cannot un-smile, it's an effective shield.

Yeah my T often reminds me that I have lived this way for a long time and it will take time to learn a new way to be. He is fond of saying it is a marathon not a sprint.

I wish I had something that could help. I went the other way, I decided I would rather give up being loved because the cost seemed to be my soul and I did not want to give that up. For what it is worth, not being loved is not all that bad. And sometimes, despite my awfulness, some people do not think I completely suck. I don't count on it, but it seems to be there. I have had the same group of friends for about 30 years and it is possible they have not spent all this time merely tolerating me as there have been opportunities to ditch me along the way.

You dont suck, i like you

I like you too. And you do not suck either.

I got a warm fuzzy. I wont hug

Lola, the way you describe it is almost exactly the way I do. I learned very early that doing things for others was the way to get attention (or at least the way to avoid punishment). I've resented it for decades, but I still do it.

I'm just learning how to express that I have needs. There are only two people I can do it with yet - T and my best friend. T and I have never really talked about it, but he works it so that I have to ask him for much of what I need. For example, if I have a really rough session, he tells me that I can call him if I'm upset, but he doesn't call me to check in. In the very rare event that I do call him between sessions, he says he's really pleased that I decided that I could ask for what I need and that I'm worthy of receiving it. It feels a little like clicker training for dogs, really. But, I'll take any form of positive reinforcement that I can find these days.

Anyway, I think that one way to work through this is to start, little by little, asking for what we need and letting others manage their own needs a bit more. Of course, it has to be with a safe person. So, your T is a logical choice to start with.

I can relate. I grew up with criticism and I have internalised it.

The cure? Here's my theory. It's about reprogramming the superego, so you hear your therapist's voice and not your mother's in times of stress.

i wish i had words lola i really do. i care and for no other reason then you are worth caring about i wish you could see that for your self. i wish a lot of people here could see how they are worth caring about.just be you lola

Good theory. I LIKE hearing my therapist's voice ........

One of the things ex t helped me with was asking. He would always say "ask me a question wiki". I have learned to ask H too, over the years. I started noticing little things H would do for me, and I would say "thanks, that really makes me feel loved". As I started learning what made me feel loved and relaying that info to H our whole relationship changed. He tells me what he needs, I tell him what I need. Now I just have to start doing that with others.

Others can't know what we need if we don't tell them, and how can we tell them when we don't know ourselves.

I need to be needed. That's why I come here. There are people who need my help.

I know this is how you feel today but your outward situation has changed? You don't have to respond the way you had to as a kid?

Yeah, the codependent way of doing things is "I'll meet your needs and you meet mine". Your partner can help but you have to be in charge of your needs.

I realize this, but its who i am. I am aware of many things that are wrong with how i cope and deal, but knowing doesnt seem to speed up the changing.

My point was only to focus on the differences in environments. This has always helped me to tell myself that the environments are different. When I would catch myself responding to yesterday's environment in the here and now, I did this exercise, telling myself that I was responding to yesterday's environment and not to today's. I think that it helps with the rewiring. I worked through many issues catching myself in the moment and doing the work right then and there.

Yes, the way you develop as a child is what you bring to adulthood.

My T says that relationships improve even if only one partner has therapy. Frankly, I find that hard to believe, and it doesn't seem fair either. But she's the trained professional.

You have only your wife's friends and your wife's family?
No wonder you feel vulnerable.

"Inside my heart is breaking
My make-up may be flaking
But my smile stays on"

And once again, the show must go on.... because without a show... i have no reason to exist.

Napoleon's stepson stood by him even after his brothers had run away.

You have children and grandchildren. They are as much yours as hers.