Dear Jenny:

You wrote above that it is a mystery to you why you keep things inside and then you wrote that when you used to reach out (tell your problems) to your parents they sided with the person you had trouble with and you ended up feeling worse for reaching out to them. No wonder then you don’t like to reach out- your experience was that you feel worse for doing that. Your feelings were not validated by your parents: they were not on YOUR side (being the devil advocates). So from your post, it is not a mystery to me. I hope you get to see it yourself. This is one reason why good therapy will help:

In therapy you will SEE what you see now and don’t register, like in my above example, you will get in touch with how it felt when you reached out to your parents throughout the years and understand the break of trust that you had in them and how it carries on into the present (not helped by the events with your military ex husband!)

I like what you wrote, that you really want to get well, to love yourself, to be confident and to be able to trust again..

With good therapy you learn to evaluate who the person is before you trust them. You can’t trust just anyone, that would be foolish because many people are not trustworthy. And then, as you get to know a person, you reveal a bit about yourself, reach out a bit and see what happens: is he supportive, do you feel better for having reached out? And if so, you reach out some more, gradually.

I do hope you get good psychotherapy. I wish every certified therapist was also good but this is not the case. A good one would be empathetic, someone you feel respects you, someone who is hard working and dedicated to helping you.

Please do post again, Jenny, anytime.

anita