Dear Sofioula:

Your two recent posts’ format is not clear, but I’ll do my best replying.

You wrote: “I will get back to the sunshine girl I used to be”-I remember that you shared that in public, from the outside, you look like a care free girl. As I understand it, this is your family role, the-strong-one, the one with-no-problems, all that is opposite to your sister.

Don’t go back to that kind of sunshine-girl, that is, to your family role. Because you are not the opposite of your sister, you are not perfectly strong and problem and mistake free. No one is. You are only human.

Learn to no longer be true to this family role/ image. Instead, learn to be true to the real person in you, underneath the role and image, the one who is not only strong, but also weak;  the one who needs help sometimes.

You wrote: “This ‘sainthood’ is driving me insane. I want to make mistakes and be wrong and be loud and so on”- you want to be the real you, the authentic you, not the family role you were given, that image of strong, problem-free, mistake-free, perfect, a saint, all good, all strong, all… impossible.

“I know my limits, but I also need to learn my freedom”- your freedom to be… you, weak and strong, sometimes sad and scared and angry, sometimes troubled, sometimes in need of help.

You wrote that you “started to notice intrusive thoughts (mostly sexual and/ or violent) and might be on the spectrum of ocd and ptsd of some sort”, and that you are re-considering therapy (I was reminded as I read your posts yesterday of that celebrity therapist you saw).

My input: my first effective psychotherapy/ counseling was with a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist (CBT)who used Mindfulness in combination to his expertise, which was CBT. The emphasis of this kind of therapy is on the Now, using information from the past for the purpose of helping you better function in the here-and-now.

Psychoanalysis can be interesting, but if it is not connected to your practical current living, I don’t think that it is useful.

-It is important that you don’t rush to feel  good by being overly optimistic, pretending that all is fine too soon, that you are over this man or that your problems have been resolved. Be realistic, humble- healing will take time and work. Do not seek help from the family members who placed you in that role, a role that is harming you. You need freedom from that role, not a reminder of it, or further investment in it.

Do  post again anytime you want to post. I will do my best to be helpful to you in the context of this thread, as a member here.

anita