Jeez louise, I haven't even talked to t yet today and I'm already bawling. I had this realization you see when I was reading through my notebook, that I need to let people love me. I have friends that I used to work with and I realize now that they have ALWAYS thought I was good enough, exactly the way I am, and loved me, but it was ME that couldn't accept it. And that hurts so much. I don't even know if I can talk this to t or not. I'm crying so hard because it hurts SO much that I'm the author of my own misery. What the he!! is wrong with me to cause me to hate myself so much that I could not accept love from friends?! I'm getting there now, some of these friends are who I spent the afternoon with recently when I went to the midwest, I think of all the years wasted in between that I lost contact with them because I could not let myself accept their love and acceptance of ME. I hope I can stop blubbering before I have to call t in 30 minutes. Major breakthrough right now. Wow. I just wish it wasn't so painful.

[CantExplain]

((Artemis))

A painful realisation, but a fruitful one.

[content30]

It is very sad, but at the same time, it is great that you are realizing this! This can really help catapult you forward! You can't move forward by always looking back and regretting things, but you can move forward, allow yourself to be love, and cultivate and maintain meaningful relationships! I'm so happy for you that you're having a major breakthrough!

Just got off the phone with t, it was a very good but emotionally tough and draining session. I cried off and on throughout. Lots and lots of things going on inside me right now. Letting myself feel things and I mean feel things for reals not just on the surface, and talking them through, no filters, sharing from my completely open heart, wow. I'm exhausted. Wow. That's about all I can say about it right now. That was the best session we have ever had and we have had some really good ones. Now I'm going to take a nap!!

[tooski]

Originally Posted by artemis-within

Just got off the phone with t, it was a very good but emotionally tough and draining session. I cried off and on throughout. Lots and lots of things going on inside me right now. Letting myself feel things and I mean feel things for reals not just on the surface, and talking them through, no filters, sharing from my completely open heart, wow. I'm exhausted. Wow. That's about all I can say about it right now. That was the best session we have ever had and we have had some really good ones. Now I'm going to take a nap!!

I just want to say bravo! I admire you for being able to do this. I can hear the pain in your words and I'm sorry you're suffering this painful realization. But you were able to open up and share with T. This is really inspiring to me. I'm in a similar place and opened up a tiny bit, but I need to do what you did. I'm so glad you shared. A nap sounds like a good idea Take care.

[Anne2.0]

I am bawling as I read this. It made me think of one of my favorite novels, She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. The person speaking is a former high school teacher, who was fired from his job after some parents found out he was gay. A few years later, the teacher is dying of cancer, and this man shows up on his doorstep every Friday, with a coffee milkshake. The man was the ringleader of the group who led to the teacher being fired. No conversation, just a handing over of the coffee milkshake.

The man is talking to the protagonist of the novel, a troubled girl who has difficulty loving herself, mostly because of what's been done to her. And he says to her, there is one thing that I've learned in my life, and it's "accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love."

I can identify multiple places in my life where I have realized that I've gotten it All Wrong, that what I believed about myself was not true, that what I thought others were trying to do to me was an illusion created by me, in service of my distorted perceptions.

And it is such bittersweet agony, I think I get what you mean about being your own worst enemy (or something like that-- I can't look back at your post through my weeping). All I can say is that whatever it feels like to be out of that place is worth it to have the rest of your life in front of you, to be fresh and new and be able to move forward with clarity and empowerment.

[Asiablue]

I had a similar realisation last year. I had become my own abuser. Nothing else in my life had been more prolonged and damaging than what i was putting myself thru. Where the other people who had been damaging me had left off, and no longer had the power over me, i took on their roles and continued denigrate myself, physically and mentally abuse myself. And realising what i'd done to myself was very emotional.