I'm going to disappoint T

How often do you reward yourself for good practice? Versus: how often do you punish yourself for "bad" practice?

Growlithing, I'm so sorry you're in so much pain right now. It strikes me that you're caught in a tangle of feelings. Some of them belong to you but some of them don't - and it's not necessarily clear which are which. Is it possible that you feel disappointed in yourself (I am NOT saying you should be, you absolutely shouldn't; it just sounds like you are) and you're assuming or imagining that your T will feel that too?

It sounds like you're putting such a lot of pressure on yourself. This isn't like learning not to wet the bed. Fighting off suicidal feelings is a very, very hard thing to do. Words like "pathetic" don't belong in this thread. You are a person in a lot of pain and you are battling through it. That's hard.

I really think you are underestimating the strength it takes to just keep breathing in and out, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, when you're hurting this much. As for the analogy about how we don't celebrate someone for not wetting the bed when they haven't done it in ten years - hmm. I think a better analogy (and I'm sorry if this is a bit gross) is someone who doesn't wet the bed even though people keep pressing down on their bladder.

I think you've hit on something very important when you say this:

I don't want to die. I just want the pain to stop and sometimes I want to physically go through the motions of killing myself but not die. I wish sui had a trial period so you can kill yourself and come back if you don't like it.

Something that has really, really helped me is to see the pain I'm in - and the suicidal feelings it causes - as something that's gotten inside of me and is hurting me and making me sick and sad. Like rotten fruit that I ate, or a wasp that has crawled into my stomach and keeps stinging me. It's not just me, I'm not consumed by it - it's something that hurts me and, when it hurts, I think about how I want it to go away and stop hurting me.

I really wish you could be a little kinder to yourself. I don't think you expect kindness or compassion from your T, which is why you imagine she would be disappointed. You are fighting so hard, Growlithing. Give yourself some credit.

I'm not really sure what you mean by thought that are not mine. Are you referring to how not all of my thoughts fit together in any logical sense?

Nope - sorry if I've confused you. Actually, your thoughts seem logical to me, I just think they're too harsh and self-critical as you don't know how to show kindness to yourself.

I was referring to the fact that your thoughts and feelings are a mix of what you think and feel, what you imagine your T thinks and feels, and - here's the real kicker - what your parents think and feel. Because the negative thoughts you have about yourself and the cruel, sad things you have to say, well, I'm not sure they've just come out of nowhere.

You say it's not a big deal that you're resisting the urge to commit suicide. That you're not deserving of praise for doing that. That you have to be perfect. That you're a disappointment. But whose voice is that? Is it yours, or your parents'? Who taught you to see yourself like that?

Sometimes we have beliefs about ourselves that have been put there by other people, through the things they do or the things they say. And then they feel like our opinions when they're actually not.

Growlithing, you KNOW how hard you're fighting, because you're the one who's there doing the fighting. You know how much effort it's taking. So this belief, this thought, that it's not a big deal and you don't deserve praise... well, I'm not so sure it's really coming from you. I think it's what someone else has taught you to think or believe, so you're denying what you know - that you DO deserve praise because it IS hard.