What is the best thing you learned from therapy (generalizable thing)?

This is a good thread. Thanks for this!

I've learned that "so-n-so" didn't make me mad or angry or frustrate me. I allowed them to make me angry. It's ok to be angry and sometimes the situation calls for it. But others don't dictate how my day or week is going to turn out. I get to decide that.
I am now able to say (in my head) that's your problem, not mine. To them, I'm a bit more tactful

So many of these responses ring true for me.

Number one thing I've learned.

"No" is a complete sentence. Saying no is not being mean. Saying yes when I want to say no causes me to feel resentment and act out.

Number 2, people don't have to like me. The world will not end if I don't please every human on the planet. It's more important for me to please myself.

Thanks for this thread!

Pretty much the same thing as you actually! My self worth need not be bound by externals, cannot be bound my externals. There is strength within myself and I need not be emotionally dependent on others, specifically my husband. And it's ok to not live in a black and white world.

Not only is change possible, but growth and even transformation can be achieved and are intrinsically important and cannot be measured, especially by exterior things.

Mine is in my signature. Life is not just black and white. Things are not either extremely great or extremely detrimental. Life needs balance. The peace is in the grey areas.

I learned that I have value, and I have worth. And, therapy can be done through email.

I have a right to my feelings, good or bad they are MY feelings. I own them, no one else can tell me how I "should" feel.

Still trying to figure this out for myself...

I guess for me though, the biggest thing I've learned so far is simply self-awareness.

I came to understand that theres more to me than meets the eye.

I learned that my gut instincts are way off about people. They are far worse then I ever could have imagined. My T whom I trusted with extremely personal information breached my confidentiality for his own entertainment. He persuaded someone I knew to see him so he could "unload" all his "concerns" about me to her. All he wanted was another pretty client to show off to his colleagues. He cared nothing at all about me in the end. He thinks highly of himself and the lies he concocts to cover his unscrupulous ways.

I believed in a T who turned out to be exploiting me. He has even written cruel things about me and posted on the internet. I never knew a T could be so evil. He allegedly graduated from a prestigious college. I was convinced that he supported me and was absolutely devastated when I found out it was all a lie.

T's are not to be trusted. I wasted years of my life seeing him and now it is years of my life fighting for my rights. There is no justice in this world. T's cover up for each other just like other so-called professionals do.

The "caring" profession is a façade for evil doers. I am too naïve for this world but that is going to change. No one will take advantage of me like that again.

I am too critical of myself. My expectations for myself are often too harsh and a lot higher than they are for anybody else. I am kind, compassionate and loving to everybody else but I am none of those when it comes to myself.

I worry WAY to much

I've learnt (or am learning ) that I can change my behaviours. That I don't have to be a certain way just because that's what people expect of me. That's it's okay to change, and leave behaviours, judgements, values and people behind.

laxer, you're way ahead of me. I'm stil working on self-awareness....one day it will Ccme.

I am so sorry this happened to you! Have you reported him? Did you save the posts he made about you on the internet? That is definitely means for him to have his license revoked!

The best thing I've learned is that I have value and that I'm worth loving. I'm so grateful for that.

Also I've learned that I'm so much stronger and braver then I thought I was.

The best thing ive learned is sometimes your not the one thats crazy and it really is the rest of your world. When that happens its time to move foward and leave the crazy behind.

How precious I am, how much potential I have, and how much sense I make, that last one's been important as I was raised where a lot of those intrinsic needs for true validation (self-based, not role or accomplishment based) were twisted and suppressed.