Dear Anita,

Thank you for your reply. I am a bit late in replying – i had actually already written this reply a few days ago, on an other sleepless night, but i felt that because of the sleeplessness, i’d better read it again first, but i’m too tired these days so i’ll just post it now. Even though it’s maybe a bit too long.

You say that you understand that fear – fear for the guilt and the pain of the things i said to my mother. Did you have something similar? (I assume it is ok to ask you this because you are talking so openly about your things, so i assume that they won’t trigger you.. If it does, please tell me and then ignore my question..)

You are welcome to write or ask me things if you’d like to, i think i can cope with that 🙂
If not i will tell you.

I’m not sure if i understand what you say with this: “That option meant I was indeed a perfect victim. Taking on the guilt meant I was not a perfect victim, that I had some power. ”
Maybe i’m too tired to think clearly at the moment. I will read it again later when i manage to get some proper sleep.

I recognise what you write about seeing yourself as faulty, i have perhaps never thought it through as thoroughly as you, but i think that is a normal thing to conclude if you are treated right. As a child, you form your perception of the world, so if people – well especially the ones who have the biggest role in your life, which are usually your parents – treat you like you are unwanted, you go believe that. I feel different than you because i don’t think my mother was bad and she didn’t want to hurt me. She was in too much fight within herself and couldn’t cope with herself. She probably wasn’t ready or able to raise a child but she was not bad.

Yes it works as a coping mechanism, to make beliefs about yourself at that time. It must be heartbreaking to face each moment of the day, knowing that you are a good, innocent and love-needing and love-deserving child who is being denied this most basic human need. And you can’t change anything for what’s happening to you for a long time, so you end up too frustrated and too bitter if you’ll face it that way the whole time.
But, that is the time that you learn what life is about, and if nobody ever told you or showed you, that you are good, just like anyone else and deserve love and care just like anyone else, where are you going to learn this?
People seem to be different, some people/children seem to get more rebellious when they’re not treated right. Me i got into the victim role, and adapting role very easily, trying to become a good little girl that tried not to bother anybody (which i’m still doing for the biggest part, it has become me). So i don’t know, does that have to do with our previous lives (if you believe in reincarnation), that some children seem to have a stronger sense of their worth and rights, and react more powerful when their needs are not being met? Perhaps I learned similar things in my previous lives, that i wasn’t very valuable or perhaps i was living in a lower rang of a society, or perhaps i did some wrong things which i’m paying for now with my reduced power.

No don’t worry, it is not distressing to talk about it at all. If it was, it is up to me not to reply to it.
What i meant was, that i just assume that i am staying so at the surface of this, maybe the reason for that is that i am scared to go deeply into these things i once said to her – with a therapist. To write about it on a forum doesn’t touch me too deeply because i’m quite distant from these things inside of me.
And actually i don’t know if it makes sense, that that is the reason, because if i do decide to look for a therapist to look into these things deeply, it will probably be a slow thing, building up thrust and if it’s a good therapist, he/she will probably also take the time to consider my pace.
And, as far as i remember, i kept distance from myself, didn’t want to look into these things or couldn’t manage to find myself important enough to go into that process to acknowledge damage that was done to me, and my need for healing.

You are suggesting me a certain kind of therapy:
“Regarding what therapy and how you know- when you get together with a therapist- CBT I hope, with DBT and mindfulness (what I had)-”
And i’m wondering why you say that now. Because earlier on you suggested me to find a therapist who would help me to experience, and feel again the experiences of then, to learn to acknowledge it. And that sounds quite far away from CBT and DBT (i assume that is cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy?) – the DBT therapist i have now, doesn’t go much into these things. She mentions it sometimes, but i feel it’s more as a way of explaining why i have such difficulties with certain things, more in an intellectual way.
So that seems to be a bit of discrepancy, of course you don’t know me and you can’t advise me a certain kind of therapy, but i’m interested to hear why you’re suggesting this.

It’s interesting that you write this advice about a therapist. To look for somebody who offers more than just the hour every week. My initial reaction is very typical: why would i expect somebody who is willing to occupy his or her time outside of the hour that they get paid? As if i’m so important? And if i do find a therapist, that i think might work, i wouldn’t be so arrogant to think that they are not good enough because they don’t want to spend more time or energy in me outside the pay-hour.
You wrote this: ” I wouldn’t go to one who seems like the only time she remembers you is during the 50 minutes or so you are there. i would need one- like the one I had- that is concerned about me” So you are saying, you would like a therapist that sees and treats you like a valuable human being, that is important enough to care about during other times as well. I’ve heared other people saying that, and my current therapist is like that actually, and i’m seeing her now 8 or 9 years and i still find it difficult sometimes. Although she keeps insisting that i can always phone her or mail her, and mail her exercises in between sessions, i do it but still find it hard and often with a lot of apologies. Although she has always replied very caring, she almost always respond to my phone calls even when she was on a holiday or very busy (which makes me wonder what kind of superwoman she is), i still find it hard to accept. Hard to accept care for me?
So, you say you’d want a therapist that treats you like a human being and makes time and effort for you, which is probably what a lot of people want, but for me it is still so scary, to be treated like a human being. It is much easier to be treated like a put-away thing and that’s what i usually look for, people to treat me like that.

Anyway, i think i’ll take it easy with a new therapist. I will talk about these things with my current therapist, about maybe needing to look into certain things more deeply and about the contact being mainly through skype, and what she thinks about it. And if i/we do decide that it is better to change, than i think i’ll take the time for it. The contact with her is too valuable to just put it away