Couch 180:

Its not really me - its my evil introject. Like my dad said, "i want to run away too - i dont much like it here either ya know."

How DOES one deal with not being perfect, with being human?

Exactly. How??

Nowhere nice to go :/

Thanks for this Lemon. Recently, after reading a thread on here I wondered what it would be like to contact him telling him how much he hurt me. I think part of this dream is telling me that I would never get a good response from him and it would likely hurt me more.

I didn't really tell him at the time because I was too wrapped up in transference/love for him and I didn't feel any of the anger that I feel now. It's hard to know what to do with that anger other than express it to him. I am sure this relates strongly with anger towards my late mother that I was never able to express. There was always a lot of maternal transference with T1.

He contacted me out of the blue 2 years after termination, at 2am, probably drunk, and told me he had split up with his wife and giving me his personal email in case I wanted to "catch up". I never replied because at that point I realised it wasn't about him caring for me at all, it was all about him. He didn't ask me anything about me in that message, he just told me all about him. I realised then that he didn't care about me and that's when I became angry.

Its your evil introject! - ahem! - who couldnt deal with their own bad self, and figured to save you the bad feelings over feeling bad, by requiring you to be good all the time, cuz that should be easy, right? Just choose to do the right thing all the time. Never make a mistake. Always have all the information to make the right decision. Easy-peasy, right? a trap that leaves you with no foundation for the future, but makes you a very easy child to raise.

Well my work at home is progressing... got an email this morning that my internet installation is scheduled for this coming Monday. (They don't make us use our personal internet.) After that it will just be the wait for my WAH (work at home) kit I don't even know what that includes. Once that comes then I'll be working at home yay!!

Its your evil introject! - ahem! - who couldnt deal with their own bad self, and figured to save you the bad feelings over feeling bad, by requiring you to be good all the time, cuz that should be easy, right? Just choose to do the right thing all the time. Never make a mistake. Always have all the information to make the right decision. Easy-peasy, right? a trap that leaves you with no foundation for the future, but makes you a very easy child to raise.

Perhaps writing a letter you don't necessarily have to send would help. You could also write your own response from him- what would you ideally like him to say?

Why is it so hard to deal with the idea we’re not perfect?

I suppose that’s an advantage to having a disability, for me. I can never be perfect. All I can do is try my best.

It's not about thinking I'm perfect. I know I'm not and can never be but child me grew up thinking to deserve love I had to be and that is so deeply rooted that it continues today in one form or another. It's why I feel like I have to get A's in school now, if I don't h will be mad that I spent the money. Stuff like that. Probably not logical but that's my brain. I don't have enough time left of my break right now to detail all the myriad ways this belief plays out in my life in the present. I am trying to learn how to tolerate all the bad-ness I see inside me lately with this codependency stuff. So much bad-ness my system is well trained against tolerating. I am probs not making any sense at all.

That's the place I'm struggling with getting to, I think. Forgiving myself. There's much I could say about this but it's not got words yet.

Forgiving myself. There's much I could say about this but it's not got words yet.

Is forgiveness really necessary? It just seems like the sort of stuff you think is so bad, well, just isn't. Maybe what's needed is more a redefinition of what you think is so bad?

I'm a serial apologist and perfectionist, too. It's a remnant of my childhood, for some reason I think I'm not allowed to make mistakes or do the "wrong thing," or something horrible will happen. I have a hard time figuring out what that thing would be. Maybe the sky will fall.