Posted by fxckfeelings on December 20, 2012
When you believe in the value of a close family, it’s natural to take on the role of diplomat when a conflict between some of your nearest and dearest threatens to make you all distant and estranged. Unfortunately, there are some disagreements that can’t be resolved, be they by diplomat or total destruction, but that’s not reason to despair; there’s much you can do to be helpful and cement relationships that do work if you allow negative feelings to exist without blame, and respect the value of spending limited amounts of time with family you have to be with. After all, a good diplomat knows that peace isn’t found through open togetherness, but through respectful time apart.
–Dr. Lastname
Please note: There will be no post on Monday due to Christmas Eve. Happy holidays to all (and if that doesn’t happen, you know how to reach us).
My sister and I have been raised by our single mother, and I have excellent relationships with both of them. Unfortunately, my sister and our mother’s relationship has always been difficult and it’s getting worse. My sister recently revealed that she had been sexually abused by one of my mother’s boyfriends, and inexplicably, I felt like I knew it all along. My mother was obviously distraught by the news, although I don’t know that my sister and her have had any deep discussions around that issue. My sister did briefly see a shrink but never went on a full therapy. In a nutshell, I think my sister has built a lot of resentment towards my mother and their disagreements/fights are becoming more and more bitter, to the extent that my mother is becoming less and less inclined to have a relationship with my sister. I’m tired of being in the middle of it all and have decided to let them deal with their issues themselves. I don’t like to see them unhappy but it seems to me that they refuse to take the necessary steps to heal their relationship. Am I right in deciding to stay out of it? Or is it my duty to keep trying to mend their relationship?
When two people you love are estranged, it feels like your only choice is to try to get them to reconcile or give up entirely—the “Parent Trap” trap. Fortunately, there’s a third option, although it’s not very Disney, and there’s no happy ending.
Your third choice happens once you accept the fact that their reconciliation is neither your responsibility nor under your control. You didn’t pull them apart, you can’t put them together, but you don’t need them to pull you apart, either. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 13, 2012
Given how little we control our own urges, it’s not surprising that we also have trouble controlling our reactions to them, but it is odd how often those reactions are totally wrong. Brains have a pretty good track record with instincts; get thirsty when hot, get sleep when tired, get away when near snakes, etc. When people get urges that are humiliating, however, even when they’re doing a good job of controlling them, they wrongly blame themselves, but when they get controlled by noble urges, even when they’re causing terrible harm, they give themselves a pass. So, however much you love or hate your urges, don’t give yourself a hard time about stigma or anti-stigma. Instead, remember your own moral priorities and ask yourself whether you’re doing the right thing with whatever urges, pretty or ugly, that you got, and to avoid snakes.
–Dr. Lastname
I have yo yo’d with my weight for ever—I was 8 years old when I remember going on my first diet, and I had binged by lunch time. I have seen a psychologist regularly in the past and a psychiatrist more recently, and been diagnosed with a binge eating disorder as well as melancholic depression. I also have a history of being sexually abused when I was a child and required hospitalization once for an attempted suicide (prior to diagnosis) and have been on various anti-depressants. Last year I decided to press charges against my abuser and the investigation is still taking place. This was very big for me as previously I couldn’t speak about or put into words to anybody what had happened to me, but with the professional help over years, could make a police statement. I have managed to get into a healthy weight range many times in the past, but only when on a program like Jenny Craig or weight watchers, and I resent having to do these programs and can’t commit to them after I have done them once, but I can’t seem to stay in this healthy way of life on my own. I am either losing weight or putting weight on– my thought are always around food, what when and where I can eat next. I hide most of my eating from everyone including my husband. I feel like a drug addict and don’t know how to take control of my eating. I do really well in my career and other areas of my life, I just can’t flip this switch that turns me into a zombie when I want to eat. I read everything I can about these disorders, I talk about strategies with my mental health professional, but when the urge to eat takes over I go into a zone that I can’t switch myself out of. How can I stop this pattern?
Having an eating disorder is rough, but it’s even worse if you give yourself a disorder about your disorder, giving yourself a hard time for having a hard time. It’s especially unnecessary given the fact that it’s harder to find someone with complete control over unhealthy food impulses than it is to find a unicorn.
