What Kind of therapy is right for me?
What can I do to help myself and be a better person?
Please do not judge me as it is hard enough living with who I have clearly become as it is. I come from a loving, wonderful family. My parents both came from nothing and worked hard to provide for me everything they could. As a child I never went without but things were never just handed to me. Also when I was younger I experienced a lot of hard situations including losing a very close relative while they were babysitting me at the age of 10 as well as losing my best friend to a freak accident at the age of 12. Many times after that I had been close to people who had passed away whether due to sickness, old age, or accidents. My parents were always wonderful but never forced me into therapy. They did the best that they could. My friend boyfriend and I had adult feelings for each other but we were so young and immature and did not know how to handle them and we treated each other very poorly. It needless to say ended very bad. From that point I have realized I have no self control. NONE. It is mainly when it comes to relationships ending because in other aspects of my life I am able to demonstrate it. I expect to always get what I want and am not able to accept when I cannot control something. I am unable to deal with rejection and always think I am able to fix something and make it better and I lack the skills and control in order to just understand that some things need to be left alone. Which in turn when relationships end I am unable to handle it emotionally and I do "crazy" things. Not in the sense of destroying property but I fabricate stories in order to get attention from my ex. I say and do things without thinking about the consequences and just expect people to forgive me and stick around. I feel bad about myself and am unhappy with where I am in my life so I am not honest to others because I want them to think better of me. I care too much about what people who are not important think and care less about what more important people think. My behavior is erratic sometimes I will sleep all day and stay out all night and wake up and get really down on myself because I know that is not what I want to do and I know I was raised better than that. I had an abortion and at the time was with a guy with whom we were both truly in love. The emotions of the relationship were very high due to the pregnancy and the choice we made together. He asked me for space and I was unable to realize that it had nothing to do with me but with him being overwhelmed. I was unable to give this to him. Rather than back off I came on full force which obviously in turn pushed him away. He clearly broke up with me. I continuously contacted him, fabricated stories and said horrible things to him in order to gain attention from him. Months went by and even after all that I had not gotten myself the help emotionally that I needed and I entered another relationship with someone who was completely wrong for me and treated me less than I deserved. I would pick fights and say horrible things to him and expect him to just forgive me. For awhile he did until he had enough. Which in turn he as well asked for space. I was unable to give him the space he asked for and contacted him extensively. I fabricated stories and said mean things to him in order to gain attention from him. I am very concerned about what others think of me however my actions have created an image and reputation that I am "crazy" I am very embarrassed of this. This person I have become is not the person I know myself to be and it scares me. I know I am a good person and I don’t know how I got this far and how my issues have completely taken over my life. I constantly push people away and run away. I get very defensive and am not able to deal with my feelings. I do know right from wrong but I do not listen to my inner voice. When I do not have stability in my life, my life tornados out of control. I get so down on myself for not working or being able to find a job and the things I have done and way I have acted that I sleep all day and my eating schedule gets messed up. When I fight with friends or others I get mean and personal. I am very ashamed of the way I act. So basically my question is what can I do (obviously therapy 100%) to better myself and be the person I know I am. Please just honest, polite answers, we all go through rough times. Thank you
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2 comments
Joshua on December 24, 2009 at 6:45 am
You suffered some losses early on that rocked your connection with people. Those are difficult to deal with. Therapy will be great for you.
You need to worry about what you think about yourself instead of what other people think.
Yeah you might have done some crazy stuff but you really never learned the emotional skills to be in a healthy relationship. You’ll get a better idea of what’s not so stressful.
Taf on December 24, 2009 at 6:45 am
It is not possible to be a better person or a worse person. Human beings are complex, made up of endless traits and behaviours. Sometimes our performance is pleasing or helpful and other times it is regretable. Todays rude person in the supermarket queue might be tomorrows kidney doner. You can’t call a human being entirely good or entirely bad and it is better in my opinion to work at learning to rate your individual performances at a given time than it is to up or down your whole self. Most of us are rude and horrible someitmes or at some point in our lives.
Feeling ashamed, that is the ‘whole’ of you is reprehensible, is such a negative, unhelpful and untruthful position. So you performed poorly in some ways at these points in your life, instead of standing back and learnig how we might change our performance for the future, we get locked into how ‘bad’ and horrible we are, making ourselves feel too bad to look objectively for answers.
I found answers through Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. Book titles by Windy Dryden and Albert Ellis. Good luck, your only human.