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I am so glad I fired my first EPA assigned therapist and got a new one who is very empathetic and astute. 

The first session she was such a good listener and I compulsively talked most of the session, but I really felt heard and respected.

The second session I was able to do more listening but she still encouraged me to share some poignant anecdotes about my past.  Defining moments with both a ubpd mother and narcissistic/alcoholic father.

She really illuminated my severe issues with boundaries setting.  A lifelong issue.  My lack of trust in the give and take of mutually respecting relationships.  My short-term over-accommodating behaviors with narcissistic people and then fleeing said relationships. 

I see myself as so stress avoidant at this point in my life that I will easily forego positive stress for no stress.  Positive stress brings joy and adventure and success.  It is like I am choosing numbness when I refuse to take risks that come with the natural flow of life.  So  much negative stress traumatized me.  I feel like I am choosing to live life on my knees so to speak, rather than risking taking serious steps in an expansive life.

It has taken a lot of emotional and intellectual work to appreciate what happened during my dysfunctional childhood that has made me such a fear and shame based person. 

I am more mindful today of my patterns, but I can easily revert to conditioned behavior of reactive obsequiousness especially to narcissistic people.  At least in the short term.

I am appreciative of the focused support from this professional counselor on a short-term basis.  It is helpful for me to give her an accounting of my life so far.  She keeps focusing on my future and I realize that the future was a place I was not allowed to go to given my emotional enmeshment with my upbd mother. 

I was estranged from her and my immediate and secondary family for a decade, but I felt like I became more of an outlaw from the family network at that point than a future-entitled and headed adult. 

What is it like to have a parent's blessing to have an independent adulthood that is not orbiting his or her needs and desires but one's own?  Who does not demand you to forego your own natural inclinations and capabilities?

What is it like to be able to feel safe and joyous in committing to people and to working out appropriate boundaries?  To not feel afraid of overwhelming intolerance or enmeshment?

I say the serenity prayer a lot.  It seems the older I get the more I have to accept what I cannot change and the less it seems I can actually change.

I always felt intellectual awareness would be the fix.  It is part of recovery, but conditioning is so profound, whether positive or negative in one's childhood.

Maybe this therapist in this short term issue from a workplace with a toxic manager to me, can help me ramp up my courage to expand the list of issues I have that I can possibly change.

Fight, flight or freeze?  I often opted to freeze. 

I need to exercise my courage muscle more. 

"I have the right to make other choices, besides to run away."

The therapist and I are mostly talking about my big life issues. 

On Friday I have a one on one meeting with the toxic manager and I am dreading it, but I want to exercise my courage muscles then.  I can't control this woman's malice at me.  But I want to try to not let her pierce my jugular vein with her malice.

I don't think the current therapist quite appreciates how this work authority triggers my mother issues.  But I trust she will be there if I get tasered by this woman again (a given) in the course of these sessions.

Last therapy session I talked about global self esteem and specific self esteem.  If you grew up without the cushion of unconditional love from a parent and depended on "conditional" love, then unwarranted criticism and malice are particularly painful, confusing and threatening.  In childhoods without conditional love, "our willingness to be wrong was abused."  Especially when we were encouraged to doubt and lose faith in ourselves.  We don't have automatic unconditional love for ourselves and we have to try to rally that when we come up against projected emotional attacks of others.

Thanks for listening.  I probably will check back before the meeting with the malicious manager and after.

I am happy to report the sessions with the new counselor feel enriching.  I feel some hope and also serious grief after them.

Best,
Bethanny
 :heart:

It was nice to read your update Bethanny.  I am so happy for you that you have a therapist you connected with, and feel a measure of trust with.  You are moving forward and that is so fantastic! 

Way to trust your gut on the therapist front! This was an inspiring read!

That’s really good to hear that your therapist is so effective. I hope you can keep them.

I like that you talk about positive stress. Something that comes to mind when I think of positive stress is exercising, especially hiking. It’s stress on the body, and a somewhat on the mind (the will to keep going), but it is so rewarding as well. When you’re on a hike it can be so meditative, and sometimes there’s even a bit of exploration! Positive stress can be enriching, and I hope you continue to seek it. :)

Hope and grief, that about sums it up. It does sound like there is lots of hope and so glad you found a T that is a better fit for you.

Glad things are going well with your new therapist. I think that by insisting on getting a therapist that you can work with, you will likely find yourself attracting better people in your life and be of much less interest to the wrong kind of people. What do you think?