Almost everyone has trouble controlling eating habits, as evidenced, not just by the multi-billion dollar industry devoted to weight management (which, as you’ve discovered, is no silver bullet), but by the fact that very few people get permanent weight control without surgery. In reality, of course, as much as we try to control our weight, more often, it controls us. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 10, 2012
While most people yearn to believe that you can manage unresolvable conflict with communication, unresolvable usually means what it says, and nothing, from long talks to long range missiles, can make that conflict go away. The more you try to communicate, the more listening leads to louder voices and more pain, so opt instead for dialogue that stifles emotional needs for the sake of strategic goals, getting work done, and sparing the children. Learning to manage communication won’t make you happy, but unlike unbridled attempts at futile conflict resolution through intensive sharing, it won’t make you and everyone around you completely miserable.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve had fewer fights with my husband since he started spending more time in the basement bedroom, but that means we’re just putting off deciding what we’re going to do about our marriage. We avoid talking, which means he doesn’t lose his temper and throw thing, but the kids can sense the tension and we’re certainly not moving forward. My goal is to figure out if there’s any possible way to try to stay together, which probably means sharing our feelings more honestly, or if this is truly the end.
There’s a good way to communicate when a deep rift remains in a relationship after peace talks have failed, and it has nothing to do with digging deeper, expressing hard truths honestly, or bringing in professional help (be it a shrink or hit man).
Usually, communication means the ability to express ideas, but in a difficult relationship, it’s the ability to interact in a non-homicidal fashion. As such, your best communication strategy requires accepting differences, then, when the other person digs deeper and expresses whatever intense, unpleasant feeling he or she has to say about you, shutting up.
After all, if certain topics remain explosive and certain behaviors unchanged, then further talk is asking for trouble, no matter how carefully you approach talking about them or how gently you plan to do so. When you can’t negotiate your differences, you just have to learn to navigate around them. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 8, 2012
Although stopping long-term intensive psychotherapy can leave you in a state of mourning and fear, particularly if it occurs during tough times or against your wishes, it’s unrealistic to expect that returning to therapy will make everything right again. Instead, give yourself time to adjust to change and reassess your ability to stay functional and positive. Then, if you think it’s necessary, find a therapist who’s a good, supportive coach and use him or her for a different kind of therapy that keeps your head straight without stirring up your deeper feelings. If you’re certain that you have to be “in therapy” to get helpful support and are helpless without it, then the therapy you’re in is helping you a lot less than you think.
–Dr. Lastname
In my early 20s I spent 4 years in therapy (which I think in and of itself says a whole lot about the not good place I was in my head). Therapy ended, not because I was ready, but because I moved. I am now 46, and in the years since I continued to work through a lot of things on my own, with my therapist’s voice in my head, if no longer in actual therapy sessions. In January my grandmother took a turn for the worse, with both health and cognition, and we had to place her in full nursing care. She has always been one of the most influential and positive forces in my life, so I had a hard time dealing with this. It sent me spiraling down into my 4th lifetime episode of depression. I’ve started back on Prozac, which I now realize I need to stay on for the rest of my life to try to prevent future recurrences, and I’ve spent the last 10 months in therapy with my former therapist via phone sessions as we now live 1,000 miles apart. I have finished working through a lot of stuff in that time, meaning I’ve changed my attitudes and perceptions and behaviors, which has changed my life, inner and outer. I wish I’d figured it out 25 years ago, during that first round of therapy, but better late than never. It’s been a hard year. My grandmother died 7 weeks ago. The grief hit me more than I ever imagined. I thought I’d prepared in those months when she was slowly dying, but I was wrong. What is the saying—Where there is no struggle, there is no strength? Good growth has come of the pain—I have returned to college, and I am training for my first full marathon in January. I am at a truly good place in my head and was ready to end therapy, so two weeks ago, with my therapist’s blessing, I had my last session. I knew, though, that ending therapy because I am truly ready is a celebration, but that it would also be a loss. It is currently hitting me harder than I imagined. How do I get through this and find a place of healthy acceptance of this transition?
While it’s unfortunate that stopping intensive psychotherapy after many years is hitting you hard, it’s not surprising. As you well know, loss is painful, be it the death of a loved one or the end of a source of support.
