Loordy, Lourdy the COUCH is 40....

What was your answer?

she wants us to have a logical conversation about forgiving parents for something...

trying to think up something...has me between vomiting from anxiety and punching my hand through a wall..

Do you want to forgive them? That seems like a stretch to try to talk a client into forgiving the parents.

i'm going to say for not coming to any of my little league softball games...

truthfully I was glad they never came... I only played because it was a way to have the whole Saturday away from the chaos... if they came it would have brought the chaos with them...

I told her that I would like to learn to be in the same room with them without wanting to spit nails....

she went brought up forgiving them...

honestly I'd like to just wipe all memory away and be able to treat them like the kind old people who sit in front of me at church

An interesting idea that forgiving them will alleviate the nail spitting thing.

hmmm...nail spitting is due to anger... anger does not equal forgiveness...???

forgiving equals no anger...no anger equals no nail spitting....???

I don't know. I would think anger could be alleviated (processed, worked through - choose your phrase) without forgiveness. Or perhaps I am thinking about forgiveness differently than is meant in your situation as the therapist is using the word.

Forgiving your parents is a long term goal. Not really the place to start!

You start therapy when you realise you hate your parents.
You stop therapy when you realise you don't.

Maybe I am ready to stop after all.

I will never stop hating what my parents did...

and that is why I realized that somethings are just my own personal delusions...

I would have said the same. And yet... I did.

I'm happy for you. Glad that has helped you in your journey....

That one I see is constantly trying to talk me into being angry at my parents.

Yes. You have to hate them first, then forgive them.

who says?

Me, I guess. I thought it was a standard therapy sequence.

I don't think it has to be. I think there may be other models.

Ah! And what model do you favour?

Interesting discussion. I've never hated my parents and don't see how that would help anything.

Well if you never get angry at them, you will never have to forgive them. Why didn't I think of that?? Oh wait - I did!

Well...I never said I didn't get angry, just never hated them. Got over the anger at them pretty early and forgave them a long time ago. As much as I wish things could have been different, I know that they had their own issues and their own pain which resulted in them not being good parents to me.

Oops Sorry murray! I thought I was talking to SD!! Because that is more how I think I saw it. I didn't reason it out like you did. Although there was the element of, anything I went thru, -they could always top and they always let me know it. So I learned to just shut it. I later learned to unshut it, however!!

With me, it was like, they just didn't think I was worth the trouble. They got away with the least about of effort. They took the most possible credit, like for my good grades, wIthout ever giving me credit for making those good grades. To the extended family I was smart, but to my immediate family I was dumb and lazy and ugly. but they would never say such a thIng to my face. They just let It out In drIbs and drabs. So basically they can bite me now. I am a lot happier and a lot saner, now that I don't subject myself to their weirdness any longer. Their phoniness. I never really knew what to say or how to act. Now I understand why.

My parents did not really mistreat me. I don't know what I would be angry with them about at this point.
The therapist does not just get all worked up about me being angry at them. She also has this big deal about me being sad. Or acting sad or something. Frankly I am not quite clear on this bit of it.

This is not at all a goal of mine in therapy, and I don't see forgiving my mom as helping or hurting me.

Mine does this as well. I am hurt by a lot of what she did, but I wouldn't say I'm angry. I tend not to get angry at others, just at myself.