That said, your pain doesn’t mean your psychotherapy has been less complete than you thought or that you stopped it too soon, just that you can be a solid, resilient person and also be very sensitive to loss, both because of temperament and circumstances. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 18, 2012
Assessing one’s self-esteem is like checking for Puxatony Phil’s shadow on Groundhog Day; while we have a long tradition of caring about its status, the results are fairly meaningless. After all, some people with strong characters don’t like themselves because they don’t measure up to high standards, and other people are madder at life’s unfairness than they are at themselves and underperform, not because they don’t like themselves, but because they care more about feeling good than getting strong. And of course, sometimes, it’s just cloudy. In general, it’s better to have a strong character, even if makes you kick yourself, than to see yourself as a deserving, entitled victim in order to break out of the rut of bad decisions and get out of Puxatony once and for all.
–Dr. Lastname
My 14-year-old son seems to care about his schoolwork but he’s unusually stubborn (the psychiatrist says he has Asperger’s syndrome) and he never does his schoolwork the way his teachers want him to. When they ask him to show his work in Math, he refuses, but he often gets the answers right anyway, just without any proof. When they ask him to do a draft of an essay, he just won’t do it, but then the final version he writes at the last minute is fairly reasonable. My son always feels guilty and angry, both for not being understood and not being able to do it correctly, and I’m worried that they’re not teaching him right, in a way that caters to his specific needs. My goal is to get them to give him better help.
You’ve been trying for many years to get your son to show his Math work and finish his preliminary drafts on time, and it just doesn’t happen. He’s had many teachers work with him and no one has found the answer. You’ve made an effort, and after showing your work, it’s fair to conclude “the answer” doesn’t exist.
In addition, telling teachers they need to improve is bound to make things worse since they already have the government telling them they’re responsible for their class’ performance, regardless of what those kids and their families are like. Holding them accountable for not getting results—the “show your work” of the teaching world—isn’t quite fair since you know it’s an impossible job.
Once you add your own personal “no child left behind” intervention, don’t be surprised if the teachers start to find fault with both you and your son in order to defray blame. Whatever happens next, it won’t involve praise or more positive results for anyone. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 4, 2012
While we’re taught by our elders that sex is the greatest way a man can express his love and admiration for a woman (and only after marriage), experience teaches us that attraction can be fairly impersonal, based less on who you are than where you are, what your hair color is, and if you say yes. It’s odd then that people struggle to accept that a lack of attraction can be equally impersonal, even in a marriage, and that there are limits to how much it can be influenced by talk, wine, and roses. The fact is that there’s much about interpersonal sexual chemistry that you and your partner will never control, so doing your best to bridge the gap is the best defense you will ever have against doubt, blame, and feelings of failure. Losing sex can hurt, but if you know it’s not your fault, it doesn’t have to ruin your relationship or your self-confidence. Sex is impersonal, but commitment isn’t.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband and I went to couples therapy a few years ago, but it left me with a lingering feeling of bitterness towards him that I had never felt before. I know I tended to ignore him when we were busy raising the kids, and I understood he felt aggrieved that things didn’t get better when the nest emptied out. So I tried hard, at the urging of our couples therapist, to make time for him and try to touch him and give him pleasure in bed. What left me bitter was the way he responded (i.e., he didn’t). No matter how hard I tried, nothing I did was enough, so I gave up. I’m not going to leave him because I like our family life, I’m looking forward to retirement, I have lots of interests, and I don’t want to complicate life with a divorce. I wouldn’t have sex with him now, however, if he begged. My goal is not to get hurt again.
Hurt feelings can make one half of a married couple withdraw from the other, which can just cause more hurt feelings, etc., etc. Structured re-engagement via therapy can sometimes stop that cycle, providing that a couple still has love and effort to give. Then again, that re-engagement effort can also reveal that love has left the building or, as in your case, is stuck in a revolving door.
For your own peace of mind, you did the right thing trying to repair your relationship, regardless of whether it led to disappointment. Unfortunately, one of the things you can’t control is your husband’s emotional and sexual response, and while therapy was supposed to bring you together, it instead gave you a reality check. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 24, 2012
Coping with the mental illness of a family member can be agonizing, and when you can’t stop destructive behavior, it feels like defeat. Trying to defeat the symptoms of mental illness, however, is like trying to win a war on weight-gain or terror—difficult, endless, and resulting in gains that are easily lost. If you learn to accept setbacks as part of the process, rather than attack them as tests of your love and will, you’ll do more to sustain morale, including yours and your family’s. Take pride in your willingness to endure a difficult, painful, and sometimes frightening relationship; you won’t win or lose a war, but you’ll gain peace.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve got an adult daughter whom I know is mentally ill—she thinks people are plotting against her, including her very nice husband—and, for the last few years, without my own husband’s help, I’ve desperately tried to persuade her to get treatment before her marriage fell apart and she got arrested for doing something violent and stupid. The harder I tried, however, the more she suspected I was part of the conspiracy. There was a ray of hope 6 months ago when she had a screaming fit one night and got locked up in a mental hospital, but the medication made no difference, and she came out more certain than ever that her husband was her worst enemy, so she left him. My husband says I’m part of the problem because I never take my daughter’s side, but my goal is to restore her to sanity, and I know my husband is in fantasyland if he thinks she’s sane and has a “side” based in reality. I’m getting nowhere, though, and my own marriage is under pressure. What do I do now?
Unfortunately, while there is no surefire cure for paranoia, pushing a paranoid person to get help is a reliable way to make it worse. After all, if somebody thinks the world is against them, disagreeing with that person only confirms their delusions. Call it the paranoia-dox.
If your daughter’s paranoia can’t be helped—and it seems you’ve tried very hard to help her—then I’m sorry, but your husband has the right idea, even if it’s for the wrong reason. By not challenging her feelings of being victimized, your husband avoids the paranoia-dox, which makes it an approach worth trying. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 30, 2012
If you listen to (other) experts, psychiatric treatment should always begin with objective evidence, which then determines a diagnosis, which directs us to proven, effective treatments. This expert, on the other hand, thinks that “evidence-based psychiatry” would be very nice if we happened to know lots more than we do, but it is one of life’s great ironies that the organ we know the least about is the home of knowledge itself, the brain. Until we can fully wrap our heads around our minds and how they work, scientific thinking in psychiatry is often wishful thinking. It can actually get in the way of making good, practical decisions and accepting the necessity of living with the unknown, be it a mystery illness or the grey mush in our skulls.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve been very confused lately because of what’s going on inside me. My father did some bad things to me while I was growing up—things that I just began remembering a year or so ago (sorry, I can’t label it). Since then, other memories surfaced as well, but not many at all. Most of my memories of my childhood are snapshots that are just little moments in time, separated by years in between that I just don’t remember. Anyway, the thing that distresses me is that sometimes, but not all the time, I’ll feel like I have another part of me who is talking in my head. This came to my awareness mostly after the memories started coming up, although I feel like maybe it happened occasionally before. For instance, recently someone asked me a question, and a child’s voice answered in my head. I have other instances of similar things like that happening. One time it seemed like there were two parts conversing with each other and I was just observing the conversation, per se. That being said, I am educated enough about what happened to me and the consequences of it to know that I think I’m describing DID, but from what I’ve read, I don’t think I have it. I don’t switch to other personalities, and I don’t really lose time or anything like that…but I do know I’m not qualified to make that kind of assessment (and I know you can’t just by reading this letter). But my question does relate to that: is it possible to have the kinds of experiences I’ve described and not have DID? Since I’m pretty sure I don’t have it, I feel like I’m just some crazy, messed up person for no reason. It terrifies me to share this with anyone, but I don’t know what to do anymore, and it’s getting harder and harder to keep going.
Diagnosis in psychiatry is never precise and, when given too much attention, can do more harm than good. Until the day a mental illness diagnosis can be determined by peeing on a stick, all we can currently do is lump symptoms together and try to observe what happens to people who fall within an arbitrary category.
In the short run, knowing you’re not alone might be comforting, but it would tell you very little about what to expect from future symptoms or treatments. Worse, it would get you thinking of yourself as a diagnosis instead of as a person who’s trying to live life in spite of some disturbing, hard-to-understand symptoms.
As such a person, ask yourself what you most want to accomplish in this life, despite whatever’s going on in your head. For most people with traumatic childhoods, it’s always meaningful to be decent to others, whether they’re your kids, relatives, or friends. You know how easily people slip into abusiveness when they’re angry and how much it hurts, so you never take a good, supportive relationship for granted.
Most symptoms that impair the way you function won’t prevent you from being the person you want to be or doing what you really want to do, they’ll just slow you down and force you to work harder to think up alternative methods. A good coach helps you to accept your impairment without getting discouraged or demoralized.
So instead of looking for the ultimate shrink diagnostician, find a therapist who can act as a good coach, who isn’t too upset by symptoms, and is eager to see what you’re capable of, even when you’re distracted by traumatic memories, internal conversations or the sensations of observing yourself.
Consult a psychiatrist at least once or twice to get an overview of possible treatments, including medication. Of course, non-medical treatments almost always pose a lower risk, but many medications are relatively safe and require no more than a few weeks to try out. If your symptoms are sufficiently painful and/or disabling, and non-medical treatment is insufficient, then you owe it to yourself to check out every possibility.
Whatever symptoms you have, you want to do your best to manage them without letting them define your life. Keep up your diagnostic questions until you’re confident you’ve heard what the experts have to say, regardless of how unsatisfying that might be, and then forget about what caused your problems or how they might be categorized.
Your next step is to manage your burden and respect yourself for carrying it, even if the nature of that burden remains a mystery.
STATEMENT:
“My psychological symptoms spook me and leave me feeling distracted and distanced from myself, but they can’t take the meaning out of a good day’s work or a solid friendship. I may never figure out why I feel the way I do, or stop myself from feeling that way, but I can certainly lead my life according to my values regardless of the tricks my head likes to play on me.”
No one was more surprised than I when I suddenly got depressed about a year ago, because it’s not something that ever happened to me before. I lost energy, felt like crying, and got anxiety attacks. There was lots of pressure at work, but my job was safe, and I’ve never been prone to buckling under pressure. Now I could barely get to work and I didn’t give a damn about the projects that I was responsible for. My wife finally forced me to see a psychiatrist, I started to feel better on an antidepressant, and then my internist really surprised me by telling me my testosterone was low and I should try a trial of replacement therapy, which I did. Within 2 weeks I was back to normal and a few weeks later I stopped the antidepressant. So now I wonder whether I was really depressed or not or whether I should have tried antidepressant in the first place. My goal is to figure out my diagnosis so I’ll know what to expect.
Even on that rare occasion when a specific psychiatric diagnosis really matters, it doesn’t matter as much as you think. Yes, it was critical to your recovery that you and your doctors checked out testosterone deficiency as a possible cause of depression; the sudden, unexpected onset of your symptoms raised the odds of your having an unusual and potentially curable cause, which deserved an extensive workup of your hormone levels, vitamin levels, evidence of inflammation, etc., so congrats for making a good decision.
You also discovered that depressive symptoms may have many causes, making depression less of a diagnosis than a cluster of symptoms. So, much like aspirin, antidepressants can improve symptoms, no matter what the cause, if they work at all. (Unfortunately, no matter what the cause, antidepressant trials often fail [35% for each trial] and require lots of time [three to four weeks] before there are noticeable results.)
In addition to lucking out with both the diagnosis and the response to antidepressants, you learned a valuable lesson, which is that anyone can get depression. It wasn’t caused by bad psychological or medical hygiene, just bad luck. Getting depression often doesn’t have a deeper meaning other than that we live in a tough, unfair world where people often get sick for no reason, and sometimes that sickness makes your brain miserable.
Your own observations are the best guide to your prognosis. If you responded rapidly to getting testosterone replacement therapy, then you may be relatively unlikely to get depressive symptoms again (as long as you continue taking the testosterone, which you may need indefinitely). At some point, if you want to experiment with reducing the testosterone treatment, ask your physician about the odds and choose a good time for experimenting, when not too much else is going on in your life.
From what you know, there’s no reason to think that your prognosis—your expected luck—is worse than anyone else’s. You made good choices, which is an essential survival skill when you happen to live in a bad luck world.
STATEMENT:
“I’d love to take my mental health for granted the way I used to, and maybe I will, after enough time of not feeling depressed has passed, but there’s no escaping knowing how easy it is to get sick. I’m proud of having made good decisions and happy to have gotten lucky enough to almost balance the bad luck I had to get sick in the first place.”
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 16, 2012
Since marriage is supposed to exist between two people, it’s understandable that one partner’s adding an inner demon to the mix can make things a little crowded. Demons are hell to live with (pun intended) and, unless you’re Buffy, a neurosurgeon, or, evidently, Abraham Lincoln, they’re also impossible to kill. While psychotherapy has little power to exorcise them, it can do much to increase the coping skills of those brave people who are determined to survive, be decent, and keep their marriages together, regardless of the obstacles created by these intimate enemies.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve recently gotten married to a wonderful man after a very brief courtship (we’d lived across the country, and he’ll be moving in with me in the fall). Now I’m terrified I’m going to ruin this relationship by behaving the same way I’ve behaved in every other significant romantic relationship I’ve ever had—by never being satisfied by what he does, by framing things in terms of who’s right and who’s wrong (of course I’m right!), and by letting my anger take complete control in the moment and being unable to communicate civilly. Intellectually and practically, I thoroughly appreciate him; he tells me he loves me, he misses me, and I’m beautiful, and he consistently tells me he has complete faith in my ability to work through my problems and for us to share something deep and meaningful. I’m in therapy and I’ve gone to therapy during previous relationships, and I spend time journaling to reflect on my behavior, and am sure to apologize to him when I’ve calmed down and thought about things and can see how my emotions took over and distorted my perspective. We often take time away from each other when we’re/I’m upset so we can calm down, which I think is good, but it’s not enough. When I’m calm, I know (intellectually) that my own happiness is my responsibility and his is his, and that our relationship is an extension of our own personal lives, not our lifeblood. When I’m upset, however, he can’t do anything right, he won’t see things from my perspective, and I don’t even really like him or think he’s smart – all of which I know when I’m calm is not only nonsense, but damaging, and cruel. We fight, because of me, every day. How can I remember my love for him and his love for me when I’m in this space? How can I work to keep from entering this space to begin with? My goal is to avoid what so many of your letter writers have: years of difficult and painful relationships with a person they love. I’m just at the beginning of mine and I’m trying so hard, and failing every day. I don’t know why I won’t let him love me and why I push him away. What can I do to let go, and change these vicious habits?
For a long time now, judging from what you’ve written, you’ve had a problem with anger and emotional reactivity. Long enough that it’s time to stop considering your anger a problem, and start seeing it for what it is—part of who you are.
In other words, despite several courses of psychotherapy and a strong determination to keep yourself under control, you just can’t stop yourself from nastying out and turning from Dr. Justyou into Ms. Hyde. That would indicate that it’s time for a new approach.
So, to keep false hope from interfering with your planning, it’s time to accept that you’ve got a bad case of demonic possession and your impulses aren’t likely to change, despite your finding a kind husband whom you love very much. This is the first of the 12 steps, as well as your first step towards demonic management. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 23, 2012
There’s nothing better at inducing helplessness than being molested as a child, but it’s easy to forget that helplessness is a feeling, not a measure of strength and character. If you’ve been traumatized in the past, don’t let the helplessness of this or any other overwhelming experience make you feel like an ineffective victim. Instead, learn to respect your existing effectiveness, regardless of how helpless you felt then or still feel now. You may always feel helpless, but your very survival is proof that you’re stronger than your emotions.
–Dr. Lastname
My life is pretty stable now, but I’ve had a lot of major problems this last year and, in the middle of my troubles, I started to remember being molested by a family friend when I was 14, just after I hit puberty and got breasts overnight. I’ve been struggling to get my daughter help for a major health problem, and then I got fired and had to find a new job, and then my mother started to slip into dementia. Now, I’ve got a new job, my daughter is getting good help, and my father is taking good care of my mother, but I can’t get over a rising feeling of helplessness. If it’s because I was molested, my goal is to get over it.
Before you can even try to recover from the helplessness of current crises, you have to get around the sneaky way it has of making you feel personally ineffective, in part by playing on your memories of the helplessness of being molested. After a while, you can feel like you’re drowning, which is about as helpless as it gets.
In other words, you want to move forward, but helpless feelings cause helpless beliefs by awakening helpless memories. Your mind gets stuck in the notion that you couldn’t do anything in the past, you’re not able to do anything now, then things will probably get worse, and you’ll be powerless to prevent it. